Tales from the Academy – Anyone for the 3/9ds?

 

Tales from the Academy – Anyone for the 3/9ds?

                                    Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

This tale is from the pre-decimal age of the 1960s. Three shillings and nine pence would equate to around nineteen pence now. You certainly would not be able to buy a cinema ticket for that paltry amount today. The average price is around £8, in this area, anyway, before someone jumps in and tells me that’s rubbish.

Exercises at Sandhurst are conducted at regular intervals and the weather makes no difference to the plans. It may be hot, humid, foggy, frosty, or dry. Memory suggests that in the winter and spring months of the 1960s it was usually cold, wet, and miserable, with a vigorous north-easterly wind driving rain into the frozen faces of miserable cadets in muddy dug-outs. Cadets from warmer climes suffered more than those accustomed to British weather.

If conditions were excessively dire, ponchos were issued, but otherwise the only item each one had to shield him from the elements was a thin army blanket, which acted less as protection than as a wick for the rain. Even worse than the frozen feet was the boredom, as the young men wished themselves elsewhere while they waited for events to occur. Outer clothing is more robust these days and certainly our winters are much milder than they used to be.

Exercises were and are designed to introduce cadets and serving soldiers to uncomfortable situations, when they might be required to act quickly in difficult circumstances. There has never yet been a conflict in which the weather has been comfortable and accommodating to the soldiers, sailors or airmen carrying out their duty. It would be entirely misleading to introduce them to military duty where the weather is balmy and conditions unchallenging.

Occasionally, the boredom was alleviated by happy chance. The areas in which exercises took place were generally remote and not readily accessible, except, in some cases, by car.

In those self-consciously law-abiding, ostensibly very moral days, young unmarried people were expected to restrain their natural urges and wait for marriage before allowing full expression. They were not encouraged to entertain their romantic partners in their bedrooms, which in any case, were almost as chilly as outdoors. There was little privacy in their homes and no central heating, so everyone huddled in the one room in the house that was kept warm. The only place where any sort of seclusion could be found was in a car. It was bad luck for those who didn’t have access to a vehicle.

Thus it was that one night a young couple found a secluded spot in which to take time for themselves, unaware that they were in full view of a number of cadets in camouflage. As the car windows became increasingly fogged, someone called out, ‘Anyone for the 3/9ds?’

Almost immediately, the car driver revved up his engine and sped away as fast as the uneven terrain would allow, leaving behind a chorus of chortling cadets.

These immature young men grew up to become responsible citizens, some achieving greatness, others perishing at too early an age.