Today is the 4th of February. It comes round each and every year, of course and each time it does it takes me back 60 years when things happened to change my life forever.
I woke up that morning in the pub that my parents owned in the rustic serenity of the Hampshire border country but I would spend that night in quite another world. Early that morning I was given a lift by a neighbour to Reading train station; caught the train to Paddington station in London, crossed the capital and boarded another train at Euston station. The long journey was in some respects `interesting` as I had never been anywhere north of London before but after what seemed a day long journey the train eventually arrived at Darlington in north Yorkshire, where I got on another train for the short journey to Richmond.
It was at Richmond station that I along with a random collection of other wide-eyed innocents was introduced to the army`s version of passenger transport as we were bundled with our meager belongings into the back of a 3-ton Bedford truck which deposited us at Catterick Camp to begin my two years of National Service.
Now I promise I won`t go on about National Service per se as I`ve recounted some of my experiences elsewhere in these pages (click on National Service in the list of labels to the right and down a bit) but rather to reflect on just how significant that experience was in terms of my personal `development` - such as it has been.
I think what it did do was make up for the absence, due to prolonged childhood illness, of the chance of a University education or even higher level schooling and to use the hackneyed phrase which refers to the University of Life, I`m pretty sure that my army days forged within me a kind of resilience, a self confidence and most assuredly a self-awareness. It also meant that I forged the ability to deal with situations, emotions even, that today would probably lead to anxiety, depression and all the other accouterments of `mental health issues.` But in the green hell of BFPO 16 in an armoured fighting tank regiment none of those `issues` ever crossed our minds - we simply got on with what we were supposed to be doing, worked hard and played even harder.
Now the last thing I will do is claim that National Service should be reintroduced as it really isn`t to be recommended and I`m not sure that people would accept it these days anyway but as a learning curve to developing qualities that were needed for a fulfilling later life, I`m pretty sure it helped. I wonder where today`s learning curves for life are to be found?
I woke up that morning in the pub that my parents owned in the rustic serenity of the Hampshire border country but I would spend that night in quite another world. Early that morning I was given a lift by a neighbour to Reading train station; caught the train to Paddington station in London, crossed the capital and boarded another train at Euston station. The long journey was in some respects `interesting` as I had never been anywhere north of London before but after what seemed a day long journey the train eventually arrived at Darlington in north Yorkshire, where I got on another train for the short journey to Richmond.
It was at Richmond station that I along with a random collection of other wide-eyed innocents was introduced to the army`s version of passenger transport as we were bundled with our meager belongings into the back of a 3-ton Bedford truck which deposited us at Catterick Camp to begin my two years of National Service.
Now I promise I won`t go on about National Service per se as I`ve recounted some of my experiences elsewhere in these pages (click on National Service in the list of labels to the right and down a bit) but rather to reflect on just how significant that experience was in terms of my personal `development` - such as it has been.
I think what it did do was make up for the absence, due to prolonged childhood illness, of the chance of a University education or even higher level schooling and to use the hackneyed phrase which refers to the University of Life, I`m pretty sure that my army days forged within me a kind of resilience, a self confidence and most assuredly a self-awareness. It also meant that I forged the ability to deal with situations, emotions even, that today would probably lead to anxiety, depression and all the other accouterments of `mental health issues.` But in the green hell of BFPO 16 in an armoured fighting tank regiment none of those `issues` ever crossed our minds - we simply got on with what we were supposed to be doing, worked hard and played even harder.
Now the last thing I will do is claim that National Service should be reintroduced as it really isn`t to be recommended and I`m not sure that people would accept it these days anyway but as a learning curve to developing qualities that were needed for a fulfilling later life, I`m pretty sure it helped. I wonder where today`s learning curves for life are to be found?
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