Tidworth,Hants Pre-Para Training First Intake.
I cannot remember all their names but those I do are below.My appologies to the rest.
Top : 2nd left:Me. next Corky:next Muscles.
Mid.row: Roger .next Smithy. next Curly. next Swannie(Rivers)
front: middle. PTI Henry .next Capt.Walker.far right. Dave. After a week at Lulworth Cove it was 2 weeks Pre-, 2 weeks Selection Para training at Aldershot. This has to be the bleakest Army camp in GB. The next 4 weeks has to be the worse time of my army career. I started I thought as a man, and ended up as a mouse.
There is no pre-ordained concept, which can prepare you for the degradation your body, and mind has to take doing the Para Training.
If I remember rightly, there were 180 men from different fields of the army, on that particular intake that started that course. After the first night 50 decided to return to their units.
You are split up into troops fighting to win a little Para purple flag. This entailed carrying a telegraph pole on toggle ropes, taking several 6mile runs, assault courses and finally 3 days on the hills of southern Wales, sleeping in the open and carrying a stretcher loaded with concrete by day.38 men passed that intake.
Abingdon and real Para training was a breeze after Aldershot. 8 jumps later and Tidworth here we come.
 Salisbury Cathedral on skyline How can such a miserable place like Tidworth be situated in such a beautiful part of England? Thank goodness for places such as Salisbury ,Wilton and Stonehenge being close at hand I would never tire visiting those places.
I was assigned to the Sports and Laundry. This gave me for the first time in my army career a room to myself, heaven.
I awoke the first morning to the miserable drone of the bagpipes, I thought I was dreaming I had left all that in Libya. Wrong,the 1st Royal Scots next tour of duty was Tidworth from Libya. Deep joy their band had moved in adjacent to my room.
By this time I had learnt that the main regiment had moved to Omagh in Northern Ireland to complete a tour of border control.
Lulworth Cove It took some time and the scouring of the complete RAC for volunteers before we had Squadron strength.
There were many new faces to get used to including a new Sgt, Maj. (WOII) Evans B.E.M. We very soon nicknamed him: The Vein, as when he shouted a vein stuck out the side of his neck. He was one of the finest soldiers and man manager I came across in the Army.
Other noted officers were Maj. Baker CO,Capt. Bentley, Capt. Field, Lt Levitton,Lt. Mitchell the QM andLt Compton. Life at Tidworth was pretty boring. After handing out sports equipment for the day the hardest work was the run to the NAAFI for a beer at lunchtime.
Every now and again we had to work a bit on ugly Hornet. In all the time at Tidworth I only once fired a live Malkara missile. The consensus of everyone after the shoot was that it was no wonder the missile was obsolete before we got it. Accuracy in firing them was almost impossible.
On the plus side the firing was done at the Lulworth ranges, and it meant a few days down by one of the lovelies coves in the British Isles
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