Peter Viney's Blog

This is a story which is recounted in quite a different location in one of my short stories in ‘Rolling Down The Road.’ That’s the fiction version. This is the true story. They are very close.

Preamble

The CCF is the Combined Cadet Force. They had it in the elite British public school system. See Lindsay Anderson’s If ….

My state grammar school, like so many grammar schools, had the CCF too as an imitation. Every Friday from the third year (age 13-14) we had to dress up in military uniform, spend the afternoon on CCF matters, and then stay after school for two hours of parade drill and exercises and military lessons. We learnt how to calculate the distance of a sniper on a church tower, and the angle needed to put an artillery shell on him. We already knew this as they tried to make trigonometry interesting in our normal maths lessons by having endless examples of snipers on church towers.

It wasn’t quite compulsory, but very nearly so. It was hard to get out of, and in a class of thirty, probably twenty-eight were in it. The first year was in scratchy khaki army uniform for basic training. Mostly it was Brasso and Blanco … that is, about cleaning brass buckles and buttons, smoothing the toes of shiny leather boots with a hot spoon, and applying blanco, a thick paste, to belts and gaiters. We were told we must iron our own uniforms (a tea towel between iron and cloth) and sew on badges and buttons ourselves with our needlework checked. Any stray threads, and the badges were pulled off. My mum approved strongly of this. My dad thought it funny and said he’d had to do it in the war. (I’ll by-pass the ensuing argument on why he didn’t do it anymore).

After that first year, we split into RAF, Navy or Army platoons with the appropriate uniforms. My dad (ex-army staff sergeant) counselled opting for the the RAF. The RAF had proper cotton shirts, not the itchy, hairy army ones. They had detachable collars, a mildly disgusting pre-1960s idea. Mostly the RAF wore shoes, not heavy boots and gaiters. This is because boots damage aircraft wings when you walk on them. Gaiters around the ankle had to be dressed with blanco every week and it was good not to have to wear them as the army section did, though you had to wear them for drills, and for our participation in the Remembrance Day marches through the town. My dad said he’d walked halfway across Europe in the army and if he could have gone back in time, he’d have joined the RAF and flown in comfort. In reality, I was very keen on aircraft as a kid. The RAF had three sections, the army had two and the navy just one. There was a Duke of Edinburgh Award section for those who claimed pacifism.

Why did we do it? Conscription or National Service (two years) had finally ended in 1960. That was just before we started in the CCF. While we all hoped it would not return, it seemed a strong possibility. The appeal of the CCF was if you had all your basic training and other certificates, you would get a fast pass to officer training if National Service returned. The CCF had originally been the OTC – the Officer Training Corps. I duly have an RAF diploma in Navigation and Principles of Flight. Note that I kept it, just in case. So I know that if you’re forced to land a plane, especially a biplane, in a field, you have to tie it to a fence or tree at either side, so it won’t flip over in a storm. You should do this before apologising to the farmer for frightening his cattle. I was stellar at aircraft recognition where you looked at aircraft outlines and identified the make and model, though to me, the likelihood of a Messerschmitt 110 or Heinkel he111 appearing on the 1963 horizon seemed remote. We competed with other schools.

A lot of it was marching about and being shouted at. Some bits were good. We went up in RAF two seater Chipmunk trainers from RAF Hamble and RAF Old Sarum a couple of times. You had to strap on a parachute which was on your arse, and also formed your plane seat. We were given five minute instructions on how to use it and how to land without breaking your knees and spine. You then hobbled out to the plane bent double. For some reason, the pilots did tricky stuff to make us feel airsick, and we were warned of dire penalties if anyone threw up in the plane. Why would the pilots want to test that in a confined space? They flew us from Hamble over Portsmouth Harbour and flew close to the royal yacht, Britannia. If you’ve been in a Chipmunk with the pilot trying to make you sick, a bit of turbulence on a modern airliner won’t worry you. We went to RAF Old Sarum on Salisbury Plain and got flown around in a vintage Avro Anson too. The school had a Link flight simulator and we would compete to see how far underground on the altimeter you could get it to go.

I said to my dad that I didn’t know if I wanted to be an officer anyway, and he said he knew the alternative. And so yes, believe him, I did want to be an officer. You got waited on by a batman who brought you hot water and shaving soap for starters.

The CCF officers were teachers, led by a physics teacher, RDF Williams, or Major Brylcreem. His hair looked like shiny greasy black plastic. He carried a swagger stick.

The navy section was run by Lieutenant Neame, the craft teacher, a specialist in potato printing and drawing brick walls, and Sub-Lieutenant Cutler, the woodwork teacher.

The RAF was run by Flight Lieutenant Sefton who sported a 1940s RAF moustache and taught metalwork and technical drawing. 

The NCOs were fellow pupils … corporals, sergeants, and so was the chief one, the Cadet Under Officer.

I’ve only just realised that apart from Major Brylcreem, none of these officers taught academic subjects, which in a highly academic school must have grouped them at the absolute bottom of the pecking order. Sub-Lieutenant Cutler was called ‘Reg’ after a Bournemouth football player, Reg Cutler, who headed the post in an F.A. cup tie with Wolverhampton Wanderers. The post broke in half and play was stopped while another post was erected. Reg Cutler got up, shook himself, rubbed his head, and played the rest of the game which Bournemouth won 1-0. We called the woodwork teacher Reg because he was thick (in the head) and taught woodwork, which his namesake had demolished. His regular call was ‘Was you talking, boy? Was you?’ He threw wood at people who called it wood instead of ‘timber.’  When our geography teacher had a nervous breakdown (common at our school), he was forced to teach my class Geography for a few weeks. He declared that New England was a state. I corrected him. He knocked me off my chair. As he floundered through the geography text book, it was apparent that he was a man of little education.

Years later, Nick Keeping, a friend who used to socialise with our terrifying headmaster, and two years after my time was Cadet Under Officer himself, told me that the Head had despised the lot of them, and couldn’t stand them parading around the school in uniform. The head had been a senior officer in Intelligence during the war, and regarded these people as toy soldiers.

The story

Fast forward to first year sixth form.

It was inspection day for the CCF and we all got on buses and were ferried out to Bovington Army Camp in Dorset, which is a tank training centre on heathland. It was warm and sunny and we rehearsed our military display in the morning. The navy section would defend a road. They were to crouch in the ditch alongside it out of sight. The two platoons of the army section were to walk blithely up a slope to the road though the bracken, failing to do the correct military things, like leaping bollock first onto a gorse bush at frequent intervals. So they were to get shot with loud blank ammunition and killed, then the Duke of Edinburgh Award “Conscientious Objector”  section would trot up the slope, put the army section on stretchers (or possibly bury them) and cart them away. Then the three platoons of the “Excused Boots” RAF section attacked properly, throwing themselves to the ground every few yards, and with overwhelming numbers of three to one, they would win the day. That was the rehearsal. Yes, the ditch was like a trench. Face it, we were practising World War One trench warfare with charges.

We RAF lads were dispatched to lie in the heather and gorse awaiting the air commodore or whoever to watch us. I think it would be an air commodore as the RAF victory had been programmed in, and as we know, infantry attacks were always an RAF speciality. The man with gilded armbands was undoubtedly quaffing sherry with Major Brylcreem, Sub-Lieutenant Cutler, Lieutenant Neame and the other officers in the Bovington officers’ mess, because pimply NCO’s were left in charge. In the RAF section we spent a happy two hours sitting in the gorse with coloured chalk inscribing PETE and CHALKY and BAZZA or whatever on the back of our very nice RAF one-piece denim jump suits, much nicer than the other sections’ gear. Some poor soul got WANKER on his back, but probably deserved it. A haze of tobacco smoke hung over the heather. Our corporals and sergeants tried to stop us, but wilted under graphic threats of extreme violence. It was ‘I’ll put you on a charge.’ ‘Do. Then you’ve got to walk home across the common, haven’t you?’

At last the officers assembled on a small rise with binoculars and shooting sticks. We lay in the sun and watched the army section go up and get shot, and get bandaged, splinted and carried away. We now had to attack, Our chalk work had inspired rage among the officers and would not rub off, I was blamed for one piece of graphic art (I was probably still chalking when they arrived) and was made to carry the heavy mortar on my shoulder instead of a rifle. As directed we trotted up the hill, kneeled, fired, got up, lay down, threw ourselves onto the gorse, and fired. In my case, pretended to fire, because the mortar had no ammunition. I did say ‘bang’ to amuse my colleagues. Then having theoretically killed the navy we were to advance and pretend to bayonet the corpses. We were a little worried that some of our number might be over-excited by this, but, hey, that’s war. 

We walked nearer and nearer. Not a shot was fired at us. We got right up to the road. Silence. Then the navy bastards all stood up and pelted us with white stones which had lined the ditch and which they had assembled into piles. These were hard and several pitches drew blood. A few hardy RAF lads attempted to bash the navy with rifle butts, realizing by now that blanks were bullshit. But those stones were sharp. We turned and ran away down the hill in ignominy. Our backs revealed our chalk work as we ran away. The navy jumped up and down whooping with joy. The entire CCF demo was totally fucked.

Then the shit hit the fan. Major Brylcreem rounded up the NCOs for a bollocking. We were instructed not to speak on the bus back. We were assembled in the playground and told to clean our Lee Enfield First World War rifles. I only had the mortar, and that was a dummy with a lump of wood in the end. The cadet under-officer started screaming “Viney! Why aren’t you cleaning your rifle.” I was about to reply but someone standing out of his eye line said, ‘Because he hasn’t got one, knobhead.’

At this the under-officer lad was incensed, ‘Clean mine then … catch!’ and he threw his rifle straight at my head. He spent too long lining up to throw, I neatly sidestepped and the rifle hit the wall, and being ancient, fell into two pieces.

So now I was on a charge. I had to report straight to Major Brylcreem, who by then was white with fury. It had been a very bad day. I will re-create our conversation. It is nearly 60 years on, so forgive if a little is ‘improved.’

‘Attention, Viney. No! I did not stay “stand at ease.” In the regulars, it’s a court martial for destroying your rifle.’
‘It’s not my rifle, sir. A s I explained, the Cadet Under Officer threw his rifle at my head. I instinctively stepped aside. It hit the wall and broke.’
‘He did so because you disobeyed his direct order to clean it.’
‘I didn’t have the chance to disobey an order. He threw it.’
‘For you to catch. You made no effort to catch it.’
‘He has no right to throw heavy objects at my head, sir.’
‘He’s an under officer!’
‘But not a real one, sir.’
‘Don’t argue the toss with me, boy!’
‘But it’s not my rifle, sir. Why isn’t he here in this room so I can challenge his lying account, sir?’
‘How dare you!’
‘How dare I “what,” sir?’
‘Right. You will report at school every day next week in CCF uniform, and at 4 o’clock you will run round the senior playground ten times holding a rifle high over your head with your arms full stretch.’
I considered, ‘You can’t do that, sir.’
‘What?’
‘That’s torture, sir.’
‘What!!!!’
‘If anyone has to run round the playground, it’s the cadet under officer. He threw it. He broke it.’
‘Don’t you understand? I’m speaking to you like a Dutch uncle. I’m giving you every chance to save your CCF career!’
‘CCF career, sir?’
‘You’re due to get one stripe at Easter. Why, you could be a full corporal by next year!’
‘My point is justice, sir. And I will not run around the playground with a rifle.’
‘ You will do as I say!’
‘I’m afraid not, sir. I’m not in the army.’
‘You are!’
‘No, I’m not sir. It’s just cadets, It’s voluntary.’
‘Look, boy, you signed an agreement to accept military discipline when you joined the CCF.’
‘When was that, sir?’
‘In the third year!’
‘I was fourteen, sir.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘It has absolutely no legal standing. I was a minor.’
‘How dare you speak to me like that! I get it, I get it … Good God! You’re a BARRACK ROOM LAWYER!’
‘I don’t know what that is, sir.’
‘If you refuse to obey my direct order, you will be thrown out of the CCF with a dishonourable discharge!’
‘I understand that.’
‘It will be posted on the school notice board!’
‘That’s fine with me, sir.’
‘And you’ll take a Saturday morning detention.’
‘That’s not fair, sir. It’s not part of the school.’
‘You cheeked off an officer! I mean, a teacher.’
‘I did not, sir. I have been polite at all times, sir.’
‘I can’t stand slimy barrack room lawyers. You’re probably a commie! If you don’t like my decision, see Mr Dixon, who will undoubtedly double your punishment!’
‘I will, sir.’

So I went to see Mr Dixon, the deputy headmaster. I explained about the rifle being thrown straight at my head and added that I could have been seriously injured bringing great disrepute on the school, as well as resulting in the school being sued by my parents.  He laughed and said he agreed that I was a barrack room lawyer. He told me to come back in ten minutes. I did. He said he had consulted the headmaster, and they had agreed that CCF matters were entirely separate and there would be no Saturday detention. And also that a Saturday detention was the culmination of three previous detention offences, not a punishment in itself and that the major had no authority whatsoever to threaten it. The headmaster had decided there would be no detention at all, nor any other punishment. The CCF was a law unto itself though. Mr Dixon confirmed that the documents we had signed at fourteen were totally meaningless.

So I was dishonourably discharged. ‘You’ll never be an officer now,’ Major Brylcreem told me spitefully, ‘This will be on your CCF record for life.’ Fair enough. This would be early 1964. Potential conflicts in Biafra, Rhodesia; not to mention that Vietnam was looming. Who was racing to join the military?

For the rest of the Sixth Form, I spent the CCF day (always an afternoon, sometimes a whole day) in the Library researching and doing my weekend homework.  I reckon it was worth a grade on my A levels.

And then in the 1970s or 80s I was told by Nick that Major Brylcreem, by then a Lieutenant-Colonel Brylcreem, was sacked for embezzling CCF funds. Now there, I feel a little sympathy. What was he to know about the missing greatcoats, camouflage scarves and RAF denims sold in large quantities out of the quartermaster’s store at a cost of 20 cigarettes an item? Gas capes were particularly popular with scooter owners, and I believe those cost thirty or forty cigarettes. I had a set of those one piece RAF denims that I used for car maintenance and house painting into the 1980s.

By the way. It’s still running in 2022. They admit girls from Bournemouth School For Girls into the CCF in the 6th Form.