Cadets - Playing at soldiers/pilots/sailors or just a bit bent (CCF)

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Cadets - Playing at soldiers/pilots/sailors or just a bit bent (CCF)

51 posts & 31 voices | Started 2 years ago by Surfr | Latest reply from djglover

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Surfr - Member

Boot Bulling thread got me thinking.

Great days. I hear it's not the same any more though. No more beastings and quality bollockings.

Screwing up on parade used to mean 5 minutes holding metal and brass fire extinguishers at arms length, and promotion to Cpl lead to being beaten in a parachute harness in the NCOs mess then taken out and hozed down in the parade ground.

Happy days. Sorry I've gone all misty eyed. Have a few memory photos

Squadron band at RAF Hendon

Conningsby Annual Camp photo

Chippy flying at 6AEF Abbingdon

Dicking about after a Sunday shoot somewhere on the Thames Estuary no doubt. e used to shoot more than our fair share of 7.62 at our squadron (267) for some reason. Most Weekends were filled with shooting.

DofE Gold or Silver practice in the Beacons somewhere

Sadly no photos of Gibraltar camp or from my Basic Glider Training and Initial Glider Training

Posted 2 years ago #
jackthedog - Member

I've always assumed cadets was for kids that were planning on a career in the forces. Is that not so?

From your misty eyed reminiscense it certainly seems character building!

Posted 2 years ago #
alpin - Member

it's indoctrination.

Posted 2 years ago #
midgebait - Member

Enforced CCF at my school but at least when we're in a sticky situation and the bren gun needs stripping and cleaning I'll always have a use

Posted 2 years ago #
tails - Member

I've always assumed cadets was for kids that were planning on a career in the forces.

Same as jack. what is it then?

Posted 2 years ago #
Stoner - Member

CCF was OK at our school. Compulsory for the 4th yr and you could elect to continue at CCF through to U6th.

I had to stay in the CCF as I was in the school rifle team - members had to be in the CCF to be able to shoot on the MOD ranges.

I loved the shooting and ended up with a couple of national caps in a few cadet full bore competitions.

CCF itself wasnt much different to cubs, scouts, ACF, Boys Brigade or any other similar group. Quite harmless and ultimately has quite a few positives in terms of discipline, opportunities and experiences.

Posted 2 years ago #
clubber - Member

I did CCF at school - it wasn't enforced but the chance to go flying, shoot guns and so on seemed like a good opportunity and I quite enjoyed the marching. Camps were good too with night excercises and the rest - just a bunch of kids (technically, I think I was 18 on the last one I went on) playing soldiers really.

I never had any intention at all of joining the armed forces.

Posted 2 years ago #
Stoner - Member

flying was good. Had a session or two in a chipmunk and also a couple of hours in a glider too.

Night exercises in the woods above Symonds Yat were a hoot.

Posted 2 years ago #
CaptainFlashheart - Member

Ah, happy days....! I can strip strip down a Lee Enfield .303 with my eyes closed! We then went on to a detuned SA80 in later years.

Posted 2 years ago #
theotherjonv - Member

at my school I guess less than 10% of cadets went on to join the forces proper, another 20% kept up either through OTC at University or TA.

I'd never have got in even if I wanted to for eyesight reasons. However, learnt a lot of decent outdoorsy type skills that I still use some of now. Could possibly have learned the same through scouts, but scouts don't get to fire GPMG's at CADSAM on Ash Ranges, or attend the Infantry Firepower demo on Salisbury Plain, or go on annual camp with the RGJ in Berlin (and partake of the assisted baths in some of the local 'hostelries') do they?

Posted 2 years ago #
crazy-legs - Member

CCF was optional at my school (it was that or DofE or "Community Volunteering")
I was in the RAF Cadets from 3rd year upwards, had the best time ever! Both Initial and Basic Glider Training (missed out on Advanced cos it clashed with something else - forgotten what now). Parachute and bungee jumps, loads of shooting (inc pistols which very few cadets ever got to do for some reason), AEF from Manston mostly but also various other places.

The old excuse of eyesight as to why I didn't stay in. My career dream was to be flying helicopters.

Posted 2 years ago #
simon_g - Member

I did 4 years of it at school. It wasn't compulsory but almost all did it (the alternative was doing community volunteering or scraping gum off the concrete around the school). Could leave after 2 if you wanted.

I enjoyed it a lot - went on any extra stuff I could so ended up being trained on LSWs, was blowing stuff up with plastic explosives, being flown about in helicopters and the like. Loads of nights out in the open, sneaking about and scaring the crap out of sleeping recruits. Fun times. Hardly cost anything to do all of this stuff, and once in the 6th form and having to lead it taught me a lot about teaching, public speaking, and asserting myself. It also taught me that I didn't want a career in the armed forces as there were some bits I didn't like - but some friends did like it get scholarships that paid their way nicely through uni and straight into good armed forces careers. Only a very small proportion who did it actually went into the forces though.

Like Stoner, I shot competitively with the school and the CCF paid for our range and ammunition. It was a bit of a shock when I continued into uni and started having to pay for all that myself!

Posted 2 years ago #
Stoner - Member

simon - the cost was the reason the last 7.62 round I fired was for the UK Long Range Cadet team (V-Bull it was, naturally ) on the way to winning the Inter Service long range competition in 94 (?) at 1,000 yrds.

Havent fired a large calibre rifle since

Posted 2 years ago #
gonefishin - Member

What the hell sort of schools did you lot go to? The only compulsory thing in my school was "going-to-class" and "getting-an-education".

Granted this was in the mid '80s in the middle of industrial action by the teachers but I seriously doubt that there would ever have been any situation where we would have been allowed anywhere near guns or explosives.

Posted 2 years ago #
Stoner - Member

gonefishin - i think the consensus was that if you went to a skool like yours then it was expected you had plenty of access to guns and explosives at home

Posted 2 years ago #
alpin - Member

yeah, because i bet his daddy's gun cabinet was chokka-full of elephant guns, two-bores and the like.

the reason the private schools are so keen on getting students fire guns is so that they can go on to Sandhurst and continue telling the serfs what to do....

Posted 2 years ago #
clubber - Member

Good point Alpin, the stated aim of all public schools is to keep the poor man down

Class War! etc

Posted 2 years ago #
wheelz - Member

and partake of the assisted baths in some of the local 'hostelries'

Ah, Mon Cherie in Charlottenburg and the Klo Bar on the K'damm - two of my fondest memories of Berlin!

Posted 2 years ago #
Ti29er - Member

I love that RAF Hendon shot.
It looks more like a hotel in Cyprus or somesuch.
Someone please paint that grass before the RSM turns up!

One more reason to join the Army!
It did me no harm after 3 years of cadets!

303 I hear you say! What's the weight of a pull-through, you 'orrible little man?

Posted 2 years ago #
slowjo - Member

crazy legs - If you think about it, the thing with pistols is that they are very easy to shoot in an unsafe manner. A small twitch can end up with the bullet ending up miles(along way) away from where you intended it to and therefore potentially put people on the range in danger Pistols are therefore best left to proficient shooters. The guys who were allowed to use them were probably among the better shooters in your group.

Oh yes, and if you haven't shot pistols before, it is very easy to make an ar$e out of yourself and it is nothing like the Hollywood bollox where you wave a pistol around and outshoot snipers at 750 yards.

CCF was introduced at my school and I was a conshie!

Posted 2 years ago #
nickc - Member

Joined as an alternative to the local scouts (they were sea scouts, and it all looked a bit strange, don't ask me why). It was all jolly fun, some bits were a bit shit (marching, bullshit for the sake of it) but the good bits more than made up for it, going solo in gliders, flying chipmunks, flying in Helicopters on summer camp on various RAF stations. running about in the hills, shooting all sorts of kit from SA80s to handguns. Wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Posted 2 years ago #
Stoner - Member

One of my favourtie memories from Bisley 93 or 94 was the pistol competition. Cadets had a free pistol compeition entry form and were allowed a go at a .38 advancing man. Rather surprisingly I came second Bloody good fun.

Unfortunately then there was all that dunblane bollox and pistol shooting got binned with a knee jerk law.

Posted 2 years ago #
ditch_jockey - Member

More fond memories of CCF here - alongside the opportunity to learn how to oppress commoners, I also learned navigation skills, first aid, camp craft, hill craft, basic ropework for mountaineering and rock climbing, orienteering, and they nurtured my leadership skills.

.. oh, and I had my first fag (ciggie for any americans present) round the back of a nissen hut at Cultybraggan camp in Stirlingshire.

We also came 4th in some competition for CCFs, Junior Leaders and so on that involved humping kit round the Atholl Estate for the weekend. Can't remember the name of it, but it seemed to impress people in the know at the time.

Posted 2 years ago #
wheelz - Member

Pistol=short barrelled weapon=proper dangerous in the wrong hands, even on the range.

I used to run ranges, and the pistol shoots always used to fill me with dread, because it only takes a slight movement of the hand and the barrel is pointing at other people.

Also, people used to turn up thinking they were Starsky and Hutch and were surprised when they found they couldn't hit the sea sat in a boat! To be fair though, most people would stuggle to hit a man-sized target at 25 metres the first time they shoot a pistol.

I got quite good with a pistol - Browning Hi-Power, Walther P5 and Sig Sauer P226 - but only because we had to shoot at least 100 rounds a week to qualify.

Posted 2 years ago #
gonefishin - Member

i think the consensus was that if you went to a skool like yours then it was expected you had plenty of access to guns and explosives at home

Well I did get a clip round the ear when I asked the lab tech if the school had any Toluene...

Posted 2 years ago #
Stoner - Member

nick the potassium instead then

EDIT: reminds me of a book I had out of the Alevel chemistry Library that detailed how to manufacture gun powder. Never got round to buying any saltpetre

Posted 2 years ago #
CaptainBudget - Member

I was in the Air Training Corps until recently. I don't know of any schools in my area that had compulsory CCF, but really the CCF where I lived were a joke (admittedly I'm slightly biased, but the point still stands), I know people who were in it and then transferred to my squadron because it was so badly disorganised and nothing ever got done.

I have noticed though that over the last few years youth organisations are drowning in red tape more and more. The corps outlawed paintballing not long after I joined, and more recently energy drinks were banned (some dumb cadet drank a 12-pack of Red Bull one night on annual camp and had to go to hospital). Flights in aircraft at RAF stations seemed to get rarer and rarer, they weren't even available on the last few camps I went on.

As a Sergeant in my final year I felt like I had to do my job with one hand tied behind my back. I had to do mini-risk assessments for everything, and because I was over 18 I could appear in court for even minor injuries, completely undermining my authority except for when I was with just my squadron (where the NCO's authority was mostly based upon respect rather than being forced to play the rank card).

Posted 2 years ago #
crazy-legs - Member

It still amazes me the things we used to do!
Most of it would have given a H&S inspector a heart attack. I used to do range supervision aged 17 (OK, there was a station warrant officer there too) but I was loading 10 rifles, sorting out the rifles of cadets who'd jammed them, all sorts.
I've hung out the back ramp of a Chinook going full bore over the airfield at 100ft, flown my own aerobatics, been trusted for solo flights with £30000 of the RAFs finest gliders, been given a rifle and 2 mags of blank ammo and sent out on night exercises, helped rebuild a Harrier jet engine. Learnt loads along the way, had a really great time!

Posted 2 years ago #
Surfr - Member

Can I just point out once and for all that I was ATC and *not* CCF. Although how those barstewards got to wear the RAF cap badge and we didn't, is beyond me!

Posted 2 years ago #
beamers - Member

I was in the Army Cadet for about 7 years and did some fantastic things:
6 week Exchange to Whitehorse in the Yukon;
5 week Exped to Nepal
Gold D of E exped in Crete
plus all of the running around in the woods and on various military training areas round the country.

I happened to be passing a military range recently and noticed that the cadets are no longer allowed to shoot at the Fig 11 targets which many of the contributors to this thread will remember:

What they shoot at now is two lower halves of the target, one stuck upside down above the other to make the target look less aggressive.

Times they have a changed.

Posted 2 years ago #
ditch_jockey - Member

Doesn't surprise me to hear about the problems with red tape...

We were really allowed a pretty long leash - myself and 3 mates were allowed to head off on our own at the end of an easter camp at Rothiemurchus Lodge in the late 70s, with the aim of climbing the 4 main peaks in the 'gorms, then head out along loch Avon to a pre-arranged pick up at a shooting lodge over to the east (think it might have been Delnadamph Lodge, but haven't a map handy to check).

From the point we left Rothiemurchus, we were on our own and out of communication for around 72 hours, but no one ever suggested that we shouldn't do it - one of the officers looked over our route plans, but it was assumed that we could check our own kit and prepare properly (which we did).

It doesn't surprise me that so many young people seem pretty passive these days - I suspect a lot of them they never get the opportunity to discover just how competent they could be during their teens.

Posted 2 years ago #
epicyclo - Member

In my day we still had conscription. We used to do almost everything the TA did. Best bit was the bayonet drill.

Posted 2 years ago #
daveob - Member

I'm the OC of a CCF and really enjoy the stuff with kids. It's just playing and having fun really. It's the behind the scenes shit that pigs me off.

There are far more state school CCFs these days and new ones are starting all the time.

Posted 2 years ago #
willard - Member

Holy crap... Just had a weird flashback to my days in the CCF at school thanks to that photo of a bunch of cadet at RAF Coningsby. I have one pretty much exactly like it at home somewhere, along with others taken at Swanton Morley and Laabruch. The memories of shooting, drill and adventurous training are all coming back now. Mmmmmm Cheese posessed and biscuits brown.

Ti29er... Nice photo. I know a place that looks very similar to tht. Strangely I was there for a course in january, but never got to follow a horse up the steps.

Ah well, maybe Willard-sprogs may get the chance later in life.

Posted 2 years ago #
Stoner - Member

so then chaps. we're all agreed then: National Service is what this country and its young'uns need!

Posted 2 years ago #

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