Down Among the Weeds

by Harry Beaves

  Blenheim Company, RMA Sandhurst Summer 1968. Seated. 1 left Cadet Sgt Beaves, 1 right JUO Peter Smeeth (Chapter 7), 2 right WO11(CSM) Dan Fogarty, 2 row down 3 right Officer Cadet HRH Prince Tupoto’a.

  Sandhurst at that time was institutionally pompous (it probably still is today) and I did not want to fit the mould. The Company Commander was a Scot with a refined ‘Edinburgh’ accent. He considered that one of our number, who seemed destined for stardom, would be hindered in his progress by his strong, ‘less acceptable’ Scottish brogue so he decided to give him personal help with his elocution and had him reciting things like:

  There’s a regiment in Poona, that would infinitely soona, play a single handed polo, that’s a sort of solo polo, than an incidental chukka with a chap who’s not quite pukka.

  Try saying that without sounding like Mr Cholmondeley-Warner of the BBC!

  Our training was stuck in a time warp somewhere between Kipling and 1953, a fact well illustrated by our preparation for PE lessons. We would parade in three ranks for inspection outside the company, dressed in Army issue blue shorts and white vest with Army socks (rolled over twice) and our highly polished brown uniform shoes. This was topped off with our Sandhurst issue double breasted blue blazers. Our white canvas PT shoes (plimsolls) were rolled in a white Army towel and held behind the back in the left hand. We would then be marched smartly to the gym for forty minutes of beasting.

  The one thing prevented me from quitting was the knowledge of the pride in my achievements so far that my father and others had. I could not let them down.

  It was my great good fortune that both the Company Commander and CSM changed at the end of my second term. Those cadets who seemed to have been favoured by the previous hierarchy somehow failed to impress the new pair and those who had been less in favour seemed to begin to shine. It was almost a complete reversal of fortunes and I, in particular, got on much better with the new CSM.

  Company Sergeant Major Dan Fogarty was a Coldstream Guard. He stood well over six feet tall, was very thin and wore his own particular version of a ‘Clarke Gable’ moustache. He was a broad Cockney with a sharp sense of humour and the ability to mangle the English language like no one I have ever met. On one occasion Officer Cadet d’Alton had been marched out of the Company Commander’s office and stood shell-shocked by the exemplary punishment he had just received for an apparently trivial offence. Dan Fogarty wound his head down from its considerable height, placed his face about three inches from d’Alton’s ear and bellowed. ‘So, MISTER Dee Halton. You ain’t the great I am you thought you was, is you?’ William Golding could never have conjured a phrase like that!

  Dan Fogarty taught us that loyalty has two dimensions. The leader earns the respect of those under him through his words and deeds. In return he has a duty to support and take care of those in his charge. Dan Fogarty was nearing the end of his twenty-two years’ service. He was not going to be promoted so he had no need to impress the chain of command. He saw his role as to turn the spotty youths of Blenheim Company into ‘fine young officers’. His was the style of the Victorian father, fierce, dogmatic and with the ability to make our lives a complete misery, should he choose, but despite our many shortcomings he was immensely proud of us and fiercely protective.

  The working week at Sandhurst finished on Saturday morning with a drill parade by the whole Academy. We were drawn up in companies. In all there were about 1,200 men on the parade which was commanded by the Academy Adjutant, Major Giles Allen, Irish Guards, who sat imperiously astride a grey charger. It was a normal Saturday and we had marched round the square several times and satisfactorily completed the many drill movements asked of us. The clock was approaching noon and we felt that we had done well enough.

  The Adjutant, however, had a different opinion. From somewhere far in the distance his voice rang out. ‘Company Sergeant Major Fogarty, the third man in the front rank of Blenheim Company is idle. Take his name.’

  Dan Fogarty snapped to attention and marched to the front of the company. Addressing no one in particular, with the staccato style of the Drill Sergeant he bawled. ‘YOU, SIR, MISTERRRR, FISHNCHIPSIR, YOU’VE LOST YOUR NAME.’ He turned to his right and marched smartly back to his position. The ninety-two faces of Blenheim Company struggled to suppress a collective smile.

  The Adjutant was not going to be fooled by Dan Fogarty’s top cover and repeated. ‘NO, Company Sergeant Major, not MR FISH AND CHIP, the THIRD man in the FRONT RANK of Blenheim Company’.

  Dan Fogarty marched to the front again and this time halted in front of the third man in the front rank. ‘Mr Tupouto’a, sir, you’re in The Book.’

  So, on Monday morning, despite the best efforts of the Company Sergeant Major, Officer Cadet HRH Prince Tupouto’a, Crown Prince of Tonga, faced summary justice for ‘failing to swing his left arm to the height of the breast pocket’. Later the same day in another part of the Academy, I suspect, WOII (CSM) Fogarty D was formally interviewed by the Academy Sergeant Major.

  I finally made it to my sixth and final term at Sandhurst, the last few weeks of which were dominated by preparations for the Sovereign’s Parade when Intake 41 would ‘pass out’ and be formally commissioned as officers in the Army. The days were long and hot and every afternoon was filled with interminable rehearsals where we would repeat all of the drill manoeuvres again and again. Each time the Adjutant, seated on his grey charger, would demand improvement to something or another and we would have to begin again.

  For the Sovereign’s Parade we were formed into blocks of troops, with each block made up of two companies (i.e. half of a college). In our case, Blenheim Company combined with Dettingen Company to form a block known as the ‘West Half of Old College’. Other blocks had similar titles. We stood on the forming-up ground, tired, dusty and bored.

  From the far distance a command was heard, ‘West Half of Victory College. QUICK MARCH.’ And the first block moved off. Then, ‘East Half of Victory College… West Half of New College…’ and so on, until finally, ‘West Half of Old College. QUICK MARCH.’ At which point a weary voice from somewhere in the files on parade piped up.

  ‘Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’

  ‘WHOSAIDATT? WHOSAIDATT?’ screamed the manic voice of a Guards Sergeant Major.

  ‘Kipling, sir,’ came the anonymous reply.

  ‘That’s it, MISTER KIPLING, sir. You’ve lost your name, you’re in the book. I’ll see you in the office.’

  Too tired to smile we trudged off for what we hoped would be the last rehearsal of the day.

  Our Sovereign’s Parade was held on 8th August 1968 and we were inspected by Princess Alexandra. Somewhere in the sea of faces in the spectator stands, bursting with pride, sat my father, with my sisters beside him. In time-honoured fashion Intake 41 marched up the steps of Old College to the strains of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, with the Adjutant following us through the doors on his grey charger. That evening our Commissioning Ball was held in the magnificent surroundings of the Dorchester Hotel in London. We all wore our brand new Officers’ Mess dress, but since we would not actually be commissioned until midnight, we covered our yet to be awarded commissioned badges of rank. I taped Green Shield trading stamps over mine. Midnight came with huge celebrations and I emerged from my chrysalis as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, but for me there was less a sense of achievement and more a feeling of relief that I had finally made it.

  I had found Sandhurst very hard, mainly because of my own stubbornness, but, by the end, enough of my rough edges had been rounded for me to fit the mould – just about! Despite the many rigours of those two years we had tremendous fun. We were expected to be high spirited, practical jokes were almost ‘de rigueur’, but there was never any confusion between mischief and trouble as the consequences of the latter were so severe. The training was always demanding and, having since successfully completed both Pre-Parachute Selection and the All Arms Commando Course, two of the most demanding cou
rses in the Army, I still believe many of the Sandhurst exercises were on a par, in physical terms.

  It remained to be seen what the Royal Artillery had to offer.

  * * *

  After note: In September 2016, fifty years after we first walked through the Grand Entrance of Old College, Blenheim 41 met for a reunion at Sandhurst. Only six of our original twenty-three were absent. Of those, two had died, two were from overseas and one couldn’t get a babysitter! As we toured Old College, the buildings and rooms were the same, but signs on the doors told how their roles now differed. The most striking change was that Dan Fogarty’s office, outside which we had so often stood in fear and trepidation, is now the Multi Faith Prayer Room. You couldn’t make it up!

  Chapter 4

  The Officer

  My father drove me for the first time to the Officers’ Mess at the Royal School of Artillery, Larkhill, gave me a manly handshake, slapped me on the shoulder and wished me ‘All the best’ in the now familiar manner.

  So often in life you reach the top of one ladder only to find it has led you to the bottom of the next. From the dizzy heights of the senior intake at Sandhurst we came crashing down to the reality of life as Young Officers (YOs), the lowest form of life at the Royal School of Artillery (RSA), Larkhill. I had been looking forward to the course as Larkhill is on the southern edge of Salisbury Plain, about eight miles from the city, and I saw it as a ‘home fixture’.

  Sandhurst had trained us to be officers; we now needed the technical knowledge necessary for us to function specifically as officers in the Royal Artillery. About forty of us formed up for the course which lasted from September to Christmas. During the first few weeks we learnt about the various branches of Artillery and how they functioned. We then split into smaller groups to learn the technical aspects of the branch into which we would be posted, in my case Field Artillery. We were taught on the Abbott Self Propelled Gun, which was a 105mm cannon mounted in a turret on a light-armoured chassis.

  Larkhill was far more laid-back than Sandhurst. In fact it was decidedly comfortable. The nine-to-five attitude was very much reflected by the instructional staff, which after the tough and demanding nature of life at Sandhurst I found disappointing. I don’t think we carried weapons at any time on the course. The night deployment and night firing were achieved so that we were all in bed by midnight and the twenty-four-hour exercise took place in the instruction blocks wearing brown shoes and our uniform trousers. I suppose this can all be explained by the fact that the aim of the course was to teach us the technical aspects of gunnery, but I hankered after the reality of life down among the weeds with camouflage cream on my face and dirt under my fingernails.

  The course did give me a chance to spend each weekend at home and with my old chums in the bar of the Chough Hotel. I also had a great half-season with Salisbury Rugby Club and ended playing for their 1st XV. My debut for the Firsts was against Newbury, always a hard fixture, and my father came to watch, the only time he had ever seen me play rugby. I thought I was doing OK until Newbury put the ball into the first scrum of the second half. I was hooking and won their ball much to the delight of my chums. Then, at the next scrum, an arm came looping out of the dark depths of the Newbury second row and I was laid out. Unaware of the ‘finer points’ of the game, my angry and indignant father couldn’t work out how his son had suffered such an assault. It was not just the first, but the only time he ever watched me play.

  The YOs course culminated in December when we were formally ‘Dined In’ to the Royal Regiment of Artillery. I was very proud to have my father by my side in the magnificent surroundings of the Royal Artillery Mess at Woolwich and, as the RA Band played, we bellowed the words to Kipling’s ‘Screw Guns’ then beat our hands on the table to ‘Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent’, the finest of all the slow marches.

  * * *

  My first regiment was 19th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, based in Germany as part of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). In the New Year my father drove me to RAF Brize Norton and as I went through the gate for the RAF Air Trooping flight he gave me a manly handshake, slapped me on the shoulder and…

  19 Regiment was stationed in West Riding Barracks, Dortmund, which like most other barracks occupied by the British Armed Forces had been built originally for the German Army. It always amazed me that while the British were building camps of flimsy ‘Nissen Huts’ for their troops, the Germans built massively strong barrack blocks of brick and stone, with a huge cellar and loft spaces as well as two floors of accommodation.

  As part of BAOR, the role of 19 Regiment was to be prepared to meet the threat posed by the Forces of the Communist Bloc, should they choose to cross the East German Border. Despite several well-documented periods of international tension this had never seriously looked like happening in the twenty years since the end of the Second World War. Consequently the troops had largely settled in to a comfortable ‘garrison’ life.

  A fresh faced officer from 19 Regiment. 1970.

  We lived a very false existence in strange British enclaves where if you chose you could lead a life with little contact with the German community at all. We shopped at the NAAFI for Rich Tea biscuits, Cadbury’s Chocolate, Fairy Soap and all of the things we would have enjoyed back home. We bought right-hand-drive British cars to drive on the roads of Europe tax-free through the NAAFI. When they were old, we sold our right-hand-drive cars to other British servicemen to continue driving in Europe. Our letters home were sent through the Forces Post Office using British stamps. Our children were educated at British Service Schools staffed by British schoolteachers brought out by the British Forces Education Service (BFES).

  In normal daily life there was little need for the British Serviceman to learn German. However, some soldiers became well integrated and married German girls, but invariably they chose to live in British Service Married Quarters and remain within the service enclave. Their children were usually registered as ‘British’ through the military system and, when old enough, they attended the local Service School. If the Regiment was posted out of Germany it was easy for the soldier to request to be cross-posted to a different regiment and remain in Germany. This way it was possible for a soldier to serve most of his twenty-two years’ service around Germany and in so doing, marry and raise a family. When he left the Army he was faced with the choice of returning to the UK and finding a job, with a German wife who had never lived in Britain, or trying to find work in Germany. Often such people found civilian employment on the British military bases and their families led a strange life where they were neither properly British nor German.

  The training programme for Artillery units in Germany invariably followed the same annual pattern. Between January and March we would attend a live firing camp as a Regiment for about a month, almost always on the NATO Ranges at Munsterlager in North Germany. In July–August we would return; this time the culmination was live firing exercises coordinating all the Artillery of the Division and the Corps, a most impressive exercise.

  In the autumn one of the three Divisions that made up 1st British Corps would undertake Field Training Exercises (FTXs) which could involve up to 25,000 men. These were non-firing exercises which effectively acted out what would be expected should the Communists ever cross the border, and were remarkable in their scale. Huge areas of the north German countryside would be declared Exercise Areas. Squadrons of tanks would move tactically across open farmland, batteries of guns would deploy in villages and the headquarters would set up in farms and factories. Following the troops were groups of damage assessors who would initiate the steps necessary to compensate the land owner for any damage. The Germans accepted the inconvenience as the price that had to be paid for keeping the Russians at bay and the costs were all properly planned in the military budget. I doubt that such exercises could ever take place in Europe again, for obvious reasons, so I count myself lucky to have been involved in them.

  In the autumn of 1971 I was part of
the CO’s party on one such exercise. At that time the Regimental Headquarters of 19 Field Regiment deployed as part of the Headquarters of 4th Guards Brigade. We were set up in a thick dark beech wood on top of a hill in our armoured command post vehicles which were linked to each other by tailor-made canvas awnings. Even on exercise, 4 Guards Brigade managed to provide an Officers’ Mess tent with white table cloths, crockery and a bar. A group of TA officers had joined that day and at lunch time they were taking full advantage of the duty-free prices. A very jolly Colonel, an Irishman wearing the badges of the Royal Army Medical Corps, was holding forth in the centre of the group.

  That evening my friend Bill Collings stood in for me while I went for my dinner. We had been told there were enemy patrols in the area so, when I left the mess tent to return to the command post I decided not to use any sort of light to avoid giving our position away. The wood was pitch black and I was struggling to find my way when suddenly there was nothing under my left foot, I pitched forward and there was a massive blow on the point of my chin. I may have been unconscious, certainly I was dazed and confused, but my first thought was that someone had hit me. I was on my knees, blood was running down my neck and I spat out bits of tooth. Fortunately my sub-machine gun was by my right hand and my torch by my left. ‘Stuff giving the position away.’ I switched my torch on and discovered I was in a hole that had been made by the roots of an enormous tree when it had fallen over. I had stepped into the hole with nothing to break my fall and had hit the tree with my chin.