Joining the SAS - a memoir.

I wrote this, originally, in 2010 It's here again as I am having a bit of trouble with the blog. When I was eighteen, I decided to join the territorial army in Britain; it wasn't a sudden idea as I'd spent the previous four years in the army cadets; the ACF, as they call it, the Army Cadet Force; not the CCF, the Combined Cadet Force, which the Public and Private Schools of Britain encourage where they have teachers as officers; Public School in the British sense, by the way as opposed to state schools. In the ACF we were attached to a Territorial Army Regiment and the regiment we were attached to was the Royal Artillery. I reached the rank of sergeant and, as a teenager, I taught drill, map reading, including how to use a prismatic compass and, as I was also the solo drummer, I taught the drummers how to play the military drum. In my day job I worked for the post office delivering telegrams on a motor bike; that was the best job any teenager could have; riding a motor bike all day – in all weathers, though, which wasn't always that much fun. By the time I was eighteen I had my fill of the military but a friend of mine who I will call Gary, suggested we join the SAS; Gary is not his real name his real name was George and . .well I jest!! We all know what the SAS is these days; it's one of the so called special services, but in those days I hadn't heard of the Special Air Service, to give it its full name. Gary was about six feet four and I was pushing five feet nine on a good day and when we went to apply we looked like the long and the short of it; I was very fit as I played football and cricket and loved to run and when we got to the barracks they said I was the ideal size. Seeing other SAS men over the years I can see what they mean as they are usually short and stocky hard men - but I wasn't exactly stocky. They welcomed Gary too but mentioned it would be very hard on him when it came to jumping out of an aeroplane. If you know me you would wonder why anybody like me, these days, who is left leaning, politically, and interested in drama, literature, poetry, music and movies would be interested in army life and I have only one answer – I was eighteen and knew no better and in any case it was an adventure. Unlike my four years in the cadets, in the SAS we hardly did drill, we didn't have to keep our boots highly polished and we didn't have to blanco our belts – don't ask!! We wore black belts and grey berets but most of the time we didn't even wear our uniforms so we would show up in our civvies at the barracks – and what was my nick name? James Bond; they called me this because I would wear a black shirt and white tie and one of the guys had read the James Bond books said I reminded him of Bond; in fact he always called me Jimmy from then on. This was before the James Bond films were made, of course, as he didn't mistake me for Sean Connery, but I was his idea of Bond. We were introduced to unarmed combat, survival skills, Morse code and map reading, including using a prismatic compass, (which I used to teach in the cadets) in preparation for the selection course which included being left by ourselves in the wilds of Scotland. There was a NAAFI, which is the bar, and it was in the NAAFI that I was introduced to cheese rolls and raw onion which we downed with our pints of ale; I still have a weakness for raw onions now and it was before the days of 'instant beer' came along when they would brew it; so it was real ale. At the weekends we would go away to camp or to a range and, as I was a marksman when I was in the cadets, the range wasn't anything new to me apart from using an SLR as opposed to the Lee Enfield .303 rifle. As I worked for the post office, I was allowed paid leave and as much as I needed whenever I was needed for military duty. I had signed the official secrets act as the post office was a government organisation in those days and I had to sign it again with the SAS; I also got paid by both organisations so I was well off even though neither pay packet amounted to much but what did I need money for? I was single and didn't have any debts or commitments so apart from beer and cigarettes I didn't need much. One time we arrived at the barracks on a Friday evening and were told that as it was very foggy we wouldn’t be departing for the usual weekend camp till the following morning so we could either go back home and come in early or sleep on the hard floor of the barracks – Gary and me, and a fella called Flash (real name) decided on neither; we went for a drink and instead of heading back to the barracks we looked for a piece of waste ground near the pub. We wandered through the fog of the city and found the ideal place which seemed quite remote till we woke the next morning, when the fog had lifted, to find a bus load of people looking at us; you see the word “tent” never came into the conversation either there or when we got to Scotland; we slept under the stars with a poncho wrapped around our sleeping bags and our heads sticking out and this was what the people on the bus saw as we lay there. Gary had woken up, in the night, just as some drunk was walking across the waste ground. As he sat up, the drunk must have thought he’d seen a ghost and rapidly sobered up enough to muster a run and a scream. I still have this image of him running with his jacket streaming out at the back and a scream so loud you’d think he’d seen Godzilla. For the selection course we went to a place called Fort George, in Scotland, and stayed with the crack Scottish Regiment The Black Watch. We slept four to a billet and after a night in the NAAFI, on the first night, we overslept. Apart from Gary, we shared with two guys, one who later became a policeman in civvy street and a fella called Bunny who went to Angola to be a mercenary; we woke up to see everybody on parade outside. That meant we were put on fatigues for the next morning and had to clean all the cooking equipment in the cook-house; we were given an early morning call at 4:30 which I had to sign for. We did a week of manoeuvres which we were all used to, of course, as we were boys and used to playing soldiers but here we had thunder flashes, blank rounds in our rifles and also visited a hand grenade range; I kept the key that I pulled from my first grenade as a key-ring for some years. The second week was part two of the selection course. All of us were piled into the back of a big army truck and driven miles from anywhere; we went along lonely winding roads, which were at the base of canyons and moors, and on the hillsides we could see smatterings of sheep and grass and then nothing; just big hills and sky. A name would be called out and a trooper would struggle with his back pack and rifle through stinky bodies, given a six figure map reference and a time to be at the RV (rendezvous) the next day and that was it. When it was my turn I watched as the lorry disappeared and then silence; not a sound anywhere; I looked left and right – nothing; I liked the silence; this was in Sutherland very close to Cape Wrath which is the tip top of Scotland. The hill I climbed seemed to go up at ninety degrees and after a hundred yards I was finished; I sat down and dived into my bag for something to eat.I wasn’t as domesticated as I am now so the first thing I found was a packet of Kraft Cheese Slices – not very sensible for somebody who was going to have to rough it for five days – and a can of beans. I decided on the beans and then came my first mishap – I couldn’t get the bloody stove to light and I ate the beans from the can cold; then I had to bury the can. At the top of the hill I took out my map and tried to take some bearings with my compass but couldn't see any landmarks essential for finding my position so I took a few guesses and eventually met the officers at my RV the next day. They gave me another six figure map reference and off I went again. One morning I woke up and it was raining so I pulled the hood over my head and went back to sleep. When I woke again I saw a figure approaching and when he got closer I saw it was a Scottish SAS corporal. He was one of the judges, so it would be okay to travel with him, which meant there would be no breaking rules so when we came to a river we didn't use the bridge; we walked across it with the water up to my chest holding our rifles above our heads. When I say an SAS Corporal, I mean he was actually in the SAS. The rest of the soldiers, on the course, were from other regiments, mostly the Royal Signals, and that's what uniform, woth flashes, they wore. Only Gaary and me had the SAS battle dresses. Not that we wore those on the course as we were in our denims. After a few days everybody gathered at the final RV and we were relieved of our back-packs – leaving us with our emergency packs – and teamed into pairs; luckily I got Gary. The more we walked the more it rained. We were wearing ponchos but we would have to sleep sometime, and somewhere. I kept saying “what”s the matter with settling down under that tree – or that bush?" But Gary never thouyght it was a good idea. When it got dark we walked close to the road and in the distance we could see by its lights a vehicle approaching. We kept low and as it got closer we made out a mobile grocer’s van so we jumped out like bandits and flagged it down."Do you have any milk?" "No but hop in and I’ll take you to a farm." We got in to the back with the groceries. At the farm we could see the farm house through the dark in the distance. As walked to it Gary said “Look there - a barn!” A place to sleep. A youth of sixteen answered the front door of the farm house “yes?” he said.We were standing there wearing ponchos and each holding a rifle and it was around 9:00 pm; I don''t know what we looked like but he didn't seem bothered. "Can we buy some milk?" I said. "Milk?" “Yes and can we sleep in your barn?” said Gary. "Hang on a minute" he said. He disappeared and then his dad came to the door “You want to sleep in the barn?” ‘Yes please.’ ‘That’ll be okay,’ he said, wearily, and he took us to it. After a while a female voice called through the door “can I come in?” ‘Yes.’ A very beautiful young girl came into the barn; “hello” she said, and already I can hear you say, bullshit, but she was very beautiful and really friendly. This was the farmer’s daughter “we have a cottage if you would like to use it.” We accepted, of course. There was nothing in the cottage apart from a bed and a pile of blankets – “would you like to come up for supper?” Would we like to come up for supper!!! "Come up to the house when you are ready" she said. Oh the jokes about the farmer’s daughter that went through my head. "God she's gorgeous" I said. "Don't you try anything" said Gary - as if I would. Bacon and eggs, sausage and tomatoes; all served with hot tea and warm bread rolls; all wonderful. The next morning our clothes were delivered to us before we got out of bed and we were given boiled eggs and toast for breakfast. Later on, after we made it to our final RV, an officer came up to me and said “Your socks look rather dry there?” "Yes sir" I said “I took them off and hung them up to dry this morning.”"Well done" he said “good piece of initiative.” We passed the selection course, not many of the others did, and a few more from the post office tried later courses but none of hem passed. but the short time we served with them, to me, was never nearly as exciting as the course itself; we went on manoeuvres, played at being at war and got out before it became serious; at least I did; I don’t know what Gary did as we lost touch. This was in 1961 or 1962, can't quite remember, and all I had to show for it was the pin from the first grenade I'd thrown, an SAS tie and Christmas Card and a great memory. But what ever happened to that farmer's daughter?