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AS FAR BACK as I can
remember, I always wanted to be a soldier.* I can’t
really explain why, it’s just the way it was. My Dad had
been subaltern in the Highland Light Infantry just after
the Second World War when he did his National Service
and had always spoken fondly of his time in uniform, but
we weren’t a military family in the classic sense. I was
just born with it I guess, just as other folk are born
to be trainspotters or stamp collectors. Whatever floats
your boat.
Comics and Airfix have to take part responsibility
though. My comic of choice growing up was the Victor,
which majored on stories of derring-do in the military,
from which I graduated to Commando comics. Almost all of
the story lines were based in the War and presented in a
very positive and gung-ho fashion. Whether Airfix models
arrived concurrently or later I can’t quite remember,
but again I graduated from early attempts at aeroplanes
to tanks and armoured cars. I longed to visit the
near-mythical Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset, but it
might as well have been on the Moon as far as a
Glasgow-based schoolboy enthusiast was concerned in them
days.
I got there (both becoming a soldier and seeing the Tank
Museum) in the end, but it took some time to get there
mind. School and university got in the way, then that
splendid old-fashioned wet coast Presbyterianism told me
that I really should have a career to fall back on if my
military aspirations came to naught, so I spent two
years plus qualifying as a chartered surveyor. The day I
qualified I decided to try and join the army, hoping to
get a three year Short Service Commission a bit like my
Dad had done.
Up to this point I had no experience of the army
whatsoever, not at school, not in the Combined Cadet
Force, not in the Territorial Army. I was truly a
military virgin. But I did know a bit about
universities, and I knew that Glasgow University (sorry,
the University of Glasgow, I’ll get it right next time)
would have an army liaison office somewhere and, after a
quick shufti through the Yellow Pages as one did in
those days, I found out where it was and presented
myself there one morning.
An elderly gent in tweed jacket and regimental tie asked
me my business, very politely. I answered that I’d like
to be an army officer and in particular one in a
Scottish tank regiment. After a few pertinent questions
he declared that “4RTR are just the chaps for you!” and
phoned up the Regimental Adjutant (I had no idea what an
adjutant was at this point) and informed him that he had
a potential officer candidate for him and that, with
great enthusiasm, “he’s Scottish too!” I thought that
was fairly self-evident, but let’s just park that one
for the moment.
Things then started to move quickly, because at the
tender age of 25 I was, apparently, rather older than
most who sought commissions in a front line tank
regiment, and there was no time to lose. My first ever
MoD Rail Warrant took me down to Regimental HQ Royal
Tank Regiment, in those days in the rather splendid
location of 1 Elverton Street, London SW1, where I met
first the Regimental Adjutant (of whose job I was still
completely ignorant) and then the Regimental Colonel,
who somewhat confusingly held the rank of Major General.
Anyway, I must have passed muster because I was accepted
as an officer candidate, subject to security clearances,
medical, and passing the Regular Commissions Board to
get into RMA Sandhurst. The medical threw up the first
problem; I had a perforated eardrum, a relic of over
enthusiastic diving in Govan Baths when I’d been
learning to swim as a lad. I had to get it fixed, and
quickly, otherwise they might not take me. There was too
little time to join the NHS waiting list for the
operation – known as a myringoplasty since you ask – so
I went privately at the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow. I
seem to recall it cost me £420 in early 1980, which
seemed an awful lot then and maybe it was, but I was
dead keen. [£1,814.58 to be exact – Ed.]
That was the first hurdle out the way. My designated
regiment, the 4th Royal Tank Regiment (Scotland’s Own) –
to give it its proper title, was in Munster in (then)
West Germany, and had planned to have me out for a
visit. Given the state of my lug, however, it was deemed
a bit risky, so I got to visit one of the sister
regiments, 3RTR, on Salisbury Plain instead. The Third
recruited in the West Country and were called the
“Armoured Farmers” by everyone else. They were very nice
to me, and I remembered to hold my knife and fork
correctly at dinner in the officers’ mess. I also got my
first ride in a Chieftain tank, which was a bit of an
eye-opener. But more of that later.
In Part 2, attending the Regular Commissions Board,
going to Sandhurst, and finally joining my regiment,
4RTR.
© Stuart Crawford 2020
With acknowledgements to Martin Scorsese and Ray Liotta |
