subject: Territorial Army Pre Sandhurst [print this page] Territorial Army Pre Sandhurst Territorial Army Pre Sandhurst
Just thought I would recollect some of my early days in the TA, In 1988 I decided to find a new challenge in life after a busy life doingremovals I had plenty of contacts in the Army as my company used to move Military Families to and from Germany. One of my contacts used to be an Admin Officer with 4 QLR and he mentioned that his regiment was holding an executive stretch weekend and wondered if I would like to participate. This sounded like the perfect opportunity so I applied.
The weekend started on a Friday night at an Army Barracks in Preston, I had no idea what to expect however I had been given aremovals kit list which wasn't much namely a washbag and towel. Upon arrival we were all ushered into the drill hall and give a briefing then directed to the stores to be issued our clothing, sleeping bag, rucksack etc, it was all pre 1950 issue stuff and smelled horrible.
We spent the night in the drill hall on the floor then woken at 5am to get get ready, breakfast was dished out into our mess tins, then off we went in the back of an Armyremovals truck (4 tonner). We were dropped at the base of Winter Hill and spent most of the day marching around that area carrying out various command tasks such as boat building, casualty evacuation, there were various groups of 8 people headed by 2 senior army ranks. The next evening was spent in a forest outside Weeton army camp sleeping under ponchos tied tied to fence.
The following morning consisted of a demonstration of weaponry that the infantry had at their disposal which absolutely fascinated me, especially the Anti tankremovals stuff.
At the end of the weekend we were given a debrief, then off we went home, I knew this was the beginning of a very interesting life with the British Army
