D Coy News

D Company Gallery

Company Weekend 7th – 9th March 2008

We gathered outside the detachment at about 19:30hrs, it was dark and a bit of a rush getting changed packed and out but that’s all part of cadet life and it wasn’t long before the coach arrived to take us to Yardley chase.

An hour later we swept into the weekend training centre and disgorged from the coaches to be met by the warm and dulcet tones of the CSM to get on parade. Very soon we were allocated a billet, kit squared away and on our way to be briefed by the OC and Training officer. The briefing consisted of welcome, intro to instructors the safety rules, work hard, play hard and behave; what the plan was and what our programme would be; it was to be a full weekend of both training and testing from 1 star to 4 star. For the 1 stars we were split into two squads depending on what we needed to pass. We did expedition training, skill at arms and first aid.

After the briefig we had a quick top of junk food eating burger and chips before wandering back to the billet. At 23:00hrs true to the programme it was lights out. Some managed to get to sleep but for most of us it was a good opportunity to have a laugh. It was a bit of a shocker waking at 06:30hrs and even more of a shock to the system fighting for a sink in the wash house but miraculously we all managed to be washed and in our kit ready for breakfast 06:55hrs.

It was full English breakfast then back to the billets which we cleaned twice - because they were not good enough the first time. Then we stood by our beds as the OC and CSM inspected the Billets, a few points were made but at least we survived it!

After parade it was all systems go getting kit issued and inspected ready for the off. We were given waterproofs to put in our bergens just in case it rained, some people had too much kit and had to leave stuff behind – just essentials. Next we were briefed on the route and informed that we would actually have to read a map - oh dear....... it was going to be a long day and knowing some of them around me, we could end up just about anywhere!

In what seemed no time at all we were loaded into a minibus and off we went. We were dumped out of the bus miles away at an undisclosed location, once we had actually found our position we fell in behind the map reader and set off across the dirt field. The route seemed to cover half of Northamptonshire but actually we were following a newly opened footpath that covered a 12k route behind Yardley chase. We walked through part of what used to be Yardley chase in the old days; it used to be much bigger. After several hours wandering up and down hills, cutting through dense forests, wading through swamps we eventually spotted the mini bus in the distance and salvation - we were saved but starving - we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was nearly lunch time!

Rule 1 for basher building - Find somewhere to put it up..... trees never seem to be spaced properly!!

We managed to stagger back to our billet unaided, lucky to have survived such a strenuous expedition and made an amazing recovery as we picked up our mess tins and set off for the dinner queue. One thing I can promise you about Yardley is that you will eat better than home with 3 full meals throughout the day. There are a large number of dishes to choose from including my favourite, roast pork.

If the morning was hard work the afternoon was right dizzy with shooting the air rifle, basher building, drill & turnout and skill at arms practice. After tuck we then had movement with and without a rifle. Before we knew where we were we back eating once again this time it was chicken and chips for dinner but not before I had three attempts to wash off the cam cream, the Sergeant Major kept finding stuff, even in my ears.

It didn’t stop there, it was night and the adults actually expected us to go up on the area in the dark to do night noises, observation at night and night movement. It’s scary out there in the dark with wild animals everywhere. Night noise was fairly easy, well the listening to the seniors having a fire fight was fairly straight forward, mess tins are noisy too. Then it rained and we had real fun moving at night and in the wet.

I cannot remember going to sleep just waking up in the morning, our instructors said we were very well behaved but could we keep the snoring down next time.

After breakfast we had to the Skill at arms test which is hard with someone watching you. We were also tested at first aid, drill and turnout and Fieldcraft which most of us managed to scrape through.

Then it was the big clean up, I got the toilets again, well someone has to do it don’t they? Once everything was clean we had our pack up in the big building altogether.

Back with the rest of the detachment our nco's told us about their exercise, clay pigeon shooting and LSW training.

The coaches arrived and we said goodbye to Yardley, it wasn’t too long before I was back home in time for the match, Mum asked me what I wanted for dinner so I asked for pizza, next thing I knew she was waking me up as it was time for bed. Well that’s another weekend done and at last, hurrah, I’m a two star cadet.