Why Join the Army?

I’m typing this as a bit of a follow-up to what I put recently in my newsletter, and I’m going to be exploring a bit of why I joined the Army back when I did, and some of the things that I’ve seen and done along the way.

yes, in a lot of ways it’s just me waffling on. But have you ever wondered why some people do things?

Anyway, here goes with what I put out last week in my newsletter.

Taking the Queen’s Shilling

Okay, the one above is a ‘King’s Shilling’ and yes, it’s the one that would have been given to the soldiers being sent overseas during the time of the American Revolution! The tradition goes back even further than that, and I found out that it goes back as far as the English Civil War (1642-46). The one that the King actually lost! Anyway, my time in the Army wasn’t that long ago, but it was a few decades ago now. It WAS a while ago that I signed up for the Army, the first time I did it I was fourteen and still had a year or so at school, but I knew where I wanted to be, and what I wanted to do with my life. Dad had done his national service in the 1950s and always had a good tale to tell about his time in Egypt, Aden, and eventually Cyprus. Just like every kid growing up, I wanted to be like my Dad, so I wanted to go and have a few adventures, especially in the Army (it was a way to see the world, and get someone else to pay for it!)I did join up at sixteen but got really homesick after a few months, so I ended up leaving and feeling an absolute failure at the time, but home I went thinking that was it, I’d never want to go back. I’m not sure what happened, but I think Dad, who’d been so proud of me joining was also angry and things pretty much went from bad to worse between us, so much so that a few months after I left I ended up throwing a shovel at him and storming off to sign back up with the Army and ‘take the Queen’s Shilling’

Taking the Queen’s Shilling Firstly I’ll explain what that actually means. It comes from the time when your wage was pretty much that. From the time when your wage for the month was a shilling. Back then, when you signed on that dotted line you were given a shilling (five pence in today’s money) but you were committed to serving in the Army.Over the years the soldier’s pay has gone up (not by much I hear a few saying) but the Army Loves tradition and the Shilling ceremony (yep, it was a ceremony, although a very short one, and it came in a box if I remember rightly) so the idea of the Queen’s Shilling stayed, although when it was first used, and now since our late Monarch’s passing it’s gone back to being The King’s Shilling.The day you take that is the date you enlist and from that time on you’re part of a very big family.For me, that meant heading down to Sutton Coldfield where the Infantry training base was, and also where the Army had it’s recruitment centre.It was a week long course where they test your intellectual and mental capacity. The Army doesn’t give a toss what qualifications you have really, they have their own way of finding out how smart you are, and those are the requirements they use to decide if you’re up to the job they want to give you.

Three choices! When you signed on you were given three choices. They related to what unit you wanted to join. If you passed the tests then you’d get in, that is if you hadn’t already bottled out (as in got homesick) My first choice was the Royal Military Police. That was the unit I’d joined as a sixteen-year-old, and there was no way they’d be having me back! (I didn’t know this, but it figures). The Army told me that I couldn’t write English well enough. At the time I accepted that, and my reply was probably a classic. When asked what my second choice was I’d simply said, “That’s probably a non-starter sir”. “Well, what was it?” the officer asked.”Intelligence corps sir” I replied”You’re right, it’s a non-starter, what’s the third choice?” I’d never heard before of the unit I did join, but replied, “Army Air Corps sir” to which I got told, “well done, you’re in, You’re on your way to Catterick to start basic training tomorrow!”

Birmingham is in the British Midlands, about an hour from London. But Catterick is way up north, not quite Scotland, but North Yorkshire, and I was from across the Pennines, a rivalry that in history has often ended in bloodshed! But more on that later.