Going Commando (4 page)

Yet I supported him and the miners, becoming an outspoken socialist. Knowing everything there is to know about everything, I saw the world through my red-tinted glasses and wholly partisan view of Maggie Thatcher and the Conservative government.

But whichever side of the electoral fence you sat, the miners’ strike destroyed our community and the fractures still remain thirty years later. Despite his earlier championing of the cause, my stepdad went back to work before most, so his comradeship with the other miners became a distant memory, resulting in our house being daubed with ‘scab’. Even worse, we awoke one morning to find our living room curtains ablaze after someone had set them alight by poking a burning
newspaper through the letterbox. Socialism, it seemed, was honourable enough within the pages of
The Guardian
; having some leftwing arsonist trying to set fire to me put me off it for a while. After the strike collapsed, the subsequent months became a festering wound. Once close families drew battle lines over garden fences. Breadwinners saw their dreams of a job for life dashed and the hopes of future generations were put in doubt through the decline of local industry. The Smiths became the soundtrack to disaffected local youths, who chose delinquency over order, blaming anyone who wore a tie for the bleakness they had inherited.

I had to escape this life. I could see it dragging me down.

I decided to turn my life around and knuckle down at school. I was bright enough to be in the same class as a future maths professor, a heart surgeon and an adviser to the Home Secretary (it’s not hard to advise politicians, the difficulty seems to lie in getting them to act upon it), but up to then had neglected my academic potential, preferring to drink Woodpecker cider in the park with the lads, go to Leeds United matches and try to start fights with the police. Now I set my sights on going to university and training to be a geologist.

Unfortunately, that meant studying for ‘A’ levels, and that, in turn, meant stability. But with my stepdad now ostracised by his community, he and my mam were looking for an escape route of their own. I discovered this by coming across ‘business for sale’ particulars and circled classified ads in mushy pea-covered newspapers. My life was about to take another turn, with the impetus provided by my mother.

‘You need to think about leaving home and getting a job,’ she said to me one day. ‘That will be better for you than that sixth-form rubbish. Here… have a look at these.’ And with that she thrust a bunch of army recruiting pamphlets into my fifteen-year-old fist.

I had never had any interest in the military. The Air Force Cadet detachment at my school was enough to put anyone off. Only the metal-mouthed geeks had joined and none of them had cool mates, unlike us geology boffins. But to my surprise, as I pored over the pamphlets I found a genuine interest in something other than football and basalt. The British Army seemed to be an ideal fit for me – mates, travel, sport and a uniform the girls would surely swoon over. And I could join as soon as I left school.

I paid a visit to the Army Recruiting Office, my inquisitiveness equalling my enthusiasm. The recruiting sergeant advised me to sign up as a Construction Materials Technician. He said, rather vaguely, that it was ‘like being a geologist in the army’. I have to say he was a very nice man, and very smart – though his clipped moustache made him look a little too much like
Grange Hill
’s Mr Bronson. Nevertheless, I went ahead and took the technicians’ aptitude tests. With a ninety-nine per cent pass mark in the bag, I was given the date for my interview. It was with the excitement of a small child on Christmas morning that I exited through the door facing the adjacent Royal Navy Careers Office.

I stopped in my tracks and stared.

The RN had just changed its window display from flares-wearing sailors to Royal Marines Commandos looking like
harbingers of death and doing things James Bond might have wet dreams over. I studied the pictures. The word ‘Commando’ jumped out at me. It was the magnet, the tractor beam that attracted thousands like me every year. So, in a moment of utter insanity, I forgot all about a job that could give me a well-paid lifelong career to take on an occupation that involved killing people and shitting in plastic bags.

Inside, a tubby sailor sat behind a desk. He looked me up and down; given my diminutive stature, he probably thought I was sounding out the vacancy situation for Royal Navy stewards.

‘I want to join the Marines,’ I said, boldly. Having just passed a technicians’ interview, I reasoned I was surely a prize catch.

‘Well,’ he said, dismissively, ‘you’d better go over to America then, son.’

I was flummoxed. I just stood there, not knowing what to say or do. Apparently passing a technician’s interview didn’t mean you were exempt from looking stupid. Eventually, he spoke for me. ‘I take it you mean the
Royal
Marines? There is a difference, you know.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Sorry. Yes.’

‘Dave?’ he called over his shoulder, and from a backroom appeared a giant of a man with the world’s thickest arms. I gulped. Did I really want to join the Marines – sorry, the
Royal
Marines – if they were all like him?

Fuck, yes
.

‘Right you are then, Lofty,’ said Dave the giant in a surprisingly soft voice. He pointed to a bar spanning an
alcove. ‘I’m not going to bother my arse talking to you unless you can do ten pull-ups. You know what a pull-up is?’

I nodded confidently. Of course I did. I watched
Superstars
.

‘And it’s not like they do it on
Superstars
.’

Fuck
.

‘They do pull-ups underarm,’ he said. ‘Royal Marines do ’em overarm.’

He grabbed the bar – he didn’t need to jump – and demonstrated the grip. Then he paused and gave a sarcastic smile. ‘Of course, the ability to actually reach the bar is part of the test.’

Happy with the task ahead, I jumped up and pulled myself up, planting my chin over the bar as instructed. I repeated this manoeuvre again and again and again, and after doing the requisite ten I carried on.

‘Alright,’ said the giant. ‘Get down. No need to show off.’

I giggled in excited relief as my feet hit the deck.

‘Good effort,’ he said. ‘Now I’ll talk to you. Come through.’

After our introductions, he asked the ultimate question.

‘So, why do you want to join the Royal Marines?’

It was as if he had asked me to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity, only with commandos as elementary particles. I was totally stumped. I had popped in on a whim and was totally unprepared.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘I’ve passed the technicians exam for the army.’

That should impress him
.

‘And?’

Maybe not
.

‘Well, it looks as though the Royal Marines are better.’

‘At what?’

‘Being commandos?’

Well done, that’s brilliant stuff
.

He paused. ‘How much do you know about the Corps, son?’

The
core
? What was he on about? Working on the basis that it must be some sort of alternative name for the Royal Marines, and deciding to come clean, I said, ‘Actually, pretty little. I liked the look of the window display.’

That’s it, I’ve blown it. I’m trying to join the Royal Marines here, not frigging Debenhams
.

‘Well, at least you’re honest. That’s a good start. Integrity is something we seek. We can book you in for the aptitude tests but, to be honest, you need to start reading up on life as a Royal Marine. It’s totally different from the army. We wash, for a start.’

Our talk ended with a test date booked, and a handful of pamphlets given out by the sailor. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘have a look at these as well.’

I smiled and thanked him. There was no way I was going to be a matelot. I had been seasick on the pedalos on Bridlington boating lake.

I returned a couple of weeks later to conduct my numeracy, literacy and mechanical aptitude tests. I found them comparatively easy and the maths test was especially pleasing, as no calculus was involved. The adjudicating naval petty officer called me in to his small area once the marks had been completed.

‘Listen, son,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a look at your marks and
you should be applying for a technician or artificer’s job in the Royal Navy. You can read and write… you’ll be over-qualified as a booty.’

I listened, but my mind was elsewhere. I was imagining myself as an alpha male, abseiling from helicopters and storming exotic beaches.

I was then interviewed by a Royal Marines warrant officer. This went swimmingly, not least because he too was from a broken home. He waxed lyrical about ‘the Corps’, as he repeatedly called it, and said more than once, ‘It has been my family.’

A family was certainly something I was hankering after – a group of people who would look after me, where I could blossom into someone I could be proud of.

After passing the PRC, my joining date couldn’t come soon enough. Even then it was too long.

As per usual, my stepdad’s Friday night consisted of going to the working men’s club and getting so drunk he could hardly mutter his name. On one particular occasion, my mother joined him and I was left to look after the puppy they’d just acquired – logical, when you’re about to purchase a fish and chip shop.

After yet another gut-churning clean-up of the dog’s arse gravy, I stuck on a video of
Gremlins
. Later on, the back door slammed open and I could hear my mother screaming obscenities over the film. She stumbled into the living room, bleeding heavily from the mouth, followed by my stepdad,
who stood there glowering. He had punched her full in the face, breaking her two front teeth and splitting her lip.

I didn’t know what to do. He’d used me as a punch bag often enough, but this was the first time I’d seen him physically abusing my mam. He launched at her again, grabbing her hair. This time, thirteen years after I’d last seen her in this situation, I could do something. I launched into him with every joule of anger I had, knocking him to the floor.

I thought I’d done a satisfactory job but my fighting ability wasn’t really up to his standard. He got up quicker than a drunken arsehole should ever be able to, and grabbed my throat, choking me out with his gargantuan miner’s hands. My weight training hadn’t prepared me for this. If he’d asked to arm wrestle I might have been able to put up some form of resistance, but he was doing me serious damage.

Just as the stars in my eyes started to be extinguished, his grip loosened as his body crashed to the floor. My mam stood over him, a half-full vodka bottle in her hand. When you get hit over the head with one of those babies they don’t smash like they do in the films. He was out for the count. We left that night, but within two days we were back. Strangely enough, he never hit me again.

I tried to keep my distance from then on, and spent a lot of time at my mate Craig’s house rather than enduring my stepdad’s shit. Craig’s mam put me on the straight and narrow once more, insisting I study just in case I got injured and couldn’t carry on in the Marines. Of course, this was bollocks. I was invincible; the only thing that might stop me would be nuclear war, but as a Royal Marine I could deal with that too.

Not long after that, my mam and stepdad bought their chippy at Seacroft in northeast Leeds. This was the second biggest council estate in Yorkshire and one of the most impoverished suburbs in England. It made Knottingley seem like Beverly Hills. Kids of eight walked around the estate with a bag of chips in one hand and a bag of glue in the other. Fifty per cent of the grownups seemed to live off a diet of cigarettes and alcohol or, if money was too tight, butane. Those who did eat food chose fish and chips, which made my mam’s shop a tidy investment. Thursday was dole day, so the shop would be heaving with punters and their pocketful of benefits. It all strengthened my resolve to leave.

Yet here amidst the litter-strewn streets, burnt-out cars and smashed, piss-stinking phone boxes, rather than poverty being an excuse for failure it nurtured resilience, resourcefulness and ingenuity – all characteristics needed in any walk of life to attain success, and certainly components in building a highly-skilled soldier. It’s of little wonder that the council estates of the working classes are the breeding grounds for the UK’s continuing military excellence.

My mam and stepdad had timed the move perfectly: the week prior to my first ‘O’ level exam. I was shunted around from pillar to post, looked after by relatives and friends just so I could actually sit the exams I’d spent the previous eleven years studying for. If there had been an ‘O’ level in Royal Marines Studies I’d have got an A. Unfortunately, none of the nine I took included the word ‘webbing’.

The one good thing about Seacroft – other than the ready availability of glue, should you break a vase – was the park
next to our chip shop. Its periphery was littered with benches and other wooden obstacles that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on a military assault course. It was ideal prep for the two weeks between my last exam and my joining date on 14 July 1986.

One day, a bloke I’d seen regularly walking his dog while I trained approached me. ‘What you up to then, son?’ he said, as the dog licked his balls (his own balls, I should add, not the owner’s).

‘How do you mean?’ I said, eyeing him with caution and wondering whether he was the new Yorkshire Ripper.

‘Well, you’re the on’y daft bastard I’ve seen running, jumping and scrambling ovver all this lot wi’out a copper chasing you,’ he said. ‘I just wondered why.’

I explained, and he nodded gravely.

‘Chuffing ’ell, tha needs to get some meat on thee bones. I wor’ in Paras, mesen. Let me tell you this: when you join an outfit like Royal Marines, think o’ hardest thing you could ever do. Then double it.’

THE SATURDAY NIGHT prior to leaving for Lympstone, I went home to Knottingley to be with my schoolmates. I spent the last of my family allowance drinking more cheap whisky than I care to remember, in derelict pubs that survived on the trade of underage drinkers. I ended the night walking home a girl who, unbeknown to me, had fancied me all the way through school. I was hoping it might lead to my first sexual encounter, but it ended with her giving me a chain of love bites and me stepping in some dog shit - an altogether unsatisfactory end to a potential cherry-popping scenario. Ending up back at my mate Craig’s house, his mam watched over me throughout the night as I repeatedly vomited whisky and bile, onto her soon-to-be-ruined sheepskin rug in front of the electric fire.

All the preparation had finally ended. The months of training, the weeks of excitement, the days of trying desperately to lose my virginity before joining up… it had all led up to this.

The day of joining would be the first day of my new life and the last day of the old. It was a momentous occasion, but one that passed my mam and stepdad by. They were too busy filleting fish to take me to the station, though Dekker did at least lend me twenty quid to get the bus to Leeds Central train station and for a bit of spending cash. It was the first and last time I’d ever borrow money from him, and the only money I had to see me through the next fortnight – despite the joining instructions suggesting sufficient cash to buy items necessary for the first two weeks of training.

As the Plymouth-bound Intercity train departed Leeds, I realised there was no turning back, even though I’d forgotten to pack any spare pants. The Exmouth-bound train from Exeter St Davids seemed to have a few smartly-dressed young men on board. I looked at them furtively, from behind an old copy of
Shoot
football magazine. They were either very young businessmen, on their way to court, or, more likely, undertaking the same journey (both literally and figuratively) as I was. This made me feel even more nervous. I felt totally underdressed in my skanky cords, polo shirt and trusty Puma G Vilas trainers (which I’d at least scrubbed for the occasion). I didn’t even own a pair of shoes. I certainly didn’t own a tie – I’d burnt my school one in a theatrical liberation from educational servitude.

I buried my head back in an interview with Chris Waddle in his ridiculous permed mullet, unsuccessfully trying to ignore
my butterflies. They only got worse, and by the time the familiar sight of Lympstone Commando came into view the lack of spare pants was certainly a worry.

Awaiting our arrival was a moustachioed drill instructor (mystifyingly acronymised as ‘DL’) who would be our father, mother and torturer for the first two weeks of training. I got shouted at even before both feet hit the platform tarmac. I can’t recall his exact words, but I think the gist of it was that I evidently had some form of intellectual and physical disability. The shouting wasn’t the spit-in-your-face squealing you see in films depicting life in the United States Marine Corps. This was more of a calculated, reasoned raising of the voice, thus even scarier. I have to say it was all a far cry from my PRC, where that polite marine had opened the gate for us.

I desperately tried not to draw any attention to myself, noting to my surprise that the DL had what some personal trainers describe as a ‘carb face’. He looked slightly overweight to be a commando, and his chin wobbled as he spoke, but in my youthful naivety I fantasised that he was an injured power-lifting champion.

We lined up on the platform as ordered. He came by each one of us to ask our name and offer some sarcastic comment. The lad next to me was the first to be addressed.

‘Name?’

‘Andrew Webb.’

‘Oh, Andrew is it?’ the DL said. ‘Do you mind if I call you Andy?’

Andy took this innocently, failing entirely to spot the concealed malice. ‘Uh, yep, that’s fine.’

‘Okay, Andy, this is what happens now: you get your fucking heels together and address me as “Corporal”. The day I call you by your first name is the day I like you, and at the moment that’s a long fucking way off. Surname only, you fucking scrote. Get it?’

‘Yes, Corporal.’

‘Name?’ He looked me up and down and I felt a little unnerved by even this small exchange. I hoped he wouldn’t say ‘fucking’ more than three times to me.

‘Time, Corporal.’

He ticked his paperwork. ‘Did you get the joining instructions, Time?’

‘Yes, Corporal.’

‘So where on the instructions does it say come dressed as a scruffy cunt?’

‘It doesn’t, Corporal.’ Or at least I didn’t think it had. I’d read them pretty thoroughly, and I’d have certainly noticed the ‘c’ word.

‘No, it fucking doesn’t. It says wear smart clothing. So why have you come dressed as Harold fucking Steptoe?’

‘These are my best clothes, Corporal.’

‘Fuck me, you don’t even own a pair of trousers?’

‘No, Corporal.’

‘Where you from, Time?’

‘Leeds, Corporal.’

‘Ah, that would explain it then. Fucking pikey.’

After each one of us offered our name and got roundly abused in return, we picked up our luggage and shunted through the single gate. He organised us into two files, then
proceeded to instruct us how to march as best we could weighed down with bags.

‘By the left, quick march!
Eft ite, eft ite, eft ite
…’

With my experience of logic puzzles in my mam’s
Puzzle Break
magazine, I quickly fathomed his speech impediment was timing our step. I did as best I could, following others who looked nothing like smart guardsmen either. They carried suitcases, sports bags, and one had a half-eaten sandwich hanging from his person.

We were led to a large block with the words ‘Induction’ above a huge globe and laurel motif, the emblem of the Royal Marines.

Inside a cavernous room was a row of bed frames uniformly spaced around the four walls, each with a single locker at its foot. Searching around, we found the bed with our name alphabetically positioned, mine typically near the entrance to the toilets.

As I had on my PRC, I compared myself to those who were undertaking the same journey. I had yet to say a word to anyone; the guy next to me, who was clearly older, decided to talk to the bloke the other side of him. It was evident we’d find commonality with those of similar age. Unfortunately, there seemed to be few other children for me to talk to.

There was not an earring in sight as I watched people unpacking their meagre belongings. There seemed to be an air of quiet, possibly a nervous exhilaration or shock of capture that affected even the older guys who already had tattoos, scars and filthy vocabulary.

One sweaty lad took off his shirt. Whether this was
to relieve himself from the heat or he just wanted to show off his Apollonian physique, I don’t know, but I stared in admiration at his chiselled body, one I’d dreamt of achieving while grunting and groaning in my cellar. He soon became the catalyst for others to follow suit and, before long, half of the group were topless. The more I saw these already-formed muscles and tautly athletic torsos, the more it occurred to me I was physically way behind most of these guys. I would have to catch up quickly.

Before I could pop off to the toilets for some emergency press-ups, the DL caught our attention. ‘Listen in, gents,’ he said. ‘There are now fifty-two of you stood here, a number that I know will drop rather rapidly in the coming weeks. You are now the recruits of 299 Troop, part of Portsmouth Company for the first fifteen weeks of Phase One infantry training.’

Shepherded to an office for administrative processing, we were subjected to more sarcasm by the most frightening looking man on the planet, who had the audacity to be a clerk.

My first name would no longer be ‘Mark’, but ‘PO45739X Junior Marine’, which was definitely harder to remember. In fact, I was so concerned about remembering it correctly when reporting to anyone of higher rank – which at this stage of training was anyone inside the perimeter fence, including animal mascots – that I actually struggled to remember my surname.

Most of that first day, the smell of varying cleaning products was never far from my nostrils. I ran around in a confused state, rarely saying anything other than, ‘Yes, Corporal.’ Seemingly everything we said had to end in the word ‘Corporal’, drawing
the ire of a sergeant in the bedding store when addressed as such by Andy Webb.

‘I’ve got three stripes, you buffoon. That means I’m a sergeant, not a corporal. What am I?’ he demanded.

‘You’re a sergeant, Corporal!’ shouted Webb.

We had to be issued with various pieces of bulky equipment, which were hard to carry without looking like an idiot, undergo more paper administration, pledge oaths to the Queen and ensure our joining routine card was complete. The latter was the archaic administrative task ensuring the relevant departments officially recorded our presence by way of an ink stamp, an entry into a ledger and some complaint about interrupting someone’s ‘stand easy’. It was like a cross between a bingo card and a treasure hunt indicating mysterious departments hidden around camp that we had to find, with our only clue being, ‘Get it filled in before the end of the day or you can standby.’

In between, we were summoned to line up with everyone else outside the barber’s shop.

‘Would anyone like to keep their hair?’ said the DL, casually.

One long-haired soul put up his hand. ‘Yes, I would, Corporal.’

‘Well, have you brought a bag?’

We were each herded inside and given a very brutal haircut by an overly enthusiastic old barber who had clearly trained on sheep.

Finally, we had our photographs taken in the photo booth of lies – transforming me into something from
Crimewatch
, rather than the scared child I actually was.

Before there was any instruction on how to creep up behind the enemy and garrote him with cheese wire, we were ordered to the NAAFI shop to buy specific items we needed for the next couple of weeks. The Navy Army Air Force Institute is the paramilitary arm of consumerism, selling items at extortionate prices to a captive market. The NAAFI at CTC offered a wide range catering to its main demographic: from a cigarette lighter in the shape of various exotic animals, which for some reason wasn’t a big seller, to pornography, which was.

Now high on the list of life’s necessities were items unknown to most teenage boys: washing powder (dhobi dust), Brasso, Duraglit, whitening fluid for pumps (blanco), nail-scrubbing brush, on/off boot-polish brushes, boot polish, starch and flip-flops. I took one of all of the above, and dumped everything into my newly bought plastic bucket. It left me with 45p to last the rest of the fortnight. The Ferrari could wait.

The military-issue kit was an assortment of clothing and equipment as varied as our pick’n’mix of accents. We were shown once how to launder and look after our issued clothing. As ever, there would be no second demonstration; information had to be absorbed immediately. We wore hessian-like green shirts for normal duties, as opposed to the smooth stone shirts worn for drill. These needed to be as sharp as a pin, but would crease as soon as you looked at them. They would only iron well with the correct amount of starch. Too little starch made no difference. Too much and the subsequent stains looked like the wearer had become sexually excited. Our trousers, known as ‘denims’ but nothing like jeans, also had to be pressed to the required standard, and ‘immaculate’ was the only acceptable
standard. This required arm-jarring pressing of the legs to create creases so sharp you could shave with them.

On our feet, depending on the activity, we would wear Royal Marine high combat boots (RMHCB), which I loved as they made me at least an inch taller. On the down side, I looked like a glam rocker and they weighed the same as me, so running became especially exhausting. Bearing in mind we ran everywhere, they hardly made me feel like Darren Coe, Seb’s faster brother. We were issued two pairs of RMHCB, no doubt so that we could suffer twice as many blisters. Inside, we would insert plastic insoles that shared their moulding with ‘ACME Cheese Grater Inc’. Burning and rubbing, rather than cushioning and comforting, seemed to be the design priorities; they were so tough they could only be cleaned by scrubbing them with something equally as abrasive - another insole. The friction caused by rubbing a socked foot against the granite-hard plastic abrasions would be the only thing keeping us warm when winter approached.

Drill boots, or ‘boots AP’ (achingly painful) as they were known, were the bane of every new recruit’s life. It was the first time I ever ironed a pair of boots – to smooth down the toecaps in preparation for the term forever associated with National Service - spit and polish. Shining toecaps to give a mirror finish took time and effort, and those who had the skill could make a few quid as a small-time boot polisher. The method I was shown was to apply a thin layer of polish with a duster or dry cotton wool; the polish then moistened with either some breath, spit or, for us modern types, tap water. Wet cotton wool was then used to smooth to a finish. This
was repeated
ad infinitum
like a battery hen eating grain. It was impossible to get these boots ‘too polished’, and there was no obvious demarcation line between ‘not good enough’ and ‘good enough’. Only the DL would decide that, his opinion determined by his mood. This activity alone could take up a good couple of hours of a new recruit’s evening. On my deathbed I will ask the Lord for at least seven days extra, to make up for the time I lost polishing frigging drill boots.

Gym pumps, known as ‘daps’, were just the adult version of the plimsolls worn by young children. Even these simple pieces of rubber and canvas required as much care and attention as every other bit of kit. After each workout, the cardboard-thin soles had to be scrubbed, the whitening blanco reapplied and the laces washed. Any marks on the gleaming white material stood out like a racing dog’s gonads to the beady-eyed PTIs and would result in a hairdryer of a bollocking, accompanied by press-ups or burpees or sit-ups; just what we needed before a long session of press-ups, burpees and sit-ups.