Hello Michael,
Reading through John Hawkins' remarks has prompted me to send you a few more memories of the CCF.
I touched on the subject briefly in the articles "Young Person's Guide...." which I sent you some years ago, but here's a bit more:
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My first contact with the CCF came right at the beginning of my time at Price's in 1963 when timetables were handed out and I noticed that the letters CCF had been slated in on Monday afternoons – and for two periods as well! Latin, Maths, English, French …. all these made some kind of sense, but CCF?
Musing as to the meaning of the letters, I asked around, and when another lad in my form who was already in the know told me what they stood for I must have the 11-year-old's equivalent of a heart attack. I knew that I wouldn't have the slightest intention of joining the Armed Forces when I was older, and wondered what the point of this play-acting was supposed to be. If it was to instil discipline and respect in first-formers, I guessed there were other ways this could be done – and probably more effectively.
It was quite intimidating at the beginning to be confronted with large and sometimes rather bullyish sixth-formers playing at being Army corporals, giving silly orders and paying an inordinate amount of attention to petty details concerning our uniforms – boots not shiny enough, berets not sitting properly, belt buckles not gleaming, etc. And, as John Hawkins quite rightly says, it was unbelievable how seriously all this was taken – as though it was in some way intended to influence Britain's future as a military power. I remember that one character once confronted me at the weekly uniform inspection by pointing out that my belt buckle looked as though nothing had been done to it for months and he wanted to see it shining properly by next week, which really annoyed me as I couldn't do anything about the rather ineffective stuff we'd been given to polish our buckles – or (another subject of irritation) the badly-fitting uniform I'd been handed out.
However, my father looked around in the garage and came up with some proper metal polish which enabled me to put paid to this particular character’s complaints – and after I later managed to get my too-short trousers changed as well I at least had no more hassles on the uniform front.
As I advanced through the different forms the "hierarchy" became less and less formidable. When I was in 5R a large group of us were, for several weeks, herded over to the Harrison Road annexe for our parading, where we wouldn’t be seen - perhaps, I surmised, to spare the embarrassment (or amusement) of the other pupils and staff. Whoever was supposed to be in charge of us in those weeks didn’t seem to take it very seriously, as on more than one occasion a group of us were just left to march on and on without any further orders until we all walked into the wall at the end of the playground, assuming that we were supposed to climb it somehow, or, marching badly out of time, tripped over each other and collapsed in a heap at the end of the playground. But once someone must have been watching from one of the classrooms, as he then got a rocket from his "superior" and we never got orders from this particular character again. It was all really hilarious …
However, CCF maybe wasn't a complete waste of time as it at least provided an opportunity in the upper forms to learn a couple of useful skills – rifle shooting and map reading, and I guessed that the whole exercise might have been of some benefit to those who really were intending to join the Armed Forces one day, but most of us wanted to go into further education anyway.
By the time I had reached the sixth form – when, unbelievably, CCF attendance was still (at least on paper) compulsory - I felt that I had more important things to be doing on a Monday afternoon than parading up and down outside the school buildings, among other things getting my homework done so that I wouldn’t have any to do in the evening. A fellow called Steve Chappell was fairly high up the CCF "hierarchy" and was for quite some time assigned the duty of coming over to the library early on Monday afternoons to check whether any sixth-formers who should have been at CCF were doing homework or reading instead. And quite frequently he would indeed catch one or two. I remember that some of my contemporaries in the RAF cadets continued to go week after week right up to just before their A-levels, but perhaps it was my good fortune that I had been in the Army cadets – Steve was in the RAF, and maybe for this reason he wasn't quite so bothered and only paid token attention to me (and, to my amazement, nobody else bothered me either). As long as none of his RAF contingent was missing, he seemed happy….. In fact, I noted that a surprisingly large number of us managed to get out of CCF shortly after entering the sixth form and no pressure was exerted from outside to make us keep going – the facade seemed to be crumbling.
As regards the annual parades and inspections, one of these ensured that I had the fright of my (Price's) life shortly before I left in 1969 – but this tale is now buried in the depths of the website. A bit of research should bring it to light again though ...
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Regards,
Robin
