The Sea Cadets
(this 'bit' follows on directly from 'work' bit so either read the end bit of that chapter 1st or i may cut n paste to make this chapter seem logical & flowing....work in progress, eh?! or maybe it was the anarchism chapter???? aha! it was in the 'work' chap but i hadn't updated it then, though i have now)
God what knobish uniforms we dweebs had to wear! A fucking poncy little ‘kiss me quick, squeeze me slow’ white hat (cool bit was the band that said ‘HMS Ark Royal’ – coz Leeds had adopted the aforementioned aircraft carrier). Then a poncy navy blue blouse with wide open neck (all the better to hang us from the sidearm no doubt) and poncy blue flared trousers (flares you wankers!!!!!) though the boots were standard issue hob nails.
Fuck & we had to wear this ha ha ha, no wonder the army cadets & the air cadets used to look down on us & beat the crap outta us if ever they found sea cadets lurking in dark corners of Leeds city centre.
Think the NCO’s tried to make us do stuff like march & stuff but we were absolutely fucking abysmally wank at all this – left feet the lot!, seriously can’t remember much about this time but the drill we did was terrible though the over-riding stuff i do recall about my sea cadet time was learning about knots.
Knots! Who’d’ve thunk knots would be of a viable concern to be taught young lads (there were no females in the sea cadets at this time...this was ummmm 1977? 1978??) but yep we were shown triple bosun knots & quadruple armchairs over-ties, dodecahedron splice the main brace knots...knots in many multitudinal shapes forms, different types of rope, how to tie on, tie off, how to keep a boat from floating away....i think some realisation why we had to learn knots was creeping up on me by this point...etc. oh we may have got to play with the guns too...ho ho ho!
But I’ll leave that exciting bit til the Marine Cadets which is coming soon...
Well, my 6 months was up in the sea cadets, so with a fond farewell...ha ha ha as if i couldn’t wait to run to the barracks next door & say ‘please take me!!!! I wanna be a marine’ in my best 11 ½ year old voice. Or something not too dissimilar to that.
The Marine Cadets.
Per mare, per terran – their motto; by sea, by land.
The badge (worn on a beret; black with a red patch underneath for us cadets [ black cuz we ain’t done the assault course, green, if you had done the assault course – only the real Marines seemed to wear these. We were able to wear a lanyard on the right arm i think but can’t remember what you’d have to do to achieve this honour!) was a globe, surrounded by oak leaves (can’t remember now...google search when I’ve got internet connexion) topped by a crown ‘royal’, with the motto at the bottom? Had many lessons whilst on the ‘base’, in the marine barracks about the history of the marines, their battles, how they won their distinctions & achieved their commando status and so on and so forth.
All interesting stuff! Then we’d do lessons on creating the perfect ambush, how we’d deploy troops in which area to capitalize on the enemy & cause them maximum harm. Which grenades to use, which bombs to place, how the traps would be sprung and all that jazz. Loved it all, even better than all that theory of warfaring was the uniform! Green khaki stuff – real soldier clothes! Sometimes even camouflage!!! A specific time i do recall vividly was going to catch the bus (either a 93 or 96) from top of the hill in Tinshill, waiting at the bus stop when a lad a couple of years older than me appeared in said camo gear & black beret...was he a marine or was he regular army cadet??? Can’t seem to get that much thru the brain cells, sorry. Well he was telling me his favourite song & dancing, waiting for the bus – very entertaining, the song which i do know was by Chic – le freak ‘c’est chic, les freak, freak-out!’ disco song thru & thru.
Back to the uniform: green army shirt, rough cotton type material & itchy as buggery! Green woollen army jumper with shoulder patches of cotton. Webbing belt with a weird buckle, maybe a snake type. Green khaki army pants, boots – basic army type 8 holes & had to have a shiney toe bit. Maybe puttees, those weird things between bottom of pant leg to top of boots...i mean why??? These were stained black by many hours of boot polish. Oh yeah belt was black too. That was the bog standard uniform methinks, camo? Hmmm we may’ve been given that occasionally for special ops or whatevs or we could buy it ourselves – not too sure nowadays. Did we have a backpack???? Can’t recall. Also we were given the dress uniform. I used to have a photo of me in dress uniform but truly I ain’t seen that in over 25 years so dunno if it still exists, from poor memory i seem to be an extremely ugly 14 yo lad with gawky glasses & too long hair in a uniform which didn’t really look right. If i eve do find it must scan!
Ok, dress uniform. Boots, same as previous – if not the same pair but shined especially shiney!!!, pants kinda very dark blue or black? With a black stripe down the outside seam possibly. Ironed of course. Jacket, a nice uniform jacket with shiney buttons on, maybe epaulettes, maybe not...this is where the red/green lanyard comes into play...the loose end would be fed into one of the 2 breast pockets. Which featured a button – shiny! Shirt underneath? White? Dunno too ,long ago now. Collar, ahh that would be a kinda standy-uppy one, so a crest could be emblazoned onto the front edge of each side – one right one left. Probs the badge or just the oak leaves. Then on top of my unruly haircut was the peaked cap! Top bit was white...by use of toothpaste possibly! Then black band with red patch of cloth with Royal Marine badge centre. With black shiny peak. And there you have it, very smart. ...white gloves!
How could i forget!
Wore the dress uniform a few times and it was ok though for day to day stuff basic green khaki uniform was de rigueur. Vaguely recall doing drill in the courtyard underneath the union jack flag on the pole (there was a ritual for this but only trusted cadets got to do this – y’know raising it & taking it down – a bit ritualistic possibly) but yeah marching, we did quite a bit of this and as we weren’t sea cadets & more akin to army we took it a bit more serious & we therefore better at it than our stable mates. Think i kinda liked it the regimented way we tried to do it as a herd & not fuck it up too much & feel pleased when a ‘left turn’ actually did end us up in the left facing direction instead of a few this way & a few the other. Yeah also, mentioned the learning bit...oh yeah the guns!
On site, in one of the rooms there was a hole in the ground with a big door on it. Unlocked it provided us with real 100% Lee Enfield 303 rifles! True their firing pins had been taken out so these beauties were not gonna fire anything again. But, holy fucking pacifism batman! Give the war obsessed boy a toy of war & you were transported to pre puberty heaven! We learnt about these guns a bit...not to the extreme of taking one apart & having to put it back together whilst wearing a blindfold, no but just basic stuff like how to hold it whilst walking...sorry, marching. How to hold it whilst presenting arms, which end to point at bad people..that kinda deep nonsense. One time we went on a trip to a real army base within Leeds cuz they had a firing range! We were given a lee enfield rifle but this one was a .22? Something like that..memory is a bit hazy on the details.
Though, yup real firing range, yup real gun, yup real ammunition...was it ball bearings???? Anyway also we had a target to shoot at. This time a square piece of card 10cm by 10cm, for example with the classic black concentric cirles. A target to shoot at, so that’s what we did. Probably our NCO said i’d not done too badly – but I wondered if he said that cuz he knew my dad. But thinking about it he was probs being genuine as he seemed on the level at all times. We fired other guns but that came later & somewhere else..but I’ll tell that later & keep it in Leeds for the time being.
Camo gear. Yeah during some lessons we’d be told about camouflage & how to do it. What bits of tree/plant matter to appropriate & where to place it on yer body, hard hat (not that i ever think we wore hard hats just the berets really) but suppose in a warzone hard hats would be the standard. Yeah – this prob relates to the ambush type lessons, it was described to us how we should apply the camo make-up on our faces to deaden the whiteness of our ugly mugs. We’d be given a pot/tube of real army camo black painty stuff & we’d apply it on our faces. Good fun! Were we given camo gear uniform? I seem to think we might have done at some point but i can’t really confirm it maybe my recollections are making it seem like i did just to please me – fairy snuff....I’ll imagine i did but probably just did the manoeuvres in regular khaki uniforms.
What manoeuvres you ask? Well I’ll tell you. We’d be given the 303’s and get into groups, then given a task – such as make our way from point A to point B without getting killed or take over point C which is our slab of concrete over the river Aire...which may’ve been guarded by the Sea cadets....we were to do this by working our way up the numerous canals which happened to be in & around the area. Btw, most of this is kinda made up cuz i can’t remember all the details – as said before its all very hazy but often this rambling does throw out a factual element that does resonate & hey, its like a factual-fictional based on fact thingy so I’m ok with it & contrary to what i usually do I’m not even exaggerating this much at all in all honesty i seem to be keeping-it-real, which is a tad surprising actually.
So yeah, back on the ground – there’s be about 4 or 5 of us marine cadets, in the twilight of a Saturday or Sunday...or maybe even Thursday! In inner city Leeds, in full army gear, with de-commissioned rifles, shuffling our way, thru undergrowth, bushes, architecture, canal toe-paths, bridges, roads all that kinda stuff – playing at being real soldiers.
Expecting to arrive on an enemy encampment or sentries or base & blow it to fuckery with our stealth, skill & sheer overwhelming fire-power...except for at base they had that mega anti-aircraft gun! It was a bloody dream! Awesome, which kid in their right mind who enjoyed growing up with toy guns & playing cowboys & Indians & loved their action men wouldn’t be in 7th heaven doing all that shit. I do remember thinking i was having fun! It was, to be fair, a brilliant time & i enjoyed it immensely...i may’ve even gone & joined up for real if i hadn’t gotten all political & punkified when i was 14 but oh well, such choices are ours to make & we must live with them i suppose. If there’s anything more i can recall about the day to day stuff of being a marine cadet i will update but thats about all of that stuff for now.
The next bit features the dress uniform twice, the khaki uniform a bit and features guns! Guns! Guns!!!! And more guns! To paraphrase Neo in Matrix...’lots of guns’ but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Our unit (I’ve made that up – dunno if we were ever a unit or troop or what but it seems to make sense rather than saying ‘us cadets’ all the time) were told we were going to somewhere in North Yorks for the weekend. Cool! So we packed our kitbags up & off we travelled to somewhere in North Yorks or further North, hazy details, ok. When we got there we were billeted in some kinda barrcky place bunk beds & had to get to work cleaning boots & doing such army chores possibly. Maybe even peeling spuds. At this time i think we realised in the grand scheme of things within the hierarchy that we’d just become part of – in this northern base place, we were close to the bottom & basically anyone else was just a whole lot more higher than us. Fairy snuff we thought.
So yeah, i think we had some spuds to peel, some rudimentary knowledge was given to us about the tasks we were about to perform. Oh, and polish our boots a bit more, and then polish them later before going to bed! And we had to wear some if not all our dress uniform except the peaked hat (although we’d brought them with us) yeah think we didn’t need to wear the jackets just have a white shirt...ooohhhhh I remember another piece of the dress uniform...white gloves!
How could i forget! We kids would always go on about how we could keep our gloves white & what’s the best possible way to take out a grease/boot polish stain – oh yeah what fun we had...will place this essential item in the dress uniform description earlier but not edit this bit out (yet, at least) for stream of consciousness purposes, ok, good. Our task that evening was to wait on the tables of the adults within our unit and other units and whatever. Could be the regular army/marines/navy/air force people that were stationed at this mysterious place of which i can’t remember where it actually was except northwards & a bit mountainous possibly. Yeah we were fucking waiters, excuse me sir, would you like a glass of wine? That kinda stuff, picking up the used – discarded plates, returning with the next course. Maybe even doing the washing up. Occasionally some general would ask (prob not a real general but back then anyone higher up the c.o.c...ha ha ha chain of command, would’ve seemed like a general) ‘so, how are you liking being a marine cadet?’ and cuz they’d asked I was sure i’d’ve replied ‘its the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be, sir’ more than likely. Oh those days of innocence.
Seemed to go on for hours this evening did, recall us cadets theorizing on whether it was permissible for us to roll up our dress shirt sleeves & if so how many folds we’d be allowed & how could the neatness be maintained and do you know what – we just went ahead & rolled up our sleeves! Without being ordered to or not to!
Now that was autonomy – felt liberating! We were awake for ever & the night just kept on & ongoing. Sometime it must’ve finished & we, no doubt had a very early start ahead of us. Luckily i was just a bit too young to be doing the under-age drinking – but the older lads i think did partake of some of the after-dinner brandy. I was probably smoking by then so a ciggy or 2 may’ve happened but well c’est la vie.
Possibly the next morning, porridge & dressed & inside a real army truck driving to somewhere else within the northern base-camp. And all out, ooooooh we’re at a firing range. Signs all around reading; ‘live fire’, ‘tanks’, ‘shells’, ‘explosions’, ‘danger of being blown to pieces by artillery fire’ – all i read was ‘fun, fun, fun & excitement!!!!’. They told us very solemnly about how bullets worked, what a live round was. How you can tell if it’d been fired or not. How incredibly dangerous they were and all that. Then the next minute they’ve given me a pistol with live rounds in it & telling me to shoot the fuck out of a person shaped target. Oh yeah baby! Blam blam blam!
Next here’s a sub machine gun...is it a sten gun? It might’ve been y’know...hell it might’ve been a Thompson sub machine gun, not an uzi though...more a 2 handed piece of grey/black cold steel with a magazine sticking out with a grip, a trigger & a pointy bit that you point anywhere else but at yourself or friends. Oh yeah a sub machine gun! Fuck me in my hands was an awesome weapon of death, doom & destruction....whats that, someone just said something...oh yeah ‘fire’ so i pull the trigger....like those noises every kids makes firing a pretend machine gun chuchuchuchuchuchuchugchuchuchuchug-ga sound emanates from the muzzle & a hail of bullets is spewed forth from this thing of wonderment. Shit! The recoil is overwhelming! My shoulder is rocked & the barrel is almost pointing at the sky – though it started level, aiming at that target thingy which was forgotten the moment those hot pieces of lead flew from the muzzle....
Had to try & get my breath back....next we were laying on the ground, prone position – in the classic pose with a rifle (this time a fully functioning lee enfield .303 – wow, again!) pointing at a target a few hundred yards/metres(?) away. This target was the army chap running at you outline with insides a concentric ring-type design with obvious best bits to hit. Vaguely remember loosing a few rounds with this & then I think we got a go with an SLR...ohhhh i used to know all about these but think my photomedia courses have supplanted such acronym from the battlefield to the artworld – may look into these via google later for comparison. Anyway yeah shot this semi-automatic rifle more than a few times. And it was humungous fun! At the end of the day – for this is what it was by now – we all had to stand at the back of the truck and swear we had not got any concealed live ammunition on our persons! I know for definite i didn’t and would never have contemplated the idea that anyone could do such a thing but am sure nowadays there may’ve been some unscrupulous souls who may hap have not been so honest! Shocking, i know, dreadful quite!
They basically were the highlights of my time spent with the Marine Cadets. One bit during the barrack lessons was the oath we had to swear – that allegiance to the queen & all that jive. Even though i was not at all contentious in my thoughts at that juncture in life it still felt wrong saying that some disembodied person could command me to do what they fuck they liked just cuz they were a royal rankled me even then – maybe it was the embryonic anarcho-spirit within me waiting for its chance to emerge...whatever. The last scene of this is when, after attending a young socialist meeting with my mate Tub (Toby) – i was 14 now, at high school, and steadily heading into punk faster than the Dickies singing paranoid! I had a few other mates at High school who also were in the cadets but those were in the army cadets, about 4 or 5. They were nice enough bunch. Ha ha ha one especially lived just about 10 or 20 houses down from where i lived, Johnny Pape. Man, he was weird but not in a nasty way just seemed a bit too obsessive about stuff. Anyway laters on him.
Yeah socialist meeting, ummmm class war!? Ummm royalty???!!!!, CND (campaign for nuclear disarmament)!!!!, CRASS pacifist punk rock band, anarchy!!!???? My head was a whirl with all these new ideas & thoughts & plans & stuff. I remember shooting the gun up on the range, the target was in the shape of a human...I was shooting another human being! Argh no, no way peace & love....man the hippies never really died out did they, the anti-Vietnam experience still reached out & for bloody good reasons too! FIGHT WAR NOT WARS!!!!
All this stuff was shooting around in my brain. So something had to go & I realised, where i was heading at that time was not the same place that the Marine Cadets were going. So i had to tell my folks that i didn’t want to go anymore. Which was all good, think they may’ve been a bit sad coz of its routine & good bits about it but they, fair play to them, went along with my wishes – i was expected to tell the marines of how i felt so i did. Vague notions of meeting the corporal or sarge (dads mate – green beret) and telling him i can’t come anymore I’m not into it or some such bollox. He said to me thats a shame as he could see me being promoted soon to lance corporal or summat cuz he could see i was intelligent. Which was dead nice of him to be fair. As he could’ve said ok, bye or a zillion other things but he said what he said.
Which is funny as at various stages thru my life people have said to me – you are quite intelligent, you are intelligent, why is it with your obvious intelligence you choose to play the fool? Is one I’ve had a few times too.
Am i intelligent? What the fuck does it mean? Anyway its 25 to 5am now – bloody night shifts eh! Completed this bit now...oh no I ain’t there was another time i wore my dress uniform, ha har! Nearly let that one dissipate didn’t i....ok, another cup of tea or coffee & I’ll retell that little episode....(it features an even bigger gun – oh yeah!).
Ok, where my family lived & where we grew up - our direct next door neighbours – living in a semi-detached, were one-time friends and often we’d spend a pleasant few hours in each other’s company. All up to the point when us kids, got to be of an age where we became young fucking bastards & caused unbelievable nasty stunts to happen to said next-door-neighbours & the complete & utter destruction of friendship into sheer bloody hatred for generations...anyway they moved away after a bit so fuck ‘em. But during my cadet phase, next doors eldest had joined the TA (Territorial Army) a bit like army reservists. He’d go on camps on the weekend, sometimes abroad on manoeuvres and often be seen around the house in uniform. Occasionally I’d be in uniform too – so we had a common denominator. Learning how to take orders & kill strangers who were just like us but on the ‘other side’ therefore our ‘enemy’. Simplistically put methinks, oh yeah armies & wars & all that are way deeper than that but on the surface that what it appears to be.
But i won’t go into one persons terrorist is another persons freedom fighter. Or the what would you do if the Taliban....(back in the day it used to be ‘Russian’ – further back it would’ve been German or Nazi....back, back ‘French’.....roman.....Celt.......sabre tooth tribesman.....? )....were raping your grandmothers’ cat?
Yeah like i said, the shits....our name for the next door neighbours, lol.....the shits eldest son was having a parade at some local parade ground...may’ve been down south a bit actually or easterly...maybe westerly.....really i don’t have a clue. If the picture turns up it may mention where iot was but anyway on with the story......I was dressed up in my real dress uniform cuz i was a cadet – not a younger kid of say 5 to 8 yo who could’ve gotten away with wearing a fancy-dress playsuit of army type looks – which wouldn’t’ve seemed out of place really would it. Imitation being flattery after all. Yeah, the photo was taken & i was stood next to a hefty piece of artillery. That’s it! I do very vaguely recall there being an army day at my primary school, Ireland wood and we were able to clamber all over some army type vehicles like a tank or something – good fun. Only other times I’ve met the army – other than in computer/video games or on the telly promoting democracy & freedom by killing people have been either; on the road, whilst in bands – doing gigs...always seemed to be much army trucks on the road. On demo’s: notably at Faslane nuclear sub site, Scotland and Menwith hill usaaf spy base in/near Harrogate, north yorks.
The only other times i’ve worn a uniform is: – ha ha ha apart from the I’m an individual, unique punk so that’s why I’m wearing the exact same type of clothes as millions of other unique individuals (the punk anti-uniform) - has been as a nurse/student nurse and/or health care assistant on a hospital wards. Catering assistant uniform in a nursing care home. And thats about it. Army clothing I’ve worn...hell i’m just rambling with the flow – writing any old shit...better out of my brain than in......aha! Around 14 to 15yo the Mod fashion appeared again in youth culture...i acquired a parka! Lovely knackered old thing...had ‘the who’ painted on the back & a union jack sewn inside....thats how i got it & kept if for a fair few years before the union jack got burnt outside leeds town hall for some anti-war protest or other. I had a flight suit for a helicopter pilot...what sting, of the band ‘the police’ wore occasionally – i didn’t have it coz he did i had it coz thats what the cool scooter boys wore over their mod/ rude boy clothes whilst scootering around on their lambretta’s or vespa’s. I wore it cuz i just felt it was cool & only occasionally did ride a scooter. Oh I had a grey army coat (probs air force) that i used to go to early gigs in...recall seeing chumbawamba at a miners benefit gig in woodhouse, Leeds 6 (around 1983/4?) and Boffo saying i looked like a nazi SS officer....oh how i laughed.
And not much else until 1998 when in bude, Cornwall on a week with the FYD (friends for young deaf people a charity type thing made up of volunteers helping young deaf people, well d’uh) we were on a team- building course. Blindfolded mountain climbing – fun bearing in mind a lot of my co-volunteers were deaf themselves (i may explain this later on or earlier depending on how chaotic this ‘thing’ is).
Making a raft & going on a river with it – whether it came apart or not....yes, they did come apart, hope that didn’t spoil any future suspense!
(yep, that is me sporting the Guiness hat, lolz)
Carrying an item of varying size around a bloody annoying assault type-course, and of an evening getting shit-faced drunk on Guinness – only cuz they handed out free pint of Guinness promotional slips on every other street. If you were sneaky you could bag yourself up to and above 10 pints...you were meant to only get 2 pints or even 1 i think. (Ok maybe a bit of exaggeration has crept in here, but seriously, if you did the leg work – which believe me i did, you didn’t have to buy any beer at all that week...well in the town anyways, back at the hotel no such luck, pounds sterling were required for every beverage). Jeez i am going on a bit...more recollections of this trip somewhere else.
Needless to say on some of the free time in early afternoon, after the team building activities & before evening meal & going out to get slaughtered were done.
Shopping was permitted. I found an ex-army stall with army stuff on sale....my 1st camo trouser s were bought from here...probs a size 30 or 32 (was a student back then nowadays I’m 36 waist ha ha). Also, funnily enough i was getting back into doing demos – especially animal rights protests & part of the punk/AR anti-uniform was either all black – like the blac bloc or a mix of black & camo...which is the style i favoured. ‘when you’re in the crowd, you don’t remember your name’.....the jam song kinda explains why i feel content knowing i wanna be different yet feel ok with being similar to my peers...kinda vibe. And i bought a pair from Newcastle under Lyme market a few years ago cuz my old pair ripped to shreds round the crotch. And they are one of my default pair of keks to wear at any occasion...except work i guess, damn.
Another essential piece of ex-army kit, as was – back in the squatting, hunt sabbing, being punkier than thou days was of course the Italian para boot!
As used to be found in Leeds Flea market, oh yeah used to wear those, unlaced everywhere – even in bed sometimes...until they talked to you...no, not a weird acid trip...although maybe...i mean when the front sole would peel off or heel would & they slap & they would look like a mouth yakking away whilst walking etc. Cheaper to buy a new pair of 2nd hand boots than re-soleing, oh yeah! These were not doc martins ya know. Right up to 1992 was the last pair i had. Leather etc, and i only had them cuz we’d moved out of one student house cuz landlord had not paid rent so had to re-locate to duckpool road....house before Fairfield road, Newport, south Wales. When i moved in i looked under the bed & found a pair of para boots that were my size! I took this as a sign of great things....a few days weeks later i was drunk – about 2am in the morning & tried to chat-up the love of my life – who totally ignored me...but her mate talked to me & invited me to their house for a mug of tea & some toast. Thanks Cara, and you wore para boots too & you introduced me to the band ‘Back to the Planet’ awesome. Its 5.33am now & thats it for this bit. Laters.....
