Page 78 - The Wish Stream Year of 2020 Crest

miss it would entail a long drop onto solid earth, whilst possibly knocking oneself unconscious on bits of scaffolding on the way down. I was not that stupid! I did, however, achieve another part of the course where many failed. You stood on the top of the structure, say 40 feet up, with one foot on one piece of scaffolding and the other on a piece at 90 degrees to it, and you did this shouting out your name and number until you were told to stop. I did this in a snowstorm, so had no horizon to help me retain balance.
Nearby was a zipwire across one of the lower lakes. This was fun, but not for all. One of our Scottish OCdts took off and stopped halfway across. The pulley wheel had come off the wire and snagged with the wire between the wheel and the rest of the pulley block. He hung there. A PTI crawled down the wire to try to sort this out and failed. So we waited. Eventually said Scot could hold on no longer and dropped through the ice, where he was stuck up to his chest and unable to move. We were ordered to crawl onto the ice, and with our rifle butts break a channel for him to get to shore. That ended that particu- lar PT session.
Water reminds me of the swimming test. You had to be able to do two lengths of the pool in 80 seconds. I could manage 81 or 82 regularly, but this was not enough. So, for four terms every Saturday and Sunday at 1400hrs, I had to report to the pool and try again. Eventually, just before our Sovereigns Parade I did it!
An incident on the ranges. During an SLR Shoot, one of our number fired a tracer round, which was definitely NOT part of the practice. We all knew who it was as he had been showing us the unfired round but, of course, no one would sneak on him. Fortunately for us, he owned up and simply got off from what was potentially a court martial offence with a bollocking from our Small Arms QSMI.
I could go on recounting many more memories. Overall Sandhurst, after the first fourteen weeks of hell, was great fun and I learnt an awful lot about myself, which has stood me in good stead for the rest of my life. I live close to the Acad- emy and frequently my business takes me to the Former Army Staff College where I remember attending the Beagle Ball at the end of my first term with my first serious girlfriend. Happy times!
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