Page 44 - Cormorant Issue 20 2017

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Life on the patch – a husband’s perspective
Academy Friends and Family organisation which has the unenviable challenge to nd a balance between being gender neutral but culturally sensitive to the diverse international community. Although this sometimes means necessarily excluding men from certain events, their enthusiasm and commitment
in bringing the community together is truly beyond reproach.
What has been particularly interesting, especially for a psychology student, is living within community that is designed largely to engage with the opposite gender. My wife and I used to smile at this point as we attended a number of welcoming events last summer and people immediately assumed I was the one on a course and she would be hit with a number of lea ets about events, classes and playgroups she should join to make the most of her time here. Although gender clearly has its role to play in early year’s development it could be suggested that a family’s main carer in today’s society is becoming a more gender neutral role than in the past. Therefore it was good to see a fair number of other dads rolling up each day laden down by the customary book bags and lunch boxes and a comfort to share the odd moment outside school with other fathers as we wait patiently for the tired faces of our children to appear at the classroom door.
Overall, the experience of living in the Defence Academy SFA has been a very positive and one our whole family has embraced. However the expectation of unity that comes with an inclusive garrison style community was a little alien to me and in my opinion not always conducive to a man’s disposition. That said I did not feel excluded in any way and if our children had been younger it is clear that effort is made to support parents of both genders.
As we leave in August to pursue the next phase of our lives we will undoubtedly look back on this period fondly and our children in particular will remember the opportunities they have had to build memories
of adventure that I’m sure will remain with them for many years to come.
Lt Cdr (retd) Mark Singleton
AS A HUSBAND, STAY at home father and retired Royal Naval Of cer I was not a stranger to the world of Service Family
Accommodation (SFA) before we arrived at the Defence Academy for my wife’s ACSC 20 course. Indeed our family had spent
a happy period enjoying the sun, sea and shared front gardens of a patch on the south coast in Hampshire. However as we marched-in last year I remember re ecting brie y that all my previous experiences of SFA were limited to an exposure to the community that existed outside of working hours and that life on the patch this time was likely to be markedly different.
That said, my rst impressions were not too dissimilar to our previous few years. My leaving
the Royal Navy in 2014 had coincided with my wife returning to sea and so we decided I would take a few years out of employment to support our young family whilst she was away. As such I was used to being at home, running the household and I kept
my days busy between school runs with an Open University degree. However it had been several years since we last lived in SFA and having moved from a quiet cul-de-sac, where we reduced the average age of the neighbourhood by a considerable margin, I was interested to see whether a traditional married patch was able to meet the needs of a male spouse without being too overbearing.
On the whole I would say it has been a very positive experience and as a family we thoroughly enjoyed
our year here. However, living on a patch in a close knit community surrounding a single station has been a very different experience. In contrast, the SFA
near Portsmouth houses a diverse population from
a range of military establishments and as such the community is disparate; links between families are generated largely through non-military factors such as schools and pre-existing friendships and therefore the community evolves over an extended period of time. However at the Defence Academy the community
is predominantly formed around the annual course cycle and as people move into the area it develops quickly, ensuring all are aware and enlisted into a well- practised network of annual support.
This is not a criticism of the system as it works very well and has a battle rhythm aligned to the ACSC academic year which was perfect for us. It is more an admission that my expectations were out of kilter with the Defence Academy norm and therefore
the differences I experienced were signi cantly heightened compared to perhaps an RAF or Army family father in my situation.
What has impressed me is the commitment the Defence Academy play in welcoming all family members into the community both in and around the base. Although many of the clubs and projects are undoubtedly run by service personnel living in the community the nancial support, number and standard of activities available to meet all needs, not to mention a heated open-air swimming pool, often give it more the feel of a holiday camp than a military base.
In particular what would traditionally be the wives club is the neutrally named ‘DAFFY’s’ the Defence
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What has
impressed me is the commitment the
Defence Academy
play...
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