Young guns go for it

 As the Army Cadet Force prepares to celebrate its 150th anniversary next year, Steve Smethurst sets out to find out more about the links between cadets, the Legion, the military and the general public

From Legion Winter 2009

As many readers will appreciate, old age isn’t always kind, and 17-year-old Rachel Tresman (pictured, right) explains that her grandfather, of whom she is clearly very fond, suffers increasingly from Alzheimer’s and isn’t in the best of health. She also says that he was a loyal member of the Legion for many years and, despite his problems, she knows he is very proud of her achievements.

It’s easy to see why he would be, as Under Officer Tresman is one of the country’s top Army cadets and is destined for a glittering career as a frontline army medic dealing with complex trauma injuries. In fact, the future doctor has so many badges on her sleeve that she has had to trim their edges to squeeze them all in.

This year alone, she has been parachuting, scuba diving, walked 100 miles at Nijmegen and attended the annual camp. She has also been nominated for the Claire Shore Trophy – effectively the Cadet of the Year prize. “I’ve had to miss a few weeks of school, but when you get the chance to parade in front of the Duke of Edinburgh, you don’t turn it down,” she says.

Rachel is one of many bright, engaging Army cadets
that Legion meets at the 26 Surrey ACF detachments’ annual two-week summer camp at Okehampton in Devon. We were keen to find out what the next generation of the armed forces is like, and also to see what the Legion’s future members and beneficiaries know about the charity and what it can do for the serving and ex-service communities.

Surrey’s acting commandant, Lt Col Alan Mulder, reports that Rachel, like the vast majority of his cadets, “is polite, intelligent, articulate and knows what she wants to do. Some of that is innate, but some is also developed. Cadets have to have an interest in wanting to do all this. Once they get in, the leadership qualities, the self-discipline and the respect are teased out of them. You’ll find that our cadets are nice, good, decent kids.”

Talking to the cadets on Exmoor, it soon becomes clear that Alan is right. Rachel, perhaps inspired by her family links to the forces, joined the Cranleigh detachment at 12.

“I got really excited by all the activities you could do – especially parachuting. And I was desperate to do an
assault course,” she says.

She reveals that the cadets were welcoming and all had respect for adults. “It’s because they aspire to be what the adults are. A lot of my friends are quite jealous of what I’ve done and the experience I’ve had. I can relate to people from different backgrounds because I’m a cadet. I’m much more confident and more able to talk to adults.”
Jamie Pugh, 18, is a Cadet Regimental Sergeant Major.
He says that becoming a cadet was his first step in becoming a soldier. “It’s what I’ve always wanted to do, since I watched my first war film as a little kid. It’s easily lived up to expectations. I wish I could do it all over again.”

Jamie is set to join 3PWRR, the Princess of Wales’ Royal Regiment, which is the Territorial Army Infantry Battalion for the South East of England. If he enjoys it, he will move into one of the regular battalions and go for a commission. He joined cadets as a 13-year-old and immediately loved it. “It was very friendly and relaxed, but it was also ‘proper’.
It felt like the real thing. It was still military.
“I had a few friends who left cadets quite early on, but they regret it now when they see what I’m doing. It really pays off staying in. I’m much more self-sufficient – I remember that I used to get my mum to do all my washing and ironing. I can even sew now.”
Lance Cpl Ollie Lay, 15 (right), sums up the cadets experience nicely. “I’ve been in for nearly three years. Some friends recommended it. It was the adventure side really.

I used to be a scout, but I was told this was more extreme. Scouts was just campfires and going to bed at nine. This is much more fun, but more disciplined at the same time.”

Ollie tells Legion that he’s never been “one of those stupid people who talks all the time, so it was nice to come somewhere where people listen and respect adults and rank.” He’s also used cadets to overcome his fear of heights. “Your friends and the adult instructors give you a lot of support. I couldn’t climb up a ladder before, but now I can get to the top of a climbing wall.”

All three cadets are keen to stress that they know about the Legion. Ollie reports that he always helps out with the Poppy Appeal and parades. “I love chatting to the old guys – you can find out all the history from them,” he says. Jamie meanwhile reports that he has collected funds for the Legion for the past three years: “The Legion is there to support us in the future, so we need to support it now.”

And as Rachel points out: “A lot of people our age think the Legion is just for WWII, but we had PWRR soldiers with us yesterday and they were telling us that we should do everything we can for the Legion as it does so much for serving soldiers too.”

This is a message to delight Eddie Large. The Youth Officer for East Riding of Yorkshire says that 40% of cadets join the armed forces and he regards them as a huge, relatively untapped, market for Legion membership.

“I make sure that I visit our local detachment commanders at least once a month. There are a lot of misconceptions to put right. It transpired that a lot of cadets thought that all we did was sell poppies for one week of the year. Goodness knows what they thought we did for the other 51 weeks.

“We’ve done a lot of affiliations and it’s a two-way process. They get to know about the Legion now and what we do for the serving and the ex-service community. We also find that a lot of branches don’t have Standard Bearers, so we find that cadets are filling a useful role once they’ve joined the branch. I’d advise people to find out about the youth organisations in their area – even get their Boys’ Brigades and scouts interested.

“It’s also good to get the local Territorial Army interested, as you can get them to come along to give talks and explain to the youngsters what the Legion means – why we’re here and what we do,” he says.
Another pioneer in this regard is Steve Lewis, a young Branch Chairman from Torpoint, Cornwall. While it’s often said that if every Legion member was to recruit just one other person, it would double the charity’s strength, if every Legion member was like Steve, then the organisation would be an Army, or, more accurately, a Navy.
Steve reports that his personal recruiting tally stands at 1,159 new members (as of mid-September). Admittedly, his job is made easier because the Initial Training Establishment for the Royal Navy, HMS Raleigh, is within the confines of his small town, but even so, he has had to work hard for his recruits.

Until recently, the branch had no access to Raleigh and accordingly many potential members have been lost over the years. But after undertaking a County Recruiting Officer’s Course in 2008, Steve approached the base’s Commanding Officer Captain Jonathon Woodcock (a member of Torpoint Legion, handily) and asked him for his thoughts about recruiting within Raleigh. “He said that it was important,” recalls Steve, “and within seven days a weekly briefing slot was inserted into the Phase One programme. This is a mandatory-attendance brief although I was aware that you can lead a horse to water….”

Steve came up with a script and started his presentations in February this year. He was tentative about how he would be received by the youngsters and rightly so. “I think that I made it a bit too formal and, on top of a busy training programme, this brought up some barriers. Out of an initial class of 61, only 22 signed up, although to have any new members of that age is still probably ok.”

However, seeking to improve his rates, he decided to tone the presentation down and also to dress down for the next brief. Now he wears a County polo shirt and jeans, and uses ‘matelot-speak’. “No airs, no graces – just plain straight talk and this is what they seem to respond to,” he says (see the panel on page 24 for Steve’s recruiting tips).

Currently, he has delivered 25 briefs to 1,323 Naval recruits and signed up 984 – a success rate of 74%. This is an impressive tally, but these youngsters have also put their money where their mouths are, and given £3,593 in voluntary donations. One group, Pellew 10 Entry, recently set a new high. Of 62 attending the brief, 57 signed up and they donated £449 between them.

Steve is the first to admit that his work is far from done. He says he is determined to continue to work with the local ACF, although he is yet to sign any up as youth members.

In addition, the local junior school pupils hold an annual Veterans’ Day which the branch is quite involved in and they are just about to start work with children at the senior school. It is hoped that this will lead to more involvement and maybe an annual briefing to the older students.
Of course, cadet groups also offer Legion members the chance to give something back. Lt Col Mulder says that in Surrey, as in other parts of the country, “we’re desperately short of officers, 20 in Surrey alone – we need 25- to 40-year-old middle managers with administrative skills
and managerial experience to help run detachments.

“We just ask that people are willing. At the moment, I’m the acting commandant, PR officer, president of officers’ mess committee, president of the corps of pipes and drums, and I organise all the extramural activities and trips. I could do with three or four other people to do these jobs. There is an age limit of 50, but a service background is a great advantage – and it would be ideal for Legion members. They would bring a whole network of contacts.”

So, what are you waiting for – spread the word. Get in touch with your local schools, scouts, cadet forces and training establishments. It’ll be good for you, good for the youngsters and good for the Legion as it should go a long way to changing some pretty outdated perceptions.