A Saturday Night Story - Riding Instruction

[Harley's Dad]

In about 1930 my father was a Gentleman Cadet at Sandhurst - that was the term used in those, perhaps more snooty, days. When I went, well after WW2, we were known as mere Officer Cadets.

But back to 1930. There has been at Sandhurst a longstanding tradition dating from before then that the NCO instructors could be as rude as they liked to any cadet, whatever his background, provided they always concluded their bollocking with "Sir".

And in those days riding instruction was part of the curriculum and the riding instructors were a thoroughly hard-bitten lot with years of service under their belts and an unspoken disregard for the "toffs" they were instructing.

Anyway, a fellow cadet of my fathers was a certain Lord Palmer. His title meant nothing to the instructors - he was just another bloody cadet who they had to teach.

But on this particular day Palmer was doing very badly indeed in the riding school. He couldn't trot, still less canter, and could hardly control his horse - it was awful. Eventually the Staff-Sergeant instructor had had enough: "Mr Palmer, Sir, Mr Palmer - if Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem the way you're riding that horse, it's no f...ing wonder they crucified him! True story ...

Tony.

[Ninja Orange]

lol
5char

[MunchBox]

Aha, that's good.

[effervescence]

Teeheehee.

[Cacoethes]

you'd think that the 'snooty' set in the 1930's would ride horses from birth.
all posh people could ride horses!

[Scaredy-cat]

Heehee

[Bellatrix]

Love :D

[Harley's Dad]

You're partly right Scarletts. But not all cadets, even then, were from wealthy backgrounds. My grandfather - whose 390 page handwritten WW1 diary I mentioned here not long ago - was one of 10 or so siblings and he retired after WW1 on a meagre Army pension. No horses for my father.

Nor was it necessary to be from a "snooty" background to succeed in the Army. Field Marshal "Wullie" Robertson who played a major part in WW1 had started out as a private soldier and worked his way to the very top on merit ...

Tony.

[Isoverity]

I live near West Point. Every year they have a Sandhurst Competition (began in 1967) where teams from various institutions and countries compete in tests of military skills. A West Point team won for the fist time in 2011. Sandhurst won most of the time with the Royal Military College of Canada winning 4 times. With 500 cadets competing it makes for a very noisy day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhurst_Competition

[BridgesAndBalloons]

love it.

[Harley's Dad]

Thanks for that Jack. I was at Sandhurst before '67 and didn't know about this until now. Glad to see though that Sandhurst has shown up pretty well overall.

Tony.

[Ettie]

haha thats awesome. :)

[FabulousMike]

LOLOLOL now that was a good story! Mr Harley's dad please keep these funny storys coming.