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Rowallan Company - Propaganda Booklet (circa 1982)

Having been through the mill at regular and TA basic my RCB decided that I did not need RowCo or the other one PCC? (where you got taught to use the correct knife and fork). My SMC had RowCo, PCC, Bde Squad, Welbeck (many of of whom had done RowCo). I, for one, was impressed with the zeal that they had applied to make it to SMC and they were all good chaps. The modern grad entry mixed with what would have been SMC is wrong, but hey ho I did not make it high enough up the chain to have any influence on officer training. But I will say this; the determination and reslove displayed, in my day, by those who went through the process showed a desire to be an officer and lead soldiers. So much of what I see on the the officer entry threads is about the career they can build off he back of the soldiers they lead and how they need to get everything right from day one. RowCo et al was about ****, up was about failing and was about learning, something we appear to have forgotten.
 
Come on you lot don't derail this thread with opinions as how to improve YO training, this is a thread for those chosen few to congratulate themselves on how great they were to both attend and pass Rowallan, and how easy their subsequent commissioning course was.

So here goes, my Rowallan was great, loved every minute of it and my commissioning course was a piece of wazz.

Bubbles I also attended an RAC O Type in 78 and Rowallan in Sept 78 and commissioned in Aug 79 so I suspect that we have been in receipt of similar experiences from members of the DS during that period, oh glory days.

On discussing the Rowallan course with a former member of the DS he asked if I had achieved any position of authority in the cadet Government during my SMC, which I had not, he said he was not surprised as in those days if you had done well on Rowallan you were very unlikely to become a JUO or whatever as you had already proven your abilities and they liked to bring on straight passes from RCB not those who had required their character building no matter how good they were. Probably explains why come our JUO was straight out of Public School (now a Tory MP) Cdt Sgt was a RSigs SSgt who was to young to commission directly to the QM chain, an ex Bdr and a guy who had spent two years as a TA officer attached to a Reg Inf Bn including a NI tour, had more medals between them than all of the DS.

As I say halcyon days.

I suspect the RTR/Parachute Regiment axis was still strong.......

I hated Rowallan at the time , but loved SMC (as Rowallan 'previous' allowed me to be a slacker), RCC was even better years later. I never managed the heights of Cadet Government, but your comments chime exactly - JUO a Cav public schoolboy, , Sgt an ex 264 Sigs Cpl, Cpls a mix of ex JNCOs and others. All deserved I have to say, no bitching on my part.

As I have said, it was 'of its time'. It was never able to provide the same output once times changed and frankly, the late 70s and early 80s were the last time you could expect the raw material to accept the way they were being treated without legal action.

Somebody mentioned motivation earlier being a major criterion - ******* right it was, the slightest hint that you weren't prepared to kill for the right to march up the steps meant immediate RTU.

It was a course designed for immature 18 year olds in the 1970s, on the lines of WW2 Commando training 30 years earlier - of course it wouldn't work in the 21st Century...................
 
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Yes. Deer Rock Hill being a favourite location. (allegedly)

Blimey - you had to be very bad to get a 'show bedspace' at Deer Rock or the Radio Tower, Pt 406 was more common on my course - check Sheet 186 you slackers!

If anyone got a Deer Rock or a Radio Tower we used to band together and shift the gear as a group -talk about banding together in opposing the DS!

Later we bribed 44 Sqn or local taxis to simply drive us there!
 
I think mine was the first year that they didn't hit you too hard from day 1, might have been day 2 or 3 but it did give the poor chap who started the course for the 3rd time (how dedicated is that?) to brief us all up on what to expect.
I recall the stories of mean machines being done naked with the girls block overlooking it. Can you imagine that now or that position reversed back then? My CSgt achieved his aim of giving out the most mean machines ever. That is the sort of pointlessness I've been on about.

When I left though I was expert at command tasks, mean with a map, knew Barossa like the back of my hand, fit as you like, prepared for any shit SMC could throw at us, never got picked up on inspection at SMC and so on. I remember some top calibre guys who would carry everybody else when things got really tough and one or two who just seemed to hang onto the coat tails of everybody else which was no different to the CC.

I see Brecon Brenda mentioned. I had expunged that from my memory! I now recall being dropped off at the side of what must have been another big hill or mountain, in the dark and in another bloody gale or at least very very strong wind and of course we went straight up the side of it.
For the uninitiated, the tunnel I mentioned in a previous post isn't one of those 10 foot ones but many many yards long.
I remember those yellow handbags, which somehow I very rarely got unlike some of the poor buggers who seemed grafted to one or more of them and them balancing them on the top of those metal framed bergans and then banging into the back of their heads with each step.
I remember being all huddled up in the back of the 4 tonners, wet and steaming, thundering down the M4.
And I do remember the DS having some pride in us for having completed the course which didn't really show on the CC.
 
Did roco, hated it at the time but easily the best experience of my life, made Commissioning Course a breeze, except the tactics. Mission impossible, best thing I have ever done, never get the chance to do something as outrageous in real life. People got roco for all sorts of reasons, I got a 1 and RCB briefing and a 1 at RCB, so got a top pass but because I didn't go to uni and had been bumming around travelling for three years I was sent straight to roco to see if I really wanted to be in the army or because it was a last resort before getting a proper job. JUO t Sandhurst, distinction and instructor recommendation at Warminster, so I reckon I did alright. You definitely have a mentality of 'you weren't there man, it was brutal' but that's because it was. Dumped at night in the middle of Wales and told to find your way back to the checkpoints covering 30 something miles on your own, I cried a couple of times! Some people who got binned from roco were better than some who passed out of Sandhurst. It doesn't necessarily make you better, but it sure toughens you up. My girlfriend cried the minute she saw me because I had lost so much weight. I'd only been there three weeks!
 
There will no doubt be some bright spark who will cruise in with the "why are you bringing an old thread to life".
RowCo was an institution that today would have been banned, senior officers would blanche with horror and politicians would be screaming for blood. Letters would be asked in the House, suicides would no doubt have happened, and the class act might well have happened. But hell it worked, it produced some real stars and I don't disagree that better men were binned from RowCo than the SMC. But then again SMC wasn't a bed of roses!
Biscuit1978 I bet you didn't eat your hamster on the long yomp, or was before it got softer!
Well done all you who wear the scars, I salute you!
 
I have to say that some senior officers would do the opposite of blanche with horror but say "where's your bobble hat?" "Your bergan is clearly light, here's four housebricks" and "You may have thought the exercise was over Gentlemen - get out of the truck and parade in 3 ranks with your map and compass!"

This is the April 1979 course before Brecon Brenda.

I don't have an 'after' photo as lifting the camera had become a bit hard, and half the course had been chucked out of the Academy. For those afficianados of military apparel, I still have my hat, and the black plastic shit at the bottom of our bergans contained Sandhurst Mufti - in case we encountered genteel company on the hills.
 

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I have to say that some senior officers would do the opposite of blanche with horror but say "where's your bobble hat?" "Your bergan is clearly light, here's four housebricks" and "You may have thought the exercise was over Gentlemen - get out of the truck and parade in 3 ranks with your map and compass!"

This is the January 1979 course before Brecon Brenda.

I don't have an 'after' photo as lifting the camera had become a bit hard, and half the course had been chucked out of the Academy. For those afficianados of military apparel, I still have my hat, and the black plastic shit at the bottom of our bergans contained Sandhurst Mufti - in case we encountered genteel company on the hills.

That photo is magnificent.

It's like a dark reboot of the "Where's Wally?" Franchise - based on a group of East German train spotters trying to get across the IGB to the land of Deltics and rolling stock.

I was having a moment of rational recollecting and reminiscence this morning - why was our Plane Jane run on Dartmoor? Then the penny dropped (or rather I "reframed" to think like DS) - we went because SPTA wasn't guaranteed to be wet and miserable enough!

"Fond" (shudder) Brecon Brenda memories of the gradient of each night's Bivvy site getting incrementally steeper.
 
I didn´t do Rowco, but I did do it´s slightly easier cousin Brigade Squad. Love the photo - the orange cagoul brought the memories flooding back. The famous orange cagoul wash´t water proof and it didn´t keep you warm. When it got wet, it stayed wet for a week and weighed a ton. Was it designed just to make life harder for people in training?
 
I didn´t do Rowco, but I did do it´s slightly easier cousin Brigade Squad. Love the photo - the orange cagoul brought the memories flooding back. The famous orange cagoul wash´t water proof and it didn´t keep you warm. When it got wet, it stayed wet for a week and weighed a ton. Was it designed just to make life harder for people in training?

The Psyops purpose of the cagoule was in its nickname.

This was mostly lost when the last generation to remember Shep had gone through the factory.
 
OMG, just seen myself on post no 82. 46 started, 26 finished I think. If you were there you will remember the live rations on that exercise. We dragged a live sheep around for a whole day before realising it was dinner, naive or what!
 
OMG, just seen myself on post no 82. 46 started, 26 finished I think. If you were there you will remember the live rations on that exercise. We dragged a live sheep around for a whole day before realising it was dinner, naive or what!

Just looked at my end of course photo. We might have started with 46 (less I think) but only 14 finished - were we really on the same course?

Perhaps it was all a nightmare.........
 
Rowallan 8, we had a tie with mushrooms on it after the ones outside our barrack block near the back gate? We really were kept in the dark and fed on bullshit! The numbers I gave might have been my SMC platoon which also had a high fallout rate. We got trapped one night on Dartmoor during a storm and had to walk off the next morning, to be met with the worst mutton stew I had ever tried to eat. Our CO made the cooks do fish and chips for our next meal in the field (delivered wrapped in newspaper in hay boxes). I have to say my time there is all one confusing memory, so much happened in so short a time.
 
The contention about RowCo was apparent years ago.

It was set up by the CoS at RMAS with quite a lot of care and thought to "develop" the individual. Nice chap, ex DLI, awful lot of charm, intelligence and practicality.

Inherited by ex SAS troopie from the Paras who changed a lot to more beastings because unless you are able to take inordinate physical discomfort, you are unlikely to make a good officer.

Sorry, but never understood the lack of thought in the physical demands of RowCo and sympathised with the ignominy it inflicted.
 
Should have passed RCB then!


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