ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by Cuddles

"Do you hunt? Good. Play rugger at all? Position? Centre, excellent. The mess is full of forwards at the moment. Do I know your mother? Ah, capital. Well that ought to be alright."

The interview of a late friend of mine when visiting his cavalry regiment. As reported by him. The salt is on the table over there, just one pinch!

Sounds pretty close to my initial chat with the Skins. The Colonel of the Regiment picked me up from outside the mess at Larkhill (like with Universities one has to have an insurance offer) in his battered shooting brake with slight aroma of labrador and we discussed just the same on the way to lunch.

The fam visit to the Regiment was a little more challenging. We were plied with half-pints of mixed spirits called "Jelly Wobblers" at the end of a dinner night, then expected to remain sensible for the next few days.

Originally Posted by CaptainPlume

Sounds pretty close to my initial chat with the Skins. The Colonel of the Regiment picked me up from outside the mess at Larkhill (like with Universities one has to have an insurance offer) in his battered shooting brake with slight aroma of labrador and we discussed just the same on the way to lunch.

The fam visit to the Regiment was a little more challenging. We were plied with half-pints of mixed spirits called "Jelly Wobblers" at the end of a dinner night, then expected to remain sensible for the next few days.

By a not perhaps so surprising coincidence, this chap also commissioned into the Skins. '84 I think - unless he gapped it? You probably know him Plumers, PM me if you are that interested?

Applicants are told all these stories about Oxbridge interviews, too (interviewees thrown a rugger ball as they walk through the door to see if they catch it, etc.) - but they're all total nonsense. Just because the interviews are not exercises in caring and sharing people write them off as a "who was your father" inquisitorial session but there's no truth in it.

Mind you, if there are first-hand accounts of regimental visits like this...

Originally Posted by Aspiring Cadet

Applicants are told all these stories about Oxbridge interviews, too (interviewees thrown a rugger ball as they walk through the door to see if they catch it, etc.) - but they're all total nonsense.

OK they are perhaps a bit overstated, and bear in mind I commissioned close on twenty-one years ago, but at the time a Cavalry Regiment would likely be posted to Germany for twelve or fifteen years at a time. A Young Officer would be unlikely to be away for much time at all, except the odd career course or perhaps serving at a training establishment, with the AAC or SF, or perhaps on loan and even then these jobs were rare & normally came at Captain level.

Accordingly it was very important to get people who fitted in with the individual messes. For example the Skins when I joined had a reputation for being sociable to the point of alcoholism and regarding anyone with more than a single A-Level as a dangerous intellectual. A University graduate might not have fitted into this milieu: indeed one such joined but found he didn't like the mess atmosphere and transferred, not just to the Light Cavalry but to a Vulgar Fraction to boot

This was not about snobbishness. In my first mess there were two former Corporals, one ex-Int Corps, one ex R Signals and while I didn't know one of them well, t'other was my absolute role model for the rest of my career. On the other hand there was an Officer who came from one of the biggest names in Regimental history & from the stereotypical background who was not ahem the most sympathetic of characters (if I might put it like that) & had retaineded that reputation when I met him a long time after I had left.

"A University graduate might not have fitted into this milieu: indeed one such joined but found he didn't like the mess atmosphere and transferred, not just to the Light Cavalry but to a Vulgar Fraction to boot "

This is part of the reason I've been looking at the Cav regiments including 9th/12th - partly because of the reasons I've already mentioned (history, tradition etc.) but also for reasons of fitting in; pretty much everyone I knew from university who was in the OTC or went off to Sandhurst (unless they were going for something skill-specific like REs) was joining the RAC. However, I don't think I'd make the cut if things are the same as 20-odd years ago (grandfather was an OR in the REs, great uncle was an NCO in the 17th/21st Lancers, other Great uncle a Flight Sergeant - no officer history that I'm aware of). However, I've been led to believe that things are a bit more meritocratic (subject to the demands of regimental character and fitting in) than they used to be.

Sorry I couldn't work out how to quote properly...

Sorry, Aspiring Cadet, but your post #16 doesn't seem to suggest you've worked out how to make a cogent point properly, either. Show again!

Very sorry if I was unclear. You talked about the importance of fitting in in the mess, and mentioned an officer from a University background who didn't fit in in your regiment and transferred out to the light cav (which your comment seemed to imply might be more receptive to graduate types). I have just come down from Cambridge, where all of my colleagues who joined the Army went off to the RAC, which seems to support your point. Given this, I've been looking into the RAC myself.

However, IF things are as they were 20-odd years ago in terms of needing to know the right people, have gone to the right school, or have had relatives / ancestors serving as officers in the regiment, then I probably wouldn't be selected since my only known immediate relatives who served were Other Ranks or NCOs, not officers, and I didn't go to a school with a CCF tradition / regimental connection.

BUT if things are less based on background and/or nepotism than they seemed to have been in the past, then I might get by.