We all got on the coach at Palace Barracks and left for Ballymena. I can remember being super excited, we all were. There were people on that bus that I am still friends with now, 20 years later. Some were chatting and others were listening to their portable cd players. I remember looking out of the bus window as it drove up the hill section of the M2 and seeing my dads flat and thinking this was it, I asked to do this so I better put my all into it.
We arrived at St Patrick's Barracks in Ballymena, also known as The Depot, it was a splendid camp and steeped in history. It felt good to be back in an army camp again, I hadn't seen the inside of one properly since I was an army cadet. I felt secure in here, this was my world. As soon as the bus door opened an instructor walked on board and screamed at us to get off the bus and line up. I had been shouted at before in the cadets, I knew what this was, but others weren't so comfortable with this and I could see them struggling from the outset. We were all told to put our mobile phones and cd players in a black bag, we wouldn't need them for a while.
We started off with around 60 people, a huge platoon but I think we lost at least 5 in the first week. Things were tough and we were after all, just children. In fact, I was reliably informed that at 16 and two months I was the youngest soldier to ever pass through the Depot. I was very proud of this record and to my knowledge it's never been beaten. When I first started training my fitness was very poor, I remember failing my basic fitness test which included a certain number of sit ups, press ups and a 1.5 mile run in under 13 minutes. I smoked and didn't have a good diet prior to starting the course and it showed early on. One thing about me is that I am very proud and do not like looking bad. I would have trained in my own time at night and did my own runs in order to get my fitness up to speed. I began to improve drastically, I went from being in the last 10 on every run to being in the top 3 on a regular basis. My PB on the 1.5 mile run was down to under 8 minutes. Where I really excelled was when tabbing, tab stands for "tactical advance to battle" which meant walking and running with weight on your back. I seemed to find this easier than most in my platoon and it was appreciated by my instructors. Someone had told me that to get through phase one training you needed to be fit, so I threw my all into fitness. It masked the fact of my poor speaking, I could impress people with that as I wouldn't be able to do it with my communication skills. This was just another example of how I would hide away. I remember one instructor making fun of my speech, it's funny how all the great things I did on that course get quickly forgotten and that one incident is imprinted in my head.
We had weekly inspections on the course on a Friday, one of these inspections was particularly important as we were all able to go home for the weekend. We had only been home once since the course started so we were all super excited to get this weekend off. I felt like a break from the 6am starts and being shouted at was needed. The only stipulation was that you had to pass this inspection. Inspections were broke into 2 parts, you had block jobs (meaning cleaning the block where we lived) and then your own personal kit and locker would be looked at. The block jobs were everyone's responsibility, your own kit was yours. I remember going to town on this inspection. I cleaned absolutely everywhere. I remember one of the instructors having to tell me to climb down from a chair in the hallway as I was dusting a light. One thing I didn't do, was check inside my cup in my locker.. When the inspection came our platoon commander was very impressed with our room and I thought I was well on my way home! Soon as he lifted out my cup my heart sank, he rubbed his finger inside with his white gloves on, then showed me the dust. He threw the cup down on my bed and snarled, "you're going nowhere this weekend". I could not believe it. I went to the bathroom and cried my eyes out. I watched everyone getting ready and leaving and I had to stay in Ballymena on my own for the weekend. It was funny, I felt like such a failure but it really taught me a lesson. It never happened again in my army career, I always passed inspections.
People continued to leave the platoon, I have to admit though when someone left it gave me a boost to keep going and that I must be stronger than the ones leaving. I feel bad about feeling like that. I never considered leaving, not once. This was everything I had. The ones that were leaving were going back to their towns in NI, to their friends and family that they missed. I saw it that I didn't have that, I didn't have that to go back to. I would go back to being nobody and have nothing. I did have family of course, but there was just something missing with my mum, brother, and sister being in England.
I passed my phase 1 and my pass out parade was held at The Deport, I have to say this was up until that point, the happiest day of of my life. I had actually achieved something that so many people can't and won't put themselves through. All my family came including my late grandfather. I have a great picture of him and me on that day and he was so proud of me. My granddad was the greatest man I ever knew, the epitome of decency. He would have given me anything and I respected him.
I got a few weeks leave after the course and had a flight booked to England to a place called Bovington to do my phase two, where you were taught to drive tanks.
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