Normally, I find these things difficult to write as I am not an eloquent man by nature. However, in this case, as I sit with my coffee in hand looking back on the week, I am bursting with praise, ideas, words, memories, and conclusions from the time spent with the young people of the 1st Saragarhi Company CCF unit. I only hope I do justice getting it down on paper.
We got off the coach in Howtown at around 14:00 hrs on Monday afternoon after a seven-hour journey and were greeted by Martin and the team from the OWB Trust. Before I had time to gather my thoughts, we had discussed our needs over a rushed cup of coffee, and I found myself preparing to walk up Hallin Fell with a group of our cadets. On the way up, we practised our navigation skills as a group and started to talk about the resilience needed to get over the hills and bumps that you come across in the mountains as well as in life; however the hill in front of us was certainly not metaphorical!
That was Day One. By the second day, we were challenging our young people to jump from a perfectly good cliff into freezing cold water. I can absolutely vouch for this fact, as I was joining in the fun alongside them. The conversation from the night before started to become more pertinent as emotions—fear, excitement, and trepidation — ran high alongside tiredness from a late finish and early start, coupled with a level of healthy activity not found in a Slough classroom. As I lay bobbing in the water, watching our cadets being challenged in a way they never expected when they boarded the coach on Monday, I began to remember why wild places always soothe my own soul. We decided that, if nothing else, time in the wild was the perfect cure for post-exam anxiety—a time to forget about schoolbooks and mobile phones.
In a previous report, I put forward the idea that the sort of character development we try to teach in the CCF is not something that can be done once and ticked off in a box. It needs to happen over a period of time. If it is to have a lasting effect, repeated exposure to trips like this is how we make a real difference to resilience and character. This trip only reinforced those previous thoughts. As an example, on this trip, like all others, there are always a few cadets who are at the end of their time with us, and some will be moving on to new things. Over the course of the week, I found myself looking at these cadets and noticing how they were going out of their way to spend time with the junior cadets, sharing their experience and passing on stories of their time in the CCF. It occurred to me that not only did this mean that the CFAVs and I were producing a good experience, but more than that, this was also why we have never struggled with cadet numbers or retention. In turn, this allows us the privilege of watching them grow over an extended period of time.
In conclusion, as I realised that I would not see some of these senior cadets again, I felt certain that we had achieved our aim of giving them the life skills and self-belief to know that whatever they chose to do or be in the future, they would succeed. They will take everything in their stride and be good people whilst doing it.
