2d ago

Anybody do CCF at school?

Combined Cadet Force

I still have a hard time explaining this to people who don't know what it is.

Essentially, kids are "voluntarily" put into this thing after school where they dress up in uniforms and berets and forced to do marching drills.

You then pick whether you want to do Army/Navy/RAF, and you get to do some shooting drills. Guns are brought into the school (without ammo) and kids are shown how to shoot.

Every year each group goes on a summer camp type excursion where they get to fire real weapons or fly gliders or something.

And that's it.

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Nope but I had a good friend who did

Yup, did army in one year but spent 90% of it in the Signals hut playing Halo local multiplayer. No regrets
- Finally, some actual training for something useful!

I've never heard of this thing, but we had a similar programme where I grew up, where an older kid called "Scouse Jimmy" taught us to make play-explosives out of cap-gun caps, sellotape, 1p coins, matchstick-heads and tennis balls.
I don't think it was officially organised by the school - probably a lack of funding for that sort of thing, so it was more of a voluntary self-led after-school community activity.
- Kids taking a keen interest in their own education should always be praised, and I salute you and your three remaining fingers.
  
  Hahaha :)
  Surprisingly, we all got through that phase with (to my knowledge) zero injuries, and other than a selection of slightly molten or de-limbed action figures, never harmed anyone else except a snowman, a tree and a cardboard cutout of a long-forgotten 1980s TV celebrity.

I was in the Air Cadets although it wasn't part of the school. It was an after school activity and was great. I got to shoot guns and fly planes and develop leadership skills and character. While some did use it as a springboard into RAF (direct or via sponsored university place) there was no push to do so.

Did air cadets when I was a teen, I milked it for every flight I could, and met some people I’m still great mates with decades later. Couldn’t recommend it highly enough.

They did it at the local posh boys school and we used to take the piss as none of them could fight their way out of a damp paper bag.
- Yep, sounds about right

I did the RAF cadets at school. I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time. Got to do a lot of fun activities and wracked up about 20 hours of flying time. Even got to land a grob tutor one time.
But yeah, it was also a tool of indoctrination, so fuck that
- Did you keep up with the flying or anything later in life?
  
  I wanted to but it's an expensive hobby and I was way too into drinking and drugs as a young adult to spend my time doing anything fun or constructive.

Yes, RAF in early ‘90s. Taught me how to polish boots, shoot a gun (SA-80), march, stand around for hours, and flew a Chipmunk once.
It was a choice of either that or ‘Community Service’.
- Oh shit yeah, I forgot about all the fucking shoe polish. Nice you got to fly an actual plane

Did you go to a grammar school? I thought these were a grammar school only thing. If I recall, people had a choice to do CCF or other things, like sports clubs?
I went to Air Cadets (ATC), which was basically CCF but nothing at all to do with school. Had a great time! Shooting and flying (not at the same time) was really fun. And I'll never forget the moment where I was walking to a hut at RAF Leeming near a runway when holding two cups of tea, and a Tornado gave it the full beans to start to take off nearby. Think I felt every molecule in my body vibrate at that moment!
- Oh nice! And yeah grammar school
  How close were you to the plane?
  
  This was a long time ago, but I'd say 400 or 500 metres? We were waiting in a hut near the runway so we could jump in a plane and do our flights, so it had to be fairly close. There was absolutetly nothing between myself and the runway other than grass and a taxi way, so close enough!

Very strange how your mystifying cadets of all things. "Ooh, what a strange place it was, they made me do things like wearing a uniform and marching" yeah genius it's one of the youth wings of our military forces.
- Lmao! Still, isn't it a bit weird? Not many schools do it over here, and it's seen as chivalric knighthood quiet patriotism thing, instead of a funnel for the armed forces.
  Regular state school kids aren't told to go to the army until they're out of school
  
  Well no, not many schools have a CCF branch because the CCF is specifically for private schools and focuses on a more general "officer training" than the normal cadet branches. There are plenty of regular navy cadet, army cadet and air cadet forces for the state school kids, doing much the same things.

Nope, never even heard of it.
- Me neither I didn't know it was a thing

I did thr RAAF cadets in Australia for 10 years.
Was awesome, showed me I didn't want to join the airforce haha.
Seriously though we had a great time, the structure and the instruction was great.
Most of my friends all went on to join the military and are only now getting out in our early 30s were as I got a trade and sorted my shit
- Hah yeah, I came to same revelation

I kinda wish I'd done cadets when I was younger, honestly.
Hearing other kids at school talking about weekends of ratpacks full of biscuits fruit made me quite envious.
I also discovered I'm not a bad shot, so who knows how much better I'd have been with training.
- The trips were definitely fun, and the guns were kinda fun (You spend most of the time getting mud out of the barrel every time you sat down)
  I can't shoot for shit, though am decent with bow and arrow.

Nah, a few of the people I knew did though.
There was a Cadet Office in Hexham, which we used to pass on the way up to the schools
- Did you ever feel like you were missing out? Or were those kids seen as a bit different or something
  
  Not at all, it was just for the posh kids really

Hitler Youth vibes. Europe/UK is seriously not okay right now jesus.
- I mean, it's just ROTC, right? (Not that that makes it better, ROTC is also very Hitler Youth.) I guess I'm just saying, this post is like "here's a weird thing Britain does", and I'm like "we have that in the US too".
  
  ROTC
  Is that for 15 year olds too?
- Its been around for a while, but I can see where you're coming from and do think its a weird tradition to impress onto young kids
- Army Cadets were around at least 40 years ago. Definitely not just a recent thing.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadets_(youth_program)

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