Thursday afternoons at Birkenhead School were for playing soldiers. Everyone was more or less obliged to join the Combined Cadet Force. We were fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate, to have a genuine, high-ranking ex-soldier as our CO: Lt. Col. Arthur N. Green (AKA “The Ang”).

Dad’s Army was one of the most popular programmes at the time. Walking to and from school dressed like a squaddie, when you clearly weren’t one, was almost as embarrassing as wearing a school cap the rest of the week. There were compensations: we got the opportunity to handle and fire weapons. There was an indoor rifle range across the road at the Chetwynd TA Centre, where we were taught one end of a Lee-Enfield from the other by Sergeant Major McLaughlin, known to all as “Fang” for his distinctive dentition. “Strip a rifle? You lot couldn’t strip a woman!” A little harsh on 16-year-olds… while demonstrating a rather old-fashioned attitude towards the fair sex.

Every year there was a CCF summer camp. You had to give up a week of your holidays. I was under no illusions that it would be enjoyable. But if you got certain activities out of the way, you wouldn’t have to do them in term-time; plus, you got privileges in the Cadre – most obviously, a red beret and a uniform that almost fitted. If you had a girlfriend, real or imaginary, who might see you on your way home, such things had a value.

So it was off by coach to Blackshaw Moor (near Leek). It was late June, but you could have fooled me. It seemed like a godforsaken place at any season of the year. There were 30 of us, enough to make up two platoons and occupy two huts. There was no-one in my hut in whose company I would have chosen to spend longer than five minutes. There was blanket-boxing, Blanco and Brasso, square-bashing and PT, rifle-stripping and machine-gun practice, and field-craft and orienteering.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

One of the more demanding tasks we were set was a “night op”. This necessitated crawling across a field by moonlight, and labouring uphill through a wood to a hurricane lamp where two “NCOs” would be waiting. They were to give each of us upon our arrival (we set off in pairs) a scrap of paper. These fragments, when assembled, were supposed to form a map or password… or something like that, I forget the details. We were taken to recce the site in the afternoon; the field was generously carpeted with cowpats, which I looked forward to leopard-crawling over in the dark.

***

As night fell we returned to the field of action in two Bedford three-tonners. I began to crawl through the cowpats, then ghost-walked successfully to the hurricane lamp in the wood. That was not too bad; now for the return leg. Having lost my “other half”, I worked out a laborious way of returning via the dry-stone walls and fences of the field boundaries. It would take me an age, but at least I’d eventually be heading in the right direction. I was cold, despite my long-johns, and it was starting to rain. I gave up trying to move stealthily; it took far too long. The “officers” tossed thunder-flashes at us to simulate artillery bombardment. It was no fun at all.

Predictably, the exercise degenerated into a shambles. Some lads lost their sense of direction and headed away from the target rather than towards it. When I eventually trudged back to the Bedford I was surprised to see that I was only the fifth or sixth from our platoon to complete the task. At midnight, whistles and flares signalled the end of the farce. Boys emerged from the gloom, limping. One had a broken arm, another a sprained ankle, others cuts to their heads, like extras from The Longest Day. Those of us who didn’t have to make a visit to North Staffs Royal Infirmary got a mug of cocoa and a lie-in.

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Two years later… My mate Paul and I had read in the NME about the inaugural Buxton Rock Festival, which had hosted Steppenwolf, Wishbone Ash, Vinegar Joe, and Family. Curved Air were also on the bill – but didn’t play, as Sonja Kristina didn’t fancy singing in the freezing cold at 3am. Buxton was the North’s premier festival (in fact, it was the only one, north of Reading). We decided we’d go to the second festival, so one Saturday morning in July 1973, together with Ray, who worked at NatWest and owned an MG 1300, we set off full of enthusiasm.

What genius had decided to hold an open-air event in the area with the highest rainfall in England? We should have known what to expect from that CCF summer camp (as the two sites were only about 15 miles apart). The moorland site was exposed and cold, and it began to rain as soon as we got there. I remember seeing Canned Heat (we should have brought some), Edgar Broughton, Medicine Head and Alex Harvey, who gave a stirring rendition of “Saint Anthony”.

Oh the temptations, oh the sensations

One band I was especially looking forward to seeing was the Groundhogs… but they refused to perform, as did Roy Wood. The entire audience, and some of the acts, were intimidated by a gang of Hell’s Angels who wandered around demanding money with menaces. Chuck Berry was headlining; we caught glimpses of him through the polythene sheet under which we were huddling.

We spent almost as long trying to free the car from the mud as we did watching the bands. John Peel, MC that day, said later that campaign medals should have been struck. We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.