1927sqn.org
Updated December 2011
1927 (Petersfield) Sqn Air Cadets
1927 (Petersfield) SQN ATC,
Bell Hill Recreation Ground, Beckham Lane
Petersfield, Hants, GU32 5BU
01730 268525 (Manned on parade nights; Tuesday + Thursday 1900-2100.
At all other times, please leave a message on the answerphone.)
Camps are forever, they don’t just last a week
Sgt Lucy Asbridge
In my three and a half years of experience, I have come to realise one important fact: camps are the main event in a cadet’s annual calendar. But as much fun as getting away from raging siblings, unruly pets and your parents is, you need to make sure you pick the right week and a bit away.
There seem to be three types of camp in the Air Training Corps; ones where you run around outside pretending to be in a war zone (a lot of fun, but often cold), ones where you look at bases and experience real RAF life (interesting and worthwhile, but not my cup of tea) and those where you spend a week in the mountains on what is effectively and adventure holiday.
Being a fourteen year old girl, unwilling to spend a week with military enthused boys and equally like minded girls, I picked option three. A week away in the beautiful region that surrounds Windermere sounded perfect: and it was.
I don’t think that I really knew what I was expecting. Obviously I’d been on camps before, but this was nothing that could be compared to my woodland-themed Brownie pack holidays that I called my experience.
One of my biggest fears was not knowing anybody. My friends from cadets were off on another camp and the only people I recognised were a few of the older cadets from my squadron that I hadn’t really spoken to before. So, pulling my young, somewhat plucky, self together I struck up conversation with a thirteen year old girl from a squadron the other side of Hampshire. It was unknown to me then, that two years later we would still be in contact and firm friends.
The journey was exhausting. Coach journeys are never fun, and this was no exception. But in a matter of minutes, the older cadets had the whole coach singing along to some real 80's classics.
Hours and hours passed by and just as we were all falling asleep, we arrived.
The girls were ushered upstairs where we had our dormitory, complete with en suite, whilst the boys loaded their bags into the bigger downstairs room where they were to sleep. The room itself held four bunk beds which we quickly assigned to ourselves before hurrying downstairs to eat a belated dinner of chips and beans.
The food throughout the camp was great. And the best bit? We made it all ourselves. The food was so much nicer that I expected. We had everything. From ice cream to mild chicken curry, toad-in-the-hole to custard, whatever we wanted. I could have as much, or as little, as I felt like. It was a real taste of freedom for me.
The liberty was one of the greatest parts of the whole experience. We chose what we ate, when we slept, whether we went into town in the evenings, where we wanted to go, who we wanted to be with and even what we wanted to do.
The camp as a whole made me a million times more independent and a thousand times more confident in myself. Here I was, surrounded by thirty boys and girls who were just like me. Within days I was doubting my initial fears, and by the end of the week, home was a distant and seemingly unreal memory.
But people weren’t the reason I went on this camp. I went for the adventure. I did things that I couldn’t have even dreamt of doing back in sleepy Hampshire. Over the course of a week I had abseiled down a cliff face, kayaked down a river, walked for miles over a beautiful landscape and learnt so much more than just how to read a map. This is what I came for: the thrill; the excitement. And it was certainly what I got. We spent our days walking and our nights playing cards. Soon enough the early mornings and late nights were nothing but routine.
And then we came home.
That was 2009. It’s now 2011, and since then I’ve been on so many more camps. Some the same as that, some in fields and some just overnight. Camps really are, in my opinion, one of the best opportunities you will get as a cadet. Even if you are one of those people with a little less pluck that I had, it doesn’t matter. It will be one of the best things you will ever do in your entire life. And that’s a promise.
If you want to see some pictures of camps like Windermere and others, click the pictures below and they will take you to the galleries.
