Fifty Years Ago: Thursday, 3rd June 1976
(Sedbergh School, Age 14)
Cadet Corps Day: it took over the timetable. I changed into my Corps kit before breakfast, still half asleep, then queued up for eggs before heading to the Armoury to collect a beret. The stores and rifle range were run by a former Army Sergeant Major, whom we all called “Dickie” because of the reputation he had among the boys.
The morning was mostly square bashing, map reading and armed forces films. Not the glamorous side of soldiering either: no charging hills with bayonets or heroic firefights. It was all polishing boots, folding the kit correctly, saluting officers, and learning to show proper respect for the Queen. The military seemed obsessed with neatness, hierarchy and routine. Exactly the things I detest.
In the afternoon, we went up onto Boar Fell. I missed most of the checkpoints, partly due to poor navigation and partly because my concentration drifted. My left eye felt bruised and sore all day, which didn’t help. I remember staring at the map while the wind whipped around us on the fellside, never entirely certain where I was supposed to be heading.
One of the films we watched was The Dove, which I thought was excellent. It followed a sixteen-year-old boy sailing solo around the world in his tiny sloop, meeting a girl along the way and gradually discovering himself on the journey. What struck me most was not the romance exactly, but the solitude: one person alone with machinery, instruments, weather and immense distances.
I remember thinking: I could do that — but in space.
Afterwards, I felt even more certain that I wanted to join the RAF and somehow transfer to the USAF so I could eventually become an astronaut: despite hating uniforms, hierarchy, and following orders, being crap at map reading, and having allergies and headaches.
It was the idea of being alone with the latest technology — spacecraft, navigation systems, radios, capsules, control panels, sealed environments moving silently through space, my slide rule at the ready, music on my cassette player.
Space seemed both romantic and logical to me. A clean escape route from ordinary life, from school routines, noise, awkwardness and social complications. Solitude combined with intelligence, adventure and total concentration. Somewhere out there, I imagined, would also be the mysterious “stargirl” of my dreams — someone, equally detached from normal life, waiting beyond Earth.
The film in the evening was The Tamarind Seed with Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif. It was very slow to get started. It was cut in several places to tone down language and intimate scenes so the film could meet strict network television standards. It was okay after it got going. It had a very good ending.
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