Ukulele at sandhurst!

Im at sandhurst now! For those of you who dont know, its the royal military academy where all officers in the british army start their career with 44 weeks of training. I am on day 5 and it feels like its been weeks. Up at 0530 and not getting to bed till atleast 1am, so its a 20 hour working day. One of the things we do as soon as we wake up is stand outside our doors and down a litre of water followed by singing the national anthem.
I mentioned to my colour seargent that i have a ukulele, and he said that i can keep it if i learn the tune to god save the queen for when we wake up. He told me this at 2245 so i was awake till 2 trying to perfect it. I played it solo infront of my officers and platoon and then they all sang along to it.
They absolutely loved it and i'm getting comments from the other platoons about it and more requests from my guys.
These first 5 weeks are going to be tough, but the ukulele and my new collegues/friends will get me through.

I was thinking of doing a diary type thing on here for people to read about what happens here. If people are interested then comment below and i can get writing properly every now and again when i have time. Now off to finish ironing then hopefully bed.

This is a really cool post. Best wishes to you!

Damn Right on the diary!! Keep us posted and best of luck to you. You'll always remember this and the friends you make.

That is terrific! We've just watched a Documentary on Sandhurst over the last couple of weeks - an amazing doco! Bloody hard slog, tho!! All the best during your training - I wish you well ....... your uke will bring you & your platoon much joy, I reckon.

Roberta

Very interested! Best of luck to you!

pc566 said:

I was thinking of doing a diary type thing on here for people to read about what happens here. If people are interested then comment below and i can get writing properly every now and again when i have time. Now off to finish ironing then hopefully bed.

Click to expand...

Bloody brilliant! Keep it coming.

Good luck to you and keep us updated when you have the time. What uke is it and will it cope with a dpm paint job?

Right well this is day 6. I pass out of sandhurst 43 weeks today, it seems like such a long way away and the days have gone so slowly, feels like ive been here weeks.
I am 16 platoon Inkerman company new college which is the beautifull white building, not a bad place to live. So i'm in the first 5 weeks, which is the same as a soldiers 14 week basic training but condensed, so very fast paced at the moment, 20 hour days, very little sleep. But this initial phase is meant to break you and then after week five they build us up again.
Lots of drill today and rifle lessons with 3 hours of bulling (shining) boots. Tomorrow is our personal fitness assesment which is atleast 55 situps in 2 mins, 45 pressups in 2 mins and a mile and a half run in under 10 mins 30. Then in the afternoon we have trials for our chosen sport, im doing modern pentathlon so swimming, running, pistol shooting, fencing and horse riding, so should be good fun.
Someone mentioned the tv program that was on, i watched it too a while ago and it understates what goes on massively, its much harder then it seems in the program, which annoyed most of the staff here.
And to answer the question about my ukulele, it's just a cheap one i got off amazon, plays nicely with living water strings and i've engraved a design on the front, there are pictures of it in the ukulele p*** thread.
Anyway, i'm off to sleep now, very early night tonight, its only 2330. With my alarm set for 0530 and a litre of water to look forward to in the morning.

"0530 - what does the O mean? Oh my God it's early! (For those of us who remember that movie)

But speaking of 0530, and modern pentathlon, that's when I used to have to get up before school to feed my horse. Don't do what that dork in the Olympics did, get into a spur-fight after the last guy jumped the same horse through a clear round.

Yes, absolutely give us a diary when you can. Good luck and thanks for making the rest of us feel lazy.

I'd love to read about your training and you uke!

Military timing is used in nursing too. 00 or 0 means I don't wanna be up yet!

hi everyone, sorry its been a very long time but as i expect you know, its been pretty busy. over the last few weeks ive had very little sleep sp i'm afraid catching up on sleep took priority to this thread.
so ive had alot of marching being done, alot of early mornings and late nights. mixed in with lessons on how to take apart and use the radios and weapons we're issued with. we've had a few days on the ranges with the SA80 and i've been spotted for being on the shooting team.
we've had alot of running and sports and again i've been asked to be on the swim team but im not sure if i want to commit myself to even more training and earlier mornings.
i am now in week 6, so had our first weekend home last weekend so got up to durham to see the fiancee for a few days, its slightly depressing being back now.
11 days ago i injured my ankle pretty badly doing a night navigation exercises during which we walked about 6 miles past various checkpoints without the use of torches etc, so managed to roll my ankle pretty badly and they think ive torn ligaments in my knee. here at sandhurst we have a system for the injured. if the healing time is significant and/or you miss some important things then you get put in a seperate platoon called ''lucknow'' and do all your rehab there untill the next intake is at the same stage at which you were pulled out of training. so basically you get put back a term. i find out tomorrow whether this is happening to me or not. my sensible head says that it should happen, wheras my army bravado head says ''take some painkillers and get on with it'' but that could result in me making it even worse. so i find out tomorrow what the college commander wants to do with me, but i suspect that i have a 90% chance of being put into lucknow, which isnt the end of the world.
the ukulele still comes out and came out tonight in an attempt to keep my morale off the floor.
hope all is well in the uke world, i'll post back tomorrow or the day after with whats happening to me.

Good luck with the injuries - I hope the uke helps keep you cheerful, whatever happens with the training. I watched those TV programmes.... and all you've written is really interesting - the best of luck with everything!!

Good luck with the ankle and knee. Keep well and keep playing your 'ukulele!

Oh jeez take the Lucknow option, you don't want a bad knee and dodgy ankle for the rest of your life. I know it sucks getting to know new people, but you don't want to tell if there's rain coming by your knee and ankle either.

Sorry to hear about your mishap. Do what's right for you. Sending you wishes for a speedy recovery.
By all means, do a diary. In the future, you can look back on it with pride.
Good luck, soldier...............................BO......................
Keep uke'n............