I signed up to join the Junior Leaders www.juniorleadersre.co.uk in December 1959 at Manchester and arrived at Dover on a cold winters night on 6/1/1960 . On arrival at Dover we were met by a member of staff and a TCV and taken to Old Park Barracks which was above the town. We were dropped off in the grounds of an old building which was known as the Kremlin , this was in fact RHQ. We were processed and then taken to our squadron accommodation, allocated a room and shown how to make a bed by a 'Star Boy' Johnny Nicholson, he was to be our minder while in 1st term. Our troop staff were S/Sgt Bill Morreta and Cpl Johnny Walker both had war service medals, as did most if not all the permanent regulars. The SSM was WO2 Blanco.

Our days initially were spent on getting an education, the biggest shock to the system was finding out that years spent in the state education system was wasted as I had to start at the bottom and pass my 3rd class certificate, this I was determined to achieve. From this I went on to achieve my 2nd and finally my first class certificates. Later on in life when a S/Sgt and WO2 I often wondered if I had done the right thing by achieving my first class certificate early when my contemporaries were of to a warm education centre to 'do education' while I was wet through and up to my neck in mud on Soltau training area in a leaky ferret.

As we progressed through the terms, the training moved away from education to basic soldierly skills and combat engineering or field engineering as it was known then. The first time we used Compo it was discovered to have been manufactured in 1944. By the time we were ready to leave Dover we had completed our B3 Field Engineer apart from wet and dry bridging which we would complete at Aldershot . Time was allocated to starting trade training, I started as a signaler but changed to draughtsman mechanical.