S
ome people would think that camp
starts when you do the first
exercise or start crawling through
the mud. Other people think that it starts
with organising the whole trip from hiring
out the field to making sure there are
enough tents to go round. The point is
that Chindit Camp means different things
to different people. For Mrs Cole it meant
days of planning all the meals and
making sure there were enough supplies
to go round for all of us. For the 35 of us
who went, it meant having a laugh with
your mates and being out in the
countryside for a week, but I think at the
end we all realised that the point was to
have fun and that is definitely what we
did!
At first I was apprehensive about Chindit
Camp - with the forecast looking pretty
terrible, I didn't really fancy camping out in
the rain being ambushed by NCOs from all
sides, but when I actually got there I was
so pleased I had gone.
First of all - the weather! We were lucky
for the first part of the week, dodging the
showers where we could and postponing a
few exercises, but it was just unavoidable
when it got to Thursday. It was absolutely
tipping it down and we couldn't go out and
do the exercises, so Mr Cole organised a
trip to a tank museum which was
surprisingly quite interesting. The next
day it was the same story up in the sky,
and so we had a talk from a local farmer
about how he had adapted his farm to
organic ways to help preserve local
species. The staff did a great job keeping
us busy when morale was low.
Secondly, the exercises planned looked a
bit 'rufty-tufty' for some of the Chindits.
For example, walking along a road and
having to jump in a hedge every time you
saw an NCO. This was called Ditch
Delight and I wasn't looking forward to it!
But it turned out to be really fun, choosing
different tactics of hiding, and learning
various methods of patrolling around.
Thirdly, the range of exercises was really
fun, with Night Fright being among one of
my personal favourites. We were given
three pegs and we had to make it to a
lantern in the middle of the woods in the
dead of night with NCOs patrolling around.
Other exercises ranged from extracting
information after ambushing the enemy to
collecting coloured balls off the NCOs
hidden in hedges!
Finally, the interaction between the
Chindits and the NCOs. At first I thought
this would be strange seeing that we were
either stalking them or they were tackling
us into the undergrowth almost every day!
It turned out to be really nice though
socialising with everyone at meal times,
and incredibly funny watching each other's
songs and sketches on the last night at
the barbecue.
Overall, Chindit Camp exceeded all my
expectations and was a really special
week. Even if the weather was a bit iffy,
we kept going and I believe it made us
stronger as a group of people. Physically
stronger, after doing all the exercise we
did, and mentally stronger after really
bonding and getting to know people that
you didn't really have a chance to get to
know in school. Thank you so much to
everyone who helped organise it!
Chindit Camp
by Grace Murray
22