Spent the weekend away from the farm at Lulworth Cove to attend a reunion that I had helped organise of some of my old army buddies.

I joined the army in September 1978 as a ‘boy’ soldier in the Junior Leaders Regiment at Bovington camp in Dorset. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do after scraping through my ‘O’ levels (beyond a determination to leave school), and so when one of my best friends, Simon, suggested we join the army as bandsman as his older brother had done I said ‘sure, why not’ (much to the relief of my father – who was beginning to despair at that point).

So, along with twenty-odd other 16 year olds, we reported on that fateful day to Stanley barracks and began what was to be two years of training to become musicians in the army. Why Her Majesty required us to be harassed, bullied and brainwashed for quite so long and quite so hard, still remains a mystery to me. The job of bandsman (and I think even my comrades would agree) was not that hard – the ability to play simple tunes while marching in a straight line with shiny boots was about as difficult as it got. Yet we were subjected to all manner of tortures including log-runs and rope-courses and endless, endless moping and polishing and ironing all whilst being shouted at by a group of grown men who (now looking back) I can only believe must have derived some sort of sadistic pleasure from it.

However, this was our rite of passage and over those two years, in the face of adversity (especially the Physical Training Instructors) we bonded and grew together. Then - as abruptly as it began - it was all over and we were split up and posted to our regiments in different corners of the empire, and while most had kept in touch with one or two of the others, many of us never saw each other again until this weekend.

As it happens, another ex-bandsman now works there so we had full access to our old barracks (thanks again Olo), and as our collective memories began to piece together our shared experiences I was amazed at how well we all got on – almost immediately picking up where we had left off some thirty years ago. I was surprised at how fond I was of friends I hadn’t seen for decades. I had forgotten so much, and in an age of anxiety where many struggle with who they are and where are they going, it is a wonderful thing to rediscover where you came from.

A fantastic weekend, and the hours flew by in a haze of memories. It was an event that will stay with me for a very long time and I know that I wasn’t the only one to experience a surprising depth of nerves, then elation, then emotion, before the bar finally rang time on our humble gathering. Over the course of the evening many of the lads came up and told me how grateful they were that I had perused my initial idea and brought us altogether - but it wasn’t that difficult in these post-google times, and I in turn was just as grateful that they all travelled so far and taken time out of their busy lives to make it all happen.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.