One could argue that I was born into a military {ish} family. When I was born my uncle would have been near height of career based in London. Having had his MBE award countersigned by the General who went on to head cold war Military Intelligence in Berlin. My other uncle was Chief Petty Officer comms with the Admiral during the second war. My grandfather had served in the first world war and applied unsuccessfully for the second. He was made home guard with a machine gun on the end of Penarth pier. Both my army uncle and father were in the far East at the time of the Malaya insurgency. My father was a commissioned junior officer lieutenant acting captain in REME.
When I started doing my Ph.D. at The Royal Institution of Great Britain I needed some extra cash. I sought permission from my supervisor and applied to join the Royal Marine Commando reserves as an officer cadet. I was accepted on trial and the officer doing the induction intimated that my family history had a role in my easy acceptance. I was fit at the time and keen on martial arts. By joining the Commandos I was not choosing between even though it was Navy. I fancied joining the SBS with boats, diving, ropes and adventure.
But…I was not overly keen on polishing boots and some of the other people there were knobheads to my eyes and taste. Although physically able perhaps I was a bit too rebellious. That could have been trained out of me.
I was more keen on weed and beer. It was quite a close call. An entire different trajectory beckoned. I left before it got serious. It was a lot closer than it might have seemed. After my Ph.D. I could have gone full time military.
A while later I attended the funeral of my uncle in Camberley where some “top brass” were in attendance. It was odd watching my father revert back to military around generals and the like. At the post funeral drinks in the family garden I was quizzed by some senior army wives. They encouraged me to rethink joining up and asked multiple probing questions some about my high technical abilities. {lasers and instrumentation}. It was a proper grilling. They were accustomed to dealing with young “officer” types, retrospect suggests.
To this day I am occasionally suspected of being military though I never served.
Anyone who knew me in pastoral care role might not countenance such a “military” background. People can make firm assessments without good basis. Books are judged by covers and adamantly so.
The role of military service played a hand in the life decisions of my father. I was sent to boarding school in England rather than South Africa. Where being a school army cadet had more meaning in the late ‘70s. He was offered jobs in South Africa and Namibia. He would have had to go in the army reserves because of his prior rank and service. At eighteen I could have been called up and sent to war in Angola etc. My dad would have liked re-joining; my mum was less keen. So the life trajectory turned back to the UK.
An alternate option was on table at the time, Brazil. He was offered a job there and I would have gone to international school in Rio. If they had offered to pay him in Deutschmarks as opposed to Cruzeiro we would have gone and I could have stayed South of the equator.
It was a life nodal point.
I have more questions about the trajectory I missed in Brazil than the one in South Africa…it seems more exotic somehow.
Life trajectories bifurcate and fork. The path taken out of many changes what is available, what fate offers. Late seventies we had South Africa, South America or UK. The choice was not mine to make.
I think that moving back to the UK was the beginning of the end for my father. It ended back in the South Wales valleys. The lack of adventure helped to kill him.
In a sense we now are waiting to see what if any paths may open, what trajectories fate may proffer.
It might be a nodal point, it might not…
Dreamyoga 