thing last night on jerusalem/palestine.
mind boggling stuff.the politics are more complicated than a martin scott team talk. fantastic programme,very balanced and taught me loads.

A great great man. A shame he was never Prime Minister.

Agree 100%

And a good swimmer too apparently.

if it gets repeated have a look. ashdown is a top bloke.I think you like him cos of his forces background Mr I,but the way he talks to people on all sides of the argument was first class stuff

Not just that Mr D, admittedly its hard not to respect a bloke who commanded an SBS squadron back in the days when it was hard to pass special forces selection (my granny could get through now) but moreover than that, Paddy Ashdown is a proper sensible human being who talks sense on whatever subject he is discussing and is just plain honest in his views.

How hard is your Granny???

my one lasting memory of him is the Sun headline

"Paddy Pantsdown" lost all credibility after that

Or alternative 'bloke gets a shag shock horror'

Hardly earth shattering news now is it?

A little while ago I was talking to a guy I know who at the time was a SSM at Hereford and he was in charge or the training wing running selection courses. He was complaining about how much the standards have dropped due in part to manpower shortages generally but mainly the fact that the candidates had either read too many 'Andy McGrab' books or arrived completely unprepared. They are under serious pressure to up the numbers due to operational demands and were badging people who were not up to the job.

He reckoned that some of todays successful applicants would not have even got through P company 15 to 20 years ago.

Jeez.

Hereford's gone now hasn't it?? Is it still a two year course including P Coy??

No. Stirling Lines has gone which was on the A49 just south of the river. Thats now an industrial estate I believe. The old RAF camp at Credenhill has been taken over, top left of Hereford.

2 years??? Whats 2 years? Selection or P company? Neither is the answer but I'm wondering what you're on about.

I had it in my head that it was 2 years post P Coy.

Still not clear what you mean. Do you mean selection or para training?

Selection runs as follows:

Endurance phase - running up and down hills in Wales with a compass - a month including test week. Then off to the jungle for combat phase, another month. Then the last bit is E&E.

All in all initial selection is about 10 weeks give or take. At that point you are badged but then you go onto continuation training which will take well over a year.

I was on about the whole process after you finish P Coy. Before they let you loose on the bandits. We had this PTI who was SF and coming back from an injury, little Jewish feller, I seem to remember that he told us it was a two year process after he got his wings.

He also told us that during his endurance he ran up towards the back of the truck and they moved it forward a 100 yards, then when he caught up, they moved it forward another 200 yards. In the end he did another 3 miles, the pack of bastards.

When you say 'got his wings' I'm assuming you are referring to the upside down para wings. 2 years before you are no longer viewed as a sprog is about right but once you rebadge you're in. I don't understand this bit about going back to a non SF unit because he had an injury. There is a troop specifically for people who are injured during selection but reckoned to be good enough. Much the same is in place with Para Reg and RM. If you are badged and got injured then you would just stay there and get treatment. Sounds more like your man simply failed selection, its extremely common.

The bit about the truck is again perfectly normal stuff. The point is that you get to the finishing line and the truck is there complete with an urn of tea. The DS then stops you are the truck moves off. A new grid reference is given out and thats your next RV. The point is to test who has got the self discipline to get up and give the extra effort. Again anyone who is attempting selection should be prepared for this, its an old trick.

Oooh I dunno, it was 1973!! He said he'd been in the NI, Yemen and Oman and he'd finished physio and was PTI-ing with us at college to get fit. He wasn't about for long.

Fair enough, I'm not walting the guy.

I know in the RM you get 12 months downgrading to return to full fitness / active service / fit for sea before going before a medical board if your lucky they will hold off for another 6 month. After that it's a medical discharge unless there is a return to fitness date nearby, the Army & R.A.F. are allowed longer for some reason.

Club Swingers all tell porkies IMO. everyone was either SF or could of played pro football for Liverpool.

S.A.S....whenever I've seen a documentary about the S.A.S. the majority of them are Scots!!!!

What's that all about????

It made me laugh when I found out that on the SF E&E you are persued by a 'hunter troop'. I had visions of guys being chased across Brecon by a load of blokes with broken ankles.

When I was in the RAF, around 1975, I was in a place called Masirah, an island of the coast of Oman, and we regularly had SAS/SF passing through on the way over to Salalah in Oman on the border with the Yemen. One day a group of them were sat in the NAAFI killing time till their flight, and we noticed one of them only had one arm! Bloody hell we thought, how about that for a hard bastard. Chances are he only had an injury and his arm was pinned up under his top.

The only other one I met apart from the above feller was when I was parachuting in Ballykelly. He ambled up late one afternoon and asked if he could join the staff jump with the Red Freds. He gave his name as Norman and said he was living in a shed at the bottom of the airfield. He was carrying some very tasty weapons about his person.

He did the jump, took off his jumpsuit, put his jacket back on, waved vaguely in our direction and ambled off again.

Never saw him again.

maybe they all rock hard so lets not upset frank

We had the TA sas chasing us around the New Forest on one of them, I think 5 or 6 ending in hospital in S/ton with a range of injuries like 2 broken jaws, 1 broken leg & 1 lad jump on an adder nest and got bit 4 tiimes on his ankle.
The OIC was a jock called Jardine who was SBS looked strange riding around on an olive drab motor bike with a shotgun in one hand swearing at everyone then shooting his blank rounds off and cursing if you didn't play dead.