The mid nineteen fifties saw the introduction of Junior Regiments within the British Army.Boys as young as fifteen could make a life changing decision, and with their parents' consent, undertake theoretical and practical tests to leave home and become a Junior Soldier. Almost every Regiment in the Army had a Junior Regiment attached to them, the Marines at Deal in Kent; the Junior Infantry at Shorncliffe, also in Kent, the Para's, the Royal Signals, the Gunners and so on and so on...In the winter of 1970 I was approaching school leaving age with no idea what to do with my future, until I stopped briefly to talk to a boy in a uniform on an Army recruiting stand, and I went home hooked.At the age of fifteen and five months I left home to become a Junior Leader for two years in the Royal Engineers (The Sappers) at Old Park Barracks, Dover, Kent. I passed out from Dover to adult service in August 1973 to join a Royal Engineers Field Squadron in Germany (BAOR - The British Army of the Rhine) and on that day I felt ten feet tall.This book is dedicated to all kids of all Junior Regiments who took that gigantic step and won through. It wasn't easy, in fact at times it was damn hard going, I'm sure more than a few kids, at times would have broken down in tears, especially through the first thirteen weeks. But your room mates were in the same boat so you worked together and you got through all the crap.These Junior Regiments no longer exist in the form they did in the fifties, sixties, seventies or eighties. They have been replaced by the AFC (The Army Foundation Collage) an amalgamation of Regiments and Corps, training together. No doubt the style and method of training has also changed; this may in some case be not such a bad thing. However this book takes us back to the early seventies and my personnel story as a Junior Soldier a Junior Sapper.
About the Author: The author grew up in a small West Country village during the sixties. With a German mum and English dad life was at times confusing but not boring. Although well-mannered and polite Steven was not the best behaved kid on block and soon began to flash on the radar of the local village policeman. No matter how harsh the punishment misbehaviour persisted and school results plummeted; parents despaired. John and Elsa's rising concerns were brought to a halt when their now fourteen year old somewhat wayward son came home from school one evening and announced he was leaving home to become a boy soldier in the Royal Engineers. From that moment life changed; two years as a Junior Leader Royal Engineer stationed at Dover followed by four years in Germany defending the free west from the Soviet hordes posed in readiness behind the iron curtain and two tours on the streets of Northern Ireland changed Steve from boy to man. The years that followed his time in the Army were interesting and exciting with jobs in the oil industry and the world of International marine tourism, the latter taking him all over the world through numerous contracts and adventures. Steven eventually married in 2010 and settled in Norfolk where he works in a variety of management roles; now approaching retirement he hopes to fulfil a final ambition to live a few years in the country of his mother's birth, which he dearly loves, Germany and eventually settle back in West Wiltshire.