How I ‘nearly’ joined the British Army

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Friday 03 April, 2015 by Uncle Spike

Many young boys wanna grow up to be firemen, or soldiers. For a time, I wanted to be in the Military Police; don’t ask. I guess it wasn’t that surprising, considering I wanted to be a policeman for a while too (even attending police career days from school); but that all ended when I realised my love of riding bikes too fast, avoiding speed-traps and the habitual sampling of unorthodox lifestyles in the 80s kinda took me off the ‘suitable applicant’ listing.

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As for the military police, I did get as far as attending the British Army Recruitment Office, passed some rudimentary assessment for such a career path, and filled in lots of forms. But that too hit a stumbling block once I spotted the section called ‘parental approval’ (as I was 16-18 years of age). Having left home to work in a shop (too rebellious to attend college), I knew that was never gonna happen, so there went my military career before it began!

A couple of years or so later, I was volunteering at a holiday home for the physically disabled, and for some reason this song by Status Quo (the second on my list so far) really clicked with me. So this next entry into the Tunes I Love cupboard has a couple of significant memory triggers…. Anyone else remember this one?

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