Nijmegen 2010 by Cpl Alistair Mckenzie 877 (Inverurie) Sqn

 

In July I was part of a team of 12 cadets and staff from across Aberdeen Wing that travelled to Holland to the city of Nijmegen to take part in the International Four Day Marches, a challenging walking event which consists of a 100 mile march, at 25 miles a day. Myself with CWO Miller, Sgt Probyn, Sgt Stuart, Cpl Macdonald from Banchory Squadron, Sgt Mackay from Bridge of Don Squadron and CWO McKenzie, Sgt Henderson, Cpl Mcllraith and Cdt Stephen from Aberdeen Squadron along with CI Massie and Sgt Carvalho from 107 Squadron as our staff.

 

Our journey started a year before the event when names were gathered and a small team was put together and we would practice walking down the old Peterculter railway line.  In March of 2010 we attended the qualifying march at Garelochead, a weekend of marching through the hills and rain!  At the end of the qualifier enough cadets qualified to create the final team and we begun our fundraising with a successful bag-pack and race night.  We flew to Amsterdam on the 17^th July and took the train to Nijmegen.  Before arriving at the camp set up for military participants, Kamp Heumensoord, a fantastic modern temporary base set up by the Dutch Army for the 5,000 military personnel.

 

We had a few days to spare before the four-days marching so we took advantage of this opportunity and spent time in the city where the biggest festival in Holland was taking place, with live music and entertainment in every street, and a general welcoming sense of friendliness from everyone.  We also made the short train journey to Arnhem to see the war graves, where Cpl Mcllraith got the chance to visit his Great-Grandfathers resting place.

 

Breakfast for the first day of the marches was at 0200hrs (!!) because we were marching off down our route with the 50,000 other civilian participants at 0400hrs, in order to avoid the intense heat of the midday sun.  Despite this, we marched and sung down the road to Nijmegen, proudly waving our Saltires where the public lined the streets, getting up before the sun to cheer us on and give us food and drink, and flowers.

 

During our march the public continued to support us, with brass bands playing in every town and children with sweets eager to get a souvenir from us, and some with buckets of water and hosepipes, which was a welcome blessing!  There was also lots of radio and TV stations recording the festivities, and sponsors of the event handing out free products.  We also received warm welcomes at our rest stops which were set up by the British and Canadian Military.  At the end of each day we arrived at Kamp Heumensoord and marched into the beer tent as part of the tradition.

 

As the marching days passed, supporters grew with enthusiasm and general all-round happiness and on the last day of the festivities the population of Nijmegen grew by several million, most of which were throwing flowers and giving out traditional Gladioli, a flower grown in Nijmegen each year especially for the event.

 

When we arrived at Kamp Heumensoord after crossing the finish line we received our brassard badges and our shiny medals!  We relaxed for one more night at Heumensoord then made the victorious journey home to Aberdeen.  The whole experience for me was amazing and it was hard to cope with the boredom of returning home from such an exciting country.  If given the chance next time I would definitely return and I would recommend to anyone that they join me because after all, the roads are flat!

Cadets and staff celebrated the end of the 150 aniversary year with a Ceilidlh at the Aberdeen Beach Ballroom.  Over 250 people enjoyed the music from Highly Strung together with very good "stovies" from the catering staff of the Ballroom.  With representatives from all the cadet groups a good night was had by all.   Photos to follow.

 

 

 

The banner of the Air Training Corps was paraded at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo this evening as part of a Cadet150 event. The banners of the Army Cadet Force, Sea Cadets, Royal Marine Cadets, Combined Cadet Force and Air Training Corps took part in the finale of this evening's show in what is believed to be the first time all 5 banners have paraded together. The job of parading the ATC banner fell to cadets from 2367 (Banchory) Squadron, with CWO Andrew Miller as the banner bearer, CWO Matthew Horne as the banner WO and Sgts Michael Probyn and William Stuart as the escorts. The banners will take part in the tattoo finale from Monday to Friday this week and will also feature in the BBC televised footage and the tattoo DVD.

During the week of the 7^th-14^th of July 2010 I attended Rheindahlen regional summer camp In Germany. There was a total of 47 cadets from all over the region, 7 of those cadets were from Aberdeen and North East Scotland Wing including Myself, Flt Sgt Ruxton, Cpl Christie, Cpl Cumming, Cpl Cruickshank’s and Cpl grant. Flt Lt Kelso and Flt Lt Busby were the two officers that came from Aberdeen wing with us.

The week was filled with many activities and early mornings, morning wake up was normally around 0630 but there were a few mornings where we got a bit more of a lie in because the day was not as busy as others. Even though it was a uniformed camp we only had one day in our Dpm uniform, which was for our camp photo, familiarisation exercise and the use of a satellite range on base. The rest of the week was filled up by a trip to a high rope course in Holland called Breakout and various cultural visits to Cologne, Arnhem war memorial and the town of Arnhem in which we were able to see Pegasus Bridge which was featured in the 1977 war film a bridge too far. In the evenings we had our dinner in the mess and then would either have free time or take part in other activities and then lights out was at 2300.