My TA Experience

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Pen-y-Fan

Herry had enjoyed the corps at Winchester and shortly after joining Millers, he joined the TA - 2.1 SAS which was then based at the Duke of York's Barracks on the King's Road. He trained at the barracks on Tuesday evenings and at weekends on 'the Fan' (Pen-y-Fan') in the Brecon Beacons and on the moors outside Newcastle. Training was pretty tough, and he remembers having to force a fellow recruit down off 'the Fan' while he wanted to lie down in the snow as he could go no further. And fording deep rivers in the dark with a full 'bergen' on his back and a rife was pretty nerve-wracking as falling would have meant a struggle to survive. We even had to cross the top of one the Elan Valley dams with the water flowing over our boots.....

Elan Valley dam

He took the selection course in 1970 and was 'Best Recruit' in his year. Subsequently he went on a number of training courses, including taking parts of the SERE training course and becoming a parachutist.

























As his travelling for Millers increased, he had to give up the TA in 1972, though he remains a member of the Artists Rifles.

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