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When I was at the Officer Cadet Training Unit at Barmouth in North Wales, preparing to be an Officer, we did one famous exercise which was an assault landing on Barmouth beach from boats from the Royal Marines Boat Handling School down the coast.. We embarked (Army language for wading up to our waists in cold seawater and somehow clambering over the side of a boat) and bobbed off down the coast to Barmouth. Off the shore, the learner boatswain of my boat said we had reached the point at which we should jump over the side and capture Wales. We still seemed to be miles out to sea and decided that we ought to discuss the boatswain鈥檚 navigational skills with him, but one of our number, a very ambitious cadet, decided to show off his powers of leadership and initiative to the watching instructors; so, lifting a Bren gun high over his head and shouting the sort of things which Erroll Flynn had shouted in a recent film in which he captured Burmah single-handed, he ran along the gunwale and jumped in to the sea. Due to the fact that that we really were too far out and that this cadet was only about five feet five inches high, he disappeared completely from sight and had to be rescued at the end of a boathook. We then persuaded the boatswain to go in closer and, jumping off in to a mere four foot six inches of water, we carried out our assault on the town. We were just resting and discussing our eager-beaver鈥檚 exploit when RSM Copp of the Coldstream Guards appeared and gave us a half hour鈥檚 drill in our soaking wet uniforms with water sloshing about inside our boots and packs as we marched up and down.

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