67C Recruit Squadron, Army Apprentices College, Harrogate

John Latter, on November 21, 2007, said:

Recruit Squadron Intake "67C" in October 1967 at the Army Apprentices College (ex Army Apprentices School), Harrogate, in Yorkshire.

I'm 7th from the left in the third row up from bottom, though obviously you'll have to click on the 'original size' link to see any detail.

Standard Info

There are four photos in this series altogether:

1) 67C Recruit Squadron Group Photo

2) 67C Recruit Squadron Close-Up

3) Senior Term 1970 Group Photo

4) Senior Term 1970 Close-Up

The Army Apprentices College Harrogate was a Royal Corps of Signals (Royal Signals, R. Signals) Apprentice Training College which trained an "Apprentice Tradesman", or "A/T", for various technical roles in the British Army.

I was trained to be a 'Radio-Relay Technician' (RR Tech), other trades included Radio Technician (Radio Tech), Technical Equipment Technician (TE Tech), and Telegraph Operator (TG Op). Technicians, who were basically lazy, served an apprenticeship of three years while the more alert Telegraph Operators got the job done in two.

The Army Apprentices College (AAC Harrogate, AAS Harrogate) was situated in the new buildings of Hildebrand Barracks on Penny Pot Lane when I joined while earlier intakes had been housed in the wooden 'spiders' of Uniacke Barracks (also on Penny Pot Lane). There were five squadrons: Phillips Squadron (whose members wore red flashes in their epaulettes), Penney Squadron (blue flashes), Rawson Squadron (yellow flashes) and Scott Squadron (green flashes). Recruit Squadron was split into four Troops, each named after one of the other squadrons (ie Phillips Troop, etc.,), and all 'rookies' wore white flashes. A sixth squadron, Bradley Squadron, was formed towards the end of the 1960s.

On arrival at AAC Harrogate I was allocated to Phillips Troop and my room NCO was A/T Lcpl (= Lance Corporal) Peter (Pete) Emmett who originally came from the Junior Leaders Regiment Royal Signals at Denbury. The recruits in my room were: John Latter (me!) from Dover, Dick Spiers from Folkestone, Christopher Muriel from Canterbury (I think), Alan Taylor (er, not 100% sure he was in my room), Steve Hughes from Ashford in Kent, George Walker from the West Country, and two others. If I remember correctly, our Permanent Staff ("PS") Troop Sergeant was Sergeant "Daddy" Groves of the Royal Signals.

I remember three other Dovorians being at Harrogate while I was there:

1) Kerry Manning: I first met Kerry at St Mary's Primary School (at that time situated in Queen Street) in 1958 and he became my best friend. We were both in St Mary's football team for 1961/1962 where I played left-back and Kerry played right-back. We then went to Dover Grammar School for Boys together. Kerry joined up a year earlier than me in the intake of 66C ("A" intakes joined after the New Year, "B" intakes after Easter, and "C" intakes after the Summer holidays).

2) Malcolm Hood: Malcolm and I both went to Christ Church C of E Infants School (alt. "Belgrave School") between 1955 and 1958. Malcolm lived in the Winchelsea area of Dover and I lived in Westbury Road and Clarendon Place. This meant we didn't see much of each other after school. After leaving Belgrave School we went to different Primary and Secondary schools so by the time I saw him at AAC Harrogate I only just about recognized his face.

3) The third Dovorian at Harrogate was a chap called "John" (I think) who came from the Elms Vale part of town.

I began at AAC Harrogate in September, 1967 and passed out in the summer of 1970. By that time I was an A/T Sergeant and had achieved a T3/T2 rating which meant I became a Lance Corporal on joining the Regular Army.

The College closed after the Final Graduation Parade on 2 August 1996 and the buildings are now demolished. The Google Earth geotag is approximate - if you have, or know of, any old maps showing the College's location I would be grateful if you could contact me at jorolat AT gmail.com.

Interesting Links:

The Royal Signals Museum:

The Royal Corps of Signals Museum is located in Blandford Camp in the beautiful Dorset countryside and only a stone's throw from the scenic and interesting Georgian Town of Blandford Forum.

It is the national museum of Army communications and the exhibits and displays show the part that communications have played in the many wars and campaigns of the last 150 years. The Museum collection is regarded as being of National importance and the excellent Archives are recognised by the Public Record Office.

This is just a preliminary note - I'll be revising it and adding a list of the names of the recruits (for the benefit of search engines) in the next few days.

The size of the archive photo had to be reduced in order to get it below Panoramio's cap of 5MB.

John Latter, on November 25, 2007, said:

I can't remember if it was "Penny Squadron" or "Penney Squadron" so I better put both in (for search engines 'n stuff).