So this is how the MOD educates kids

to behave in the countryside

James Irvine

Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie, by Crieff, Perthshire

Filed 11 Apr 04
©www.land-care.org.uk

So it is Easter and time for army cadets to come to Cultybraggan Cadet Training Camp. The farm surrounds the MOD camp. As in earlier years one has to wonder at the age of the school kids that attend. Some look younger than 12 years, while others cannot be older that twelve unless the MOD has gone in for nuturing children who are below the 90th percentile in body developement.

The first tiff with the camp this Easter weekend, when the farm has busy with spring work such as lambing, calving, sowing barley, putting on fertiliser, harrowing grass, putting out dung etc was to find one of the MOD's hired people carriers (used to ferry cadets a distance of some half a mile) parked across a field gate with little sign of any consideration for the farm. A poor example to impressionable school kids.

Much more serious, that same afternoon, while I was working in one of the farm fields next to the MOD's mini firing range, I was surprised to see youngsters - some of whom appeared to be not even 12 years old - firing rifles that looked like 12 bore. The kids - one at a time - were firing from a small hillock downwards towards me but fortunately just a few degrees off my direction. I could hear the sound of the gun shoot landing in the grass close by. The MOD had a red flag just at the march of my field and their firing range. It was obvious that a person or persons were working in the farm field because my quad bike was parked in full view of the group of cadets and presumably also of their instructor.

Since this practice of school kids banging away with obviously live ammunition continued under the apparent supervision of an instructor who never once seemed to look my way, I took my quad bike up to see him and to enquire as to what he was doing.

Neither the instructor nor the cadets were in uniform. I verified with the instructor that the kids under his supervision were firing live ammunition, not blanks. He said twelve bore rifles were being used and that he had not seen me. He appeared to have little concern for my safety and to resent the interruption and my suggestion that he did not look.

I therefore went to the camp and asked to speak to the officer in charge. The person on guard duty once again looked decidedly less than 14 years old and more like 12 or even 11 years. I spoke to an adult in uniform who informed me that the officer in charge was away somewhere. I related my concern. He told me that the age of the cadets ranged from 12 to 16 years.

Later the Major responsible for the camp that Saturday afternoon phoned me to say that the cadets - according to him all of whom were 14 years or over - were acting under constant supervision and according to army safety rules. That there was no need for the camp to inform the neighbouring farm that they were going to use live ammunition. He said the cadets were clay pigeon shooting.

If it was clay pigeon shooting it is the strangest form I have witnessed, shooting downhill and no clay pigeon in sight. The instructor did not seem the slightest concerned that the shot was landing just a few yards from my person, although I was outside the red warning flag. A nervous youngster struggling with this man-sized twelve bore with a crack and a kick to go with it, would only need to swing the gun a few degrees to his/her right for me to get a shower of shot.

My impression was one of surprise and some dismay that the MOD should be introducing firearms with live ammunition to 12 year olds as some sort of macho image to attract kids to join the army. My further concern was the lack of regard for the safety of those who work on the farm that neighbours with them. As a holder of a gun licence myself I would expect to loose my licence (and possibly worse) if I was to behave so irresponsibly. Why should the MOD be allowed to get away with this, especially with kids entrusted to their care?

Gun control for the rest of us rightly gets tighter and tighter. We are also repeatedly told that good education of the young as to how to behave in the countryside is of paramount importance. Perhaps it is the educators and their supervisors who need educating.

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