CCF today; does it exist?

[sejintenej]

Watching the Trooping of the Colour today made me think back to CCF parades at CH and especially when General Montgomery was the inspecting officer. That must have been the only military parade when participants were ordered in advance NOT to obey the General's command. Monty had a reputation / habit of ordering "Gather around" and Page didn't want chaos. In the event Monty did not (to my hearing) give that order.

For me CCF training was to be of lasting usefulness for well over 60 years. Each individual member of the two two Rescue Platoons learned how to survive and operate effectively in the case of the expected H-Bomb on neighbouring London - water rescue, advanced first aid , fire fighting, digging people out of collapsed buildings, all without the help, advice or instruction of the Civil Defence Organsation (with which we trained at Tangmere) or any authority form. . Especially useful when working on the race track, when working in the wilds of various places, and also locally where the NHS has almost collapsed.

[loringa]

It certainly does still exist and you can read about it here: https://www.christs-hospital.org.uk/abo ... culum/ccf/. It no longer meets on Friday afternoons though and membership is entirely voluntary, or at least that's what it says in the blurb. In the 70s, it was also 'voluntary' but you had to do something: Scouts and Venture Scouts, DofE, Sh1t Shovelling or Granny Bashing if you didn't join the CCF. There may have been other options too. I was in the Scouts and then the Venture Scouts, only doing enough CCF to be in the Shooting Team under the excellent Chief Bradley about whom much has been written on this forum. Sadly, it appears that the CH Scouts no longer exist. I learned quite a lot from the Scouts, mainly how to cook!