Page 67 - Old Ratcliffian Magazine 2017

66 RATCLIFFE’S PAST RATCLIFFE’S PAST 67

CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF THE CCF: In 1969, it looked as though the Contingent would cease to operate;
this was, in large measure, due to the fact that three key members of
RATCLIFFE’S CCF CONTINGENT the clergy - Fr Fox, Fr Nann (who, in later life, became the RC Chaplain
to the Guards Depot in Pirbright) and Fr Harwood - were decreed
away from the College. In addition, Colonel Wain wished to retire
and, perhaps as importantly, it was the late 1960s - the age of ‘flower
Today’s CCF had its origins as an OTC (Officers’ Training Corps), power’, the Beatles and the Stones, and general rebellion against the
affiliated to the Leicestershire Regiment, during the First World War. establishment.
Records located in the archives of The Ratcliffian magazine confirm
that ‘The Corps’ of Ratcliffe was then inaugurated on May 5th 1916. However, at the eleventh hour, Bill Robinson, Head of Physics and
Amongst the earliest recruits was the future Fr Claude Leetham (15), universally known as ‘Archie’ (from his habit of persistently saying
who, by the end of the war, was old enough to volunteer for the RAF, ‘OK, actually’ in his strong Scottish accent, which came out as ‘archie’)
formed on April 1st 1918, and was in training as a cadet officer, but managed to salvage the situation, and the CCF was saved as a purely
never served; he became President (Headmaster) in 1948. Another voluntary organisation. Thus, it has remained ever since. His slightly
‘original’ was the future Bishop of Nottingham, Edward Ellis (16). uncouth ironing skills and trademark pipe, which is remembered
to have been ‘capable of producing a naval smokescreen’ by Clem
The first senior cadet was William Bowers Thorley (16); he died of his Maginniss, are still recalled by those old cadets today. Fr Ted Mullen
wounds whilst fighting during the Battle of the Lys, the second of the (60) (our glorious Father President Emeritus) then came on board as The Cnicht in Snowdonia
German great spring offensives of 1918, in the area of Mont Kemmel Head of the RAF Section, whilst Fr Keith Tomlinson (52) joined the
(Ypres/Messines) on April 20th whilst serving with the 8th North Army Section, both fresh from their ordinations in Rome. The fact that
Staffs. He is buried on the coast in Wimereux Communal Cemetery, they obtained Land Rovers, more or less for their own personal use, in The uniform was also very different from the current CCF attire - a
a few rows away from Colonel John McCrae - the Canadian doctor the days when a community of twenty or more only had access to one battledress which consisted of a tunic and trousers made of a coarse
who wrote the poem In Flanders Fields, and who died of Spanish flu The Duchess of Kent inspects the Guard of Honour in 1957 car, was neither here nor there, of course. wool material. Peter Doran (66) describes how badges of rank,
in January 1918. Thorley was also an outstanding student, sportsman marksmanship and proficiency were sewn into the tunic tops during
and athlete. He was only nineteen when he was killed - the one and newly-formed Air Training Corps, when the Ratcliffe Aerodrome was the 1960s, and Clem Maginniss resonates with many Old Ratcliffians’
only fatality of the Ratcliffe Corps in the war. ‘alive with aircraft’. experiences of the uniform with his description of its ‘irritable
itchiness’.
Soon after the war ended, the Ratcliffe College OTC was disbanded CCF was compulsory at Ratcliffe for some years, training on a Tuesday
and (as far as I know) remained in abeyance until a new war loomed. afternoon, although Scouts provided one alternative and the Sixth Many Army cadets will also remember Proteus, in Sherwood Forest,
The new commanding officer was Captain John Radford (07) MC Form could, in due course, either engage in Adventurous Training or from the termly field day, and the names of camps like Crickhowell,
Royal Artillery, who can be regarded as the first of the Contingent’s become part of an eclectic group that were known as ‘Mon’s Men’. The Shorncliffe, Warcop, Otterburn, Capel Curig, and so on. Peter Doran,
commanding officers to have a strong Ratcliffe connection prior to Adventurous Training group would give health and safety aficionados in particular, reflects on his memories of the RAF excursions during his
commanding it. His medals are heart failure, with abseiling and climbing ropes appearing all over time at Ratcliffe in the 1960s. He recalls how they were ‘treated to the
on display outside the CCF the School. ‘Mon’s Men’ (under Fr Monaghan (53)) worked on the thrills and spills of aerobatics by the pilots’, and he fondly remembers
Office. His son, John Godfrey maintenance of the more obscure parts of the College’s estate. A a visit arranged to the RAF Waterbeach near Cambridge, where the air
Radford (38), was killed in May final group was the College’s own Fire Brigade, complete with a hand- was ‘alive to the sound of engines roaring on take-off and flypasts’.
1940 whilst serving with the towed fire pump and great lengths of hose, producing satisfyingly On a less safe note, however, he also recalls the time when a student
Wiltshire Regiment as part of powerful jets of water. accidentally discharged a round inside their hut whilst going through
Frank Force, the surprisingly the drill of checking that the magazine of his rifle was empty, under
successful mix of units put The CCF was, at some stage, restricted to pupils aged fourteen and his supervision. Fond memories indeed.
together to disrupt the German over; the College cunningly dealt with the consequent problem of
armoured advance in the area what to do with the Third Form (Year 9) by establishing an organisation
south of Arras in May 1940. He called CALBO, unique to Ratcliffe College and under the command
was left behind with a machine of Captain (Fr) Harwood (44). Kitted out in uniforms and almost
gun as part of a ‘forlorn hope’ indistinguishable from the CCF proper, they engaged in rather less
to hold up the Germans. He was military activities, but included memorable afternoons devoted, for
killed and is buried in Pelves example, to campfire cooking and so forth. At one annual inspection, Col P Warren & Col W Robinson during the CCF Annual Inspection
Communal Cemetery – rarely, Fr Harwood was quizzed by the Inspecting Officer as to what CALBO
John Godfrey Radford (38) if ever, visited; there are only a stood for. Quick as a flash, Fr Harwood reported that it stood for
couple of British soldiers buried ‘Contingent Assisted Locally Brigaded Organisation’ – utterly bogus, These were the days of Adventurous Training during the Easter
there. Worst of all, his death was not officially recorded until 1944 – but it seemed to work. In fact, he used to assert that it stood for holidays in Snowdonia; the College purchased a cottage in Gellilydan,
one can only imagine what effect this had on his parents. ‘K(C)eep All Lazy Brats Occupied’. North Wales, essentially for this purpose. The cottage acted as a base
while a group of fifteen to twenty cadets spent most of their time
The OTC was, again, disbanded after the war, but it was then revived camping and tramping the beautiful countryside, rushing to beat the
under a new umbrella organisation - the Combined Cadet Force - Contingent record for the ascent of the Cnicht. It has to be admitted,
which had emerged by the early 1950s and replaced the old Junior however, that the weather was often inclement, and the beauties
Divisions of the OTC. Captain Radford was the first Contingent of the countryside were often lost – literally, because of reduced
Commander, which was cap-badged, once more, as Leicester’s (since visibility, and metaphorically, because long hikes became matters of
1946, Royal Leicestershire). Radford was then succeeded by Colonel endurance. However, Old Ratcliffians warmly recall the small grated
Wain. As informed by Alasdair Macmillan (58), the first aircraft was coal fire being most welcome when the weather turned this way. Clem’s
taken by road to Sir Lindsay Everard’s aerodrome at Ratcliffe on the memories of the equipment taken on these excursions may shock
Wreake, from where it made its first flight on May 3rd 1939, and in some of our present-day cadets, as, at a time prior to the invention
due course, an RAF Section was added to Ratcliffe College, whose of smartphones, their only mode of communication was through the
first Commander was Fr Frank Fox (40). Indeed, one of our Old Wireless Set No. 31, which weighed around 18kg, alongside another
Ratcliffians, Clem Maginniss (74), recalls his father’s memories of the Ratcliffe College CCF in June 1972 7kg for the spare battery. The Ratcliffe College CCF group at RAF St Mawgan on April 16th 1963

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