When committed to paper, army children's memories often make interesting reading, including, maybe yours, or some that you have read. There follows a small selection.
'My father was a native of Scotland, in the [East India] Company's service; my mother was a Rajpootree, the daughter of a zamindar . . . who was taken prisoner at the age of fourteen . . . My father then an ensign into whose hands she fell, treated her with great kindness, and she bore him six children, three girls and three boys. The former were all married to gentlemen in the Company's service; my elder brother, David, went to sea; I myself became a soldier, and my younger brother, Robert, followed my example.'
Lt Col James Skinner (1778-1841), quoted in Dennis Holman, Sikander Sahib: The Life of Colonel James Skinner, 1778-1841, London, 1961, pp.213-14.
'I remember my father leaving the house and then checking under the car for a bomb before driving to work each morning. This was during the late 1970s, when the IRA was targeting British soldiers serving in Germany.'
TD (b.1964).
PERSONAL STORY: BROTHERS IN ARMS
This army child's father was in the Royal Corps of Transport (RCT) until he left the army in 1992. Daniel reports:
'As a child, I lived in Hereford between 1980 and 1981; Münster, Germany, between 1981 and 1984; Bielefeld, Germany, between 1984 and 1987; Donnington (Telford), between 1987 and 1990; Fallingbostel, Germany, between 1990 and 1992; and then Donnington (Telford) again in 1992.
My brothers and I made Dad proud by following him into HM Forces:
I joined the Royal Navy and served between 1999 and 2004, seeing service all around the world, including during the last Gulf War (Op TELIC);
Matthew (b.1982) joined the British Army and served between 1998 and 2005, seeing service in the UK and Germany, as well as during the last Gulf War; and
Andrew (b.1984), who joined the RAF in 2003, is still serving, seeing service in Scotland and Cyprus.'
Daniel Phoenix (b.1980).
. . . & MISCELLANEA
Army children, real or imaginary, make appearances in literature, on the silver screen and in all manner of situations, some more predictable than others. Can you add any names to the list?
FICTITIOUS ARMY CHILDREN
Some fictitious army children have been immortalised in literature and the arts. These include:
- black-haired Cris Delighan, the thirteen-year-old Colour-Sergeant's daughter and sweetheart of Lew in Rudyard Kipling's story 'The Drums of the Fore and Aft' (1889); and
- the daughters of Major-General Stanley, including Mabel, Edith, Kate and Isabel, in W S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's comic operetta, The Pirates of Penzance (1879).
QUESTION: BARRACK RATS, ARMY BRATS AND PADS' BRATS
Although army children have attracted many nicknames over the centuries, a few in particular seem to have stuck, including 'barrack rats', 'army brats' and 'pads' brats' (i.e., children living in married quarters, or 'pads'). Do you know when they started to be used? And was 'army brat' borrowed from American terminology?
Alan Greveson suggests:
'In his book Army Apprentices Harrogate [Halsgrove, Devon, 2002, ISBN 1841142182, p.14], Colonel Cliff Walters has this to say on the history of nicknames: ". . . Those in adult service have used terms of endearment such as jeeps, badgies, rats and brats. The latter two probably derive from the initials of the Boys' and Army Technical Schools. Even today the ex-brat is a well used reference to the Harrogate 'old boy' and there were badgies in Harrogate when the Barracks were occupied by the Royal Artillery. Apprentices from Chepstow [Boys' Technical School] have always been known as robots". It seems the names, though, are much earlier than the 1920s' shoulder badges of junior leaders.'
