the wellington college year book 2010/2011
the wellington college year book 2010/2011
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physical
field gun
“You are doing it for England.”
W
ellington College’s
Field
Gunners triumphed as
never before. Over a wintry
December weekend in 2010,
West London resounded
to the sound of bands, gunfire and roaring
crowds — totalling some 45,000 during a full
dress rehearsal and three performances — in
the traditional surroundings of Earl’s Court.
The inspiring and traditional connection of
Wellington with Her Majesty’s Armed Forces
was reinforced yet again with our Field Gun
teams racing against each other in the splendid
spectacle of the British Military Tournament,
putting Speech Day phantasmagoria definitely
in the shade.
The bmt is a new show to celebrate the
Army and support the Soldiers’ Charity,
modelled exactly on the famous Royal
Tournament, which ran from 1905 to 1999.
Wellington was called upon by the chief
organiser, Major General Sir Evelyn Webb-
Carter [S 1959–1963], to represent not only
Wellington College itself, but also the Royal
Navy, whose Field Gun teams raced every
year at the Royal Tournament, to the delight
of the crowd and for the pride of the Senior
Service. College has faithfully carried on
the tradition, trained rigorously by the Fleet
Air Arm’s Field Gun Association’s keenest
trainers, for the past quarter-century and
more. This time our teams raced against
each other, named after hms Terrible and hms
Powerful, the original ships whose guns were
run ashore to support the Army in the second
Boer War of 1899–1902. Familiar to Speech
Day spectators, the teams run between two
walls at either end of the arena, with a chasm
to be aerially surmounted with the help of
sheer-legs and spar, tackle and line to swing
the guns, limbers, men and ammunition
across. The two team captains, brothers
Ben and Jack Harcourt (Talbot and Hardinge
respectively), take up the tale with one voice.
‘When we first left Wellington at 5:30 on
the Thursday morning’, they recall, ‘everyone
was already feeling tired, nervous and excited.
It was the end of six weeks of arduous training
and no one knew quite what to expect over
the next four days. When we arrived at
Earl’s Court we found ourselves directed
to a corner of Earl’s Court 2, an enormous
covered space where all performers were
expected to eat, wait and in our case, sleep.
Training continued on Thursday and Friday
with morning and afternoon sessions on both
days, preparing us mentally and physically for
the performances over the weekend. On
Friday night we all knew that the following
morning it would be more training, followed
by the biggest performance of our lives.
‘Watching the other acts during rehearsals
we knew that we would have to perform
to the best of our abilities with the British
Army’s finest spectacles. With the rich and
noble history of field gun races behind us,