While at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, all cadets are required to keep a journal. This is ostensibly to monitor his standard of English and is taken in and monitored by the cadet’s platoon commander on a regular basis. I often wish I’d kept a more accurate and consistent account of my activities, opinions and feelings while at the academy. But then again, that is with hindsight: I enjoyed the time there, and have lasting memories of what went on.

The journal, put onto the web direct from my book, can be a bit patchy and lacking in dates, but covers all the main events. No excuse is made for the changes between past and present tense. While at Sandhurst, I was one of over thirty officer cadets in 26 Platoon, Inkerman Company (later to be renamed Burma Company), on Commissioning Course 97/3.

[I got typing these up a few years ago from my hand-written journals and was planning to get it finished. Sadly, the book went missing at some stage when I was moving from London. Gutted - I might be able to recreate the final chapters some time but I know they'd never capture the moment quite as well.]