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COMMUNITY


TEENAGERS – O


by Sqn Ldr Pete Atkins, RAFVR(T)


n a grey Saturday around fifty young people from all over the UK gathered together in the middle of Lincolnshire. To the casual observer they may have looked like any other teenagers – in jeans and hoodies, carrying rucksacks.


However, the more observant may have noticed some rather more


42 Envoy Summer 2013


unusual luggage: music cases of all shapes and sizes – big ones, small ones and some absolutely enormous ones! For this was not just any bunch of teenagers: not only were they all members of the Air Training Corps (ATC) or RAF Sections of the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) – they were also some of the best young musicians in the country.


They were the Air Cadet National Concert Band and this at the start of a week-long music camp at the RAF College Cranwell.


After being allocated their rooms, having a meal, changing into uniform, catching up with old friends (or meeting new ones), the usual briefings about where to be, when to be there, what to wear, what to do (and, of course, what not to do) the youngsters settled down to doing what they love to do most – making music!


For the next week, although directed and rehearsed by Cadet Force Adult Volunteers from the Air Cadet Organisation, they would also be working with professional musicians from The Band of the RAF Regiment.


The week would culminate in the 18th Annual Concert in Whittle Hall before an audience of VIPs including the Commandant of the RAF College Cranwell, Commandant Air Cadets, and other senior officers as well as local dignitaries, members of the public – and, of course, proud parents!


Over a third of the cadets were new to the band – replacing the more experienced players who, as they got older, had moved on to other things – but they very quickly gelled together and the items in their repertoire increased day by day. However, it was not all work and no play – there was time for,


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with real talent…


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