Spitfire Walk/Cadet March
On Sunday 25th May cadets from 1582 squadron and others across the region took part in a 16mile walk across the South Downs near to the Folkestone area of Kent.
Everyone taking part from 1582 had to meet at St. Margaret’s Church at 7:00am!!!
This was especially hard for me because my alarm didn’t wake me up and therefore didn’t get up till 6:10 rather than 5:30 which is what I had hoped. After 40 minutes of rushing around I was finally ready to leave the house.
A mini-bus picked us up from the Church and after a brief detour to change onto a luxury coach we were on our way. We arrived in Folkestone at about 9:30am and had to start the walk almost straight away. As we walked up to the starting point we passed other squadrons who had already started, they were not carrying packs, whereas 1582 all had to carry packs on their back that included at least 2litres of water, food for the whole day, a change of clothes and shoes and waterproof clothing. I didn’t feel this was an unfair thing to make us do as it is good training for the future, but it was really hurting my back. Although on a better note; most of the other squadrons had to wear combats with their berets, whereas we were allowed to wear what we wanted.
On the walk itself we had 4 checkpoints, one being the Battle of Britain memorial which was nice to see because I hadn’t been there before, and there was a massive model of a Spitfire (see photos above) Most of the walk was on fairly flat ground, but my feet killed and when we walked uphill it was 10 times worse. After I had finished the walk I had massive bruises round my ankles and my thighs were really aching! Another bad point was I lost most of the blood circulation in my hands and couldn’t move them for a while!
The walk lasted for about 8hours in total as we finished about 5:30. I was glad when it was over because it was really tiring but I felt proud that I had achieved something because I was presented with a medal and certificate.
Cdt. Ward