Staff Cadet: Bishing, Bogging, Bastardisation and Going Bush (From Boys' Brigade to Brigadier Book 1)

This is not a history of the Royal Military College, nor a history of the Corps of Staff Cadets. It is about my experience as a Staff Cadet within a company of the Corps of Staff Cadets – ‘the Corps’ – in the 1970s and 80s.

I have written about living at Duntroon, the Canberra suburb on the other side of Mount Pleasant devoted to the Royal Military College. In the 1970s and 80s, Staff Cadets were required to be single and ‘live-in’ the provided accommodation blocks at Duntroon. Mostly for four years, but for some it was five years. My experience with a group of young men, aspiring to be commissioned Army Officers, is the subject of this book; including ‘bishing’, ‘bogging’, ‘bastardisation’ and going bush.

I started writing this book in 1978. Parts of it were written whilst I was a Staff Cadet and much, on a regular basis, in the years between then and now. I wrote in January 1998 that … “I have found stories about the experiences of Staff Cadets are generally of a reminiscing genre, hence they project a more mature, if not mellowed, perspective.” In this book I have tried to overcome that, hence some bits are raw, even naive.

Some of the subjects I cover are not pleasant. Comparisons between life in ‘the Corps’ before 1983 and Lord of the Flies are not unreasonable. I have chosen to be descriptive and minimized being judgmental in hindsight.

During the years of occasionally recording my thoughts on life and events as they occurred in ‘the Corps’, I adopted an anthropological style and wrote distinct subject related pieces. Looking back now, these pieces offer the raw thoughts of a young man on the events of a society that engulfed him, often perplexingly, in the years between 1978 and 1983.