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Ten Tors (May 2011)

On Friday 13th May a team of 6 students accompanied by 3 staff members took the long trip to Dartmoor to participate in the annual Ten Tors event. This was the first year Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College had entered a team into the event, one which had been picked from the students who had previously participated in Exercise Dartmoor Trek as they had already been to Dartmoor and experienced the treacherous terrain that it has to offer.

Shortly after the annual College photograph the team departed for Dartmoor, but having already pre-warned the organisers that we were to be late there was no rush. After a few hours we arrived in Dartmoor and were given a warm welcome by CSgt Kelly and Ma’am Pervin who had travelled on ahead. Immediately after we reached our camp site we were introduced to Mr Andrew Robathan (MP for South Leicestershire and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Defence) who was due to be visiting Welbeck as our guest of honour for Speech Day on 28 May. No sooner had we arrived we were shipped off to scrutineering where we were to face a full kit inspection which went extremely well and within 45 minutes we headed back to the tents where we were to sleep that night. Luckily these had already been erected by Ma’am Pervin and CSgt Kelly so we didn’t need to have that worry. As soon as we dropped off our kit we decided that it was best for us to go and meet people who had been participating in the event for several years. After a short walk around we realised that it’s not just for the hike that people come to the event. The atmosphere between people who had only just met was great and the friendliness of everyone made all the team feel extremely welcome. Being from Welbeck College we also had several questions to answer from the other teams about the College itself. These were from people who were either interested in coming to the College or from people who have friends there. 2100 was soon upon us and we were straight off to sleep as we had to be up at 0500 the next day.

0500 hit us with the sound of the ‘Top Gun’ theme tune and the smell of a cooked breakfast awaiting the teams. CSgt Kelly was already awake and had started to cook us fried egg sandwiches to prepare us for the day ahead. Although the egg sandwiches were very welcome we still knew we were to face ‘boil in a bag’ meals over the next couple of days as well as the challenging terrain of Dartmoor. At 0700 we were already lined up on the start line awaiting the sound of the artillery guns to mark the start of the weekend-long event. As the guns fired we headed off on a fast but safe route watching other teams running ahead in front of us. By the time we hit our first tor we were ahead of the other teams who were on the same route as us and we managed to maintain this gap between us and our fellow ‘N’ route groups coming into the first 4 tors. Unfortunately, however, we could not sustain this pace as a couple of our team members had started to experience extreme pain due to injury although they still managed to continue. We still had a good pace going and by 2000 we had already hit our 6th tor. We continued until we reached a designated campsite where we met several other teams which gave us an opportunity to interact with others out on the Moor and to share some of our expertise on some issues the other teams were experiencing. Soon after eating we headed straight off to sleep after the tiring day we had had.

At 0600 the next morning we were heading off to our 7th tor. We had all eaten and were raring to go, even those with injuries. We reached our first tor at approximately 0830 where we had made some good time. We quickly checked in and then sent our injured team members off to be seen by a Royal Navy Medic. We were also greeted by a Royal Marine Commando Lieutenant Commander, one of the more senior Royal Navy Officers out manning the tors. After a short chat about Welbeck with him and after medical attention was sought we managed to leave this tor shortly after. We were lucky bearing in mind the rest of our tors were a few miles apart from each other, however as a member of our team was suffering with a serious injury to his feet we had to arrange a Medivac for him, meaning the team were going to be a man down. However we ploughed on and despite being struck a number of downfalls our morale was lifted by motivation from either the team captain or some encouraging words from the military staff manning the tors. Although the need for motivation was there we were in no doubt that we were going to complete the task. You had to have returned to Okehampton base camp by 1700 and we arrived back at 1623 which, although this seemed to be cutting it very fine, was a good time bearing in mind we had suffered both injury and evacuation. As we arrived back at Okehampton we were welcomed by CSgt Kelly, Ma’am Pervin and our injured team member. Despite being utterly exhausted we still managed to walk through the finish line holding the Welbeck flag proudly aloft. Soon after completion we were handed our ‘pasty ticket’ which was our ticket to get a free pasty which could have been the worst tasting piece of food we had ever eaten but we would still say that it was the nicest pasty we had ever tasted! After a team photo and food we headed to the minibus which was already packed and ready to leave. Soon after we commenced our long return journey to College which was a great opportunity to catch up on sleep and most importantly reflect on the past weekend we had been through!

Congratulations go to William Symons, Hannah Franklin, Alistair Robertshaw, William Goddard, Thomas Angus and Adam Brown who made up the team this year. A special mention also goes to James Trippier who was picked for the team but was unable to join us on the event. Thanks also go to CSgt Kelly, Ma’am Pervin and Major Reid for their continued efforts to make both the training weekend and the main event itself such a success - without their support we could not have participated.

Adam Brown, Trenchard 10e

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