The Navy likes its personnel to be able to cope in any situation. You may say we were encouraged to be fully rounded and complete individuals, capable of bringing our individual skills together to work as a team. One of the methods used to promote this culture is expeditionary training.

It was the first week of February 1971 and it was bitterly cold, but clear and bright when we boarded our transport. Where we were headed we’d no idea, they’d omitted to tell us that during the survival lectures we’d attended. We’d had all the kit issued to us specially and had been divided into both groups and pairs: each group consisted of six men and we’d been paired off because our tents were of the two man variety. Everything we’d need for the next six days we’d have to carry on our backs and although you can squash a lot of kit into a Bergen, there’s not much room for non-essentials.

We larked about as the bus headed up-country and given the route I began to wonder if our final destination would be Wales. The answer to that question was obviously yes as we joined the M4 and headed for the Severn Bridge.

Anyone who’s grown up in this neck of the woods knows the SAS have a base at Sennybridge just outside Brecon and on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park. The location was chosen because of the opportunities the Beacons provide for rough terrain training and of course there are lakes and other obstacles too. The bus, having left the M4 east of Newport, was heading toward Brecon and the conversation had now turned to exactly where we would be dropped. I should have guessed the SAS wouldn’t want us messing up their patch, so my Sennybridge suggestion was a tad off the mark.

Our transport stopped at the village of Talybont and we transferred to Land Rovers in our respective groups. I knew Talybont and the immediate area reasonably well having spent many hours walking the hills there as well as two weekend expeds with the ATC based at the old railway station in Talybont itself.

Our Land Rover headed out past the tiny hamlet of Abercynafon, then along a dirt track onto the hills. The driver stopped and we off-loaded. We were given map-packs and an itinerary listing places or map references we must visit that first day. At each location we would receive further instructions for the next part of the exercise, and so it would go on. We set off on foot.

The first part of our march took us over reasonably easy ground although the terrain was steeply undulating. We made our first pick-up around 13:30 and decided to stop for food and a hot drink. February on the Beacons can be very cold and the weather rather unpredictable to say the least. It was cold, clear and bright now, but I knew it was going to be a lot colder that night and as we supped our tea and discussed the next stage of our route I made the suggestion that we restrict our stop to a minimum, making maximum use of the available light.

On we went following our compass bearings and as darkness fell we could see a single point of light in the distance in more or less the right direction. We headed toward the light, which turned out to be a farmhouse. Checking and double checking our map, we realised we’d missed our reference point by approximately two miles.

A quick strategy meeting decided it would be best to camp at or near the farm; we may be able to buy fresh eggs and milk, which would be a bonus. We knocked on the farmhouse door, explained who we were and asked it we could pitch tents in an adjacent field. Yes that would be fine and if we wanted water we could use the tap in one of the outbuildings. There was an outdoor toilet we could use too.

A quick draw of lots and the two unlucky people with the short straws got to walk an extra few miles locate the missed reference point and collect our instructions. I was a bit bothered as they headed off into the darkness (it was very dark by now); what would happen if they couldn’t find the right spot in the dark? Would they even find their way back? Using a compass to follow a map in daylight is a very different matter to finding your way at night.

My fears were groundless; they returned clutching our orders within the hour. During their absence, the tents had been erected and food prepared. It was still early evening, but having eaten and with nothing better to do we were about to take advantage of the quiet and sleep when the farmer and his wife arrived bearing flasks of hot tea and plates filled with bacon sandwiches: bless them, they thought we might be hungry! A second supper despatched we returned the crockery and sank into an easy, if somewhat overstuffed, sleep.

We woke in the morning to biting cold, a thick frost and a strange noise. My sleeping partner, Eddie, crawled like a caterpillar in his bag to the tent flap and unzipped. As the zipper rose, a duck’s head came through the opening. We tried to shoo the bird away, but this was a very determined duck and having forced an entrance it just stood looking at us and quacking quietly to itself. There was no sign of life from the farm and although we could hear farting noises from one of our neighbours, no movement from them either. Eddie reached out and grabbed the duck by the throat. The duck’s eyes bulged and it didn’t look too pleased with life. It beat its wings and its feet were treading air. Having been a butcher’s apprentice before deciding on a life at sea, he knew exactly what he was doing and in seconds flat the poor animal was bereft of life.

“Jesus Christ! What’d you go and do a thing like that for?”

“It was looking at me funny. Besides it’ll taste good, you wait and see.”

“Oh shit…”

Ed was right though, that duck did taste good!

As we stomped our way over the land the weather changed; the clear skies were clear no longer as thick clouds rolled in. By midday it was raining and sleety mixture that both chilled and soaked us. The packs seemed to get heavier on our backs, our clothing chaffed our bodies, our boots squelched and we were thoroughly miserable. Conversation had died, each man thinking only about getting warm and dry.

Despite the poor weather we made our landfalls and were fortunate to find shelter for the night in an old stone farm building with a roof still intact. Whether it had once been a shepherds hut or a byre I neither knew nor cared, it offered protection from the cold and wet. We huddled inside and tried to get a fire going, but everything we’d found in the hut was damp and it was a miserable affair until one of the guys excused himself for a call of nature and returned with some more or less dry sticks. A bit of a forage produced more of the same and at last we were starting to warm and able to dry some of our wet kit.

Eddie busied himself with his morning’s catch, plucking and drawing the duck and I kept wondering if it had been a family pet; it was certainly not wild and was obviously used to people. We roast the duck over the open fire and although there wasn’t much to go around six hungry mouths, I’m ashamed to say it was possibly the best thing I’d ever tasted and I soon forgot to feel sorry for the farmer and his wife.

Day three of our trek and the weather had worsened. The snow had come down thick and heavy overnight and the landscape was blanketed white as we moved off. It was beautiful to look at, but the going was hard and landmarks difficult to spot.

Snow started falling again as we made our way up the side of a hill. We trudged on regardless, heading for our next reference point. It snowed harder.

We continued to climb and the snow continued to fall thick and fast. Pretty soon it was difficult to see more than a few feet ahead and it seemed to me the strength of the wind was increasing. Feeling a little like members of Scott’s ill-fated party, we bent under the weight of our packs and were desperately trying to see through the driven snow. We couldn’t, so we stopped. We’d come to the top of the rise and Ian Hedley simply refused to go any further. We could all see the logic of his argument and I suppose survival instincts kicked in; we put our backs to the wind, erected the tents, made hot tea and planed what we should do next. Nothing; we’d just wait it out until we could see where we were going. Seemed sensible to me.

It snowed the rest of that day and into the night. Exactly when it eventually stopped I’m not sure, but there was nothing falling in the morning and we were greeted by a Christmas card landscape.

“Fuck me Taff, come and look at this.”

“What? While there’re dogs on the street? Not likely!”

I looked and went weak at the knees. We’d walked unsighted onto a ridge and although our ascent had been gradual, the descent was almost perpendicular. Not exactly a cliff face, but we looked down some thirty feet or so to a rock strewn bed. Had Ian not made such a fuss, we may easily have stepped over with serious consequences.

We were well behind our schedule now and found as we back tracked off the ridge and re-assessed our position we were being searched for. As the weather had closed in the Navy had called a halt to the exercise, but having no method of communicating with our groups, had waited to pick each team up from their check points. Of course we hadn’t reached ours and were still ‘in the wild’.

Praise was heaped on us by our rescuers for doing the sensible thing and waiting out the adverse conditions: we omitted to tell them we’d almost walked off the edge of the world!

They took us to a disused railway hut a short distance outside Talybont and promised to feed and water us, but first we had to get out of our damp and smelly gear and get clean. There’s a shower out the back they told us. They didn’t tell us the ‘shower’ was a hosepipe with a sprinkler-rose from a watering can attached to it and in the open air. The water, cold of course, was bloody freezing and the six of us danced around naked trying not to spend too much time under the jets from the rose. It was February for Christ’s sake and there was snow on the ground. This was no time for skinny-dipping, were they all mad?