DISCIPLINE is a marvellous thing. It lay behind the invincibility of
the Roman legion. Napoleon's legendary Guards made Waterloo a close-run
thing. Even Captain Blackadder went over the top when he was ordered to
do so. In peacetime, alas, the circumstances are difficult to contrive.
It is hard to persuade intelligent people that if only they are
subjected to hardship and self-sacrifice, they will emerge finer
characters, hardened by adversity. It is for this reason that there
exist such centres as the John Ridgway Adventure School, founded by the
Atlantic oarsman at Ardmore on the north-west coast of Scotland, and the
subject of last night's Channel 4 documentary.
It is to institutions like this that hundreds of British companies
send their employees on survival courses to strengthen their leadership
skills and teamwork. At Ardmore conditions are particularly tough.
Twenty men and four women were reported last weekend to have been
ordered to strip to their underwear and dive into icy sea, regardless of
whether or not they could swim. The following day they were climbing a
2500ft rockface in 90mph winds. Such experiences will bring a smile of
tolerant memory to ex-servicemen. It is in the white-hot fire of
suffering, they say, that tradition is forged. Unfortunately, civilians
are sometimes harder to convince. On the final day of one course an
entire group of executives from the Rockwater underwater engineering
company, based at Aberdeen, refused to swim ashore from a ''sinking''
boat. Their mass disobedience, they claimed, was an excellent example of
the team spirit Mr Ridgway was trying to instil.
Ah, where would Britain be today, we ask, if such actions were allowed
to spread? The incident will, it is to be hoped, be hushed up. The
problem remains: How can Rockwater redress the situation? There is only
one answer, in our experience. Put the mutinous dogs in uniform.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article