Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2009 | Page 28

life

INTERVIEW

Photo: Martin White pictured with the Prince of Wales at Ventnor Botanical Gardens (2009)
is the 150 anniversary of the Cadets! It’s really

lightly. He was drawn to the army life in a way

strange. 50 years on and I’m still in uniform

that any boy might be attracted by living the

and still involved in the Cadets. I have more

boy’s book of adventure – but that doesn’t

than a passing interest in what the Cadets do

explain his aptitude. He is the eldest of five and

on the Island of course.”

is amused at first by the suggestion that his

His bemedalled teacher, Maj Gen White
goes on, was hardly the role model that one

top of the pecking order in the family. But later

assumes draws people in. “It’s not discipline

he concedes that it could be one factor:

that is the draw,” he explains. “It’s a number of

“I think to some extent if you’ve got

things: structure is one, but a bit is a sense of

leadership you’ve got leadership. But you can

adventure – though that sounds rather corny.

learn techniques about how to do things. I

It’s a bit about wanting to serve, because that’s

think it starts with being a prefect at school,

what you feel you want to do. I hadn’t left the

so maybe being the eldest in the family is a

Island very much at that age, so it was partly

start, then being given some responsibility at

about wanting to do that.”

school, and more at Sandhurst, in the Cadet

The clincher, it seems, was when two boys

Government there – as a senior cadet you have

who had gone off to the Army sixth form

some responsibility towards junior cadets. And

college, Welbeck College, came back and told

it teaches you to get the best out of people.”

him what fun you had – lots of rugby and other

So to Welbeck College he went, where, he

sports, a great cadet force, and going from

says, he had a high old time. “I did absolutely

there on to Sandhurst for a military training. “I

no work whatsoever. I played lots of sport, I

thought it sounded good, so went to see the

met a lot people I’m still friends with. And we

careers master. He said “You don’t want to go

all went off to Sandhurst two years later.”

there,” – which actually was completely the

Friendships begun in such intense

wrong thing to say to me. I thought “Ah-hah!”

circumstances tend to last, though he dismisses

and off I went.”

the rather clinical notion that he was building

The interesting thing you find in talking to
Maj Gen White is that his tenacity is worn so
28

command skills might have arisen from being

a ‘network’. “Call it a network, but it’s a group
of friends with whom you share common