X-Nico

unusual facts about National Service


Christian Mergenthaler

After studying in Stuttgart, Tübingen and Göttingen, he passed the first service exam for secondary school teachers in 1907, spent 1908-1909 as a National service volunteer, and then passed the second exam in 1911.


Aliff Aziz

In 2009, Aliff Aziz was enlisted to the compulsory National Service where he was an instructor at the SCDF (Singapore Civil Defence Force) National Service Training Institute (Formerly BRTC/Basic Rescue Training Centre) in Jalan Bahar.

Andrew Sinclair

Sinclair did his National Service with the Coldstream Guards and wrote a novel and later a screenplay based on the experience, called The Breaking of Bumbo (1959).

Battle of the Imjin River

The British soldiers were a mixture of regular soldiers, reservists and conscripted National servicemen.

Blind Veterans UK

Blind Veterans UK works to provide vision impaired Armed Forces and National Service veterans with the services and tailored support they need to lead independent lives after sight loss.

Bryan Ingham

For his National Service he joined the RAF, and spent his time in Germany as an airman employed in a number of what he regarded as tedious tasks before ending up in charge of the stores at RAF Celle under a laissez-faire sergeant, where he became an enthusiastic operator of the ways and means act.

David G. P. Taylor

He did his National Service in the Royal Navy after which he was posted to RAF China Bay at Trincomalee, in modern day Sri Lanka, as a sub-lieutenant (special) in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserves.

Derek Tapscott

In October 1950, he was called up for his national service, joining 4 Training Regiment of the Royal Engineers.

Duncan Inglis Cameron

During the years 1945 - 1948, he performed his national service flying with the RAF, after which he began his administrative career as a Chartered Accountant's apprentice with Alfred Tongue & Co.

Golly Mackenzie

Golly has lived on the Glenbogle estate most of his life, apart from his period of national service in the Gordon Highlanders.

Humphrey Burton

Born 1931 in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, he attended Long Dene, a co-educational progressive school 1943-47, and the Judd School, Tonbridge 1947-49, and did 18 months National Service in the Royal Corps of Signals before reading music and history at Fitzwilliam House, Cambridge during 1951-54.

Jim Holdaway

After spending two years of National Service from 1945 with the East Surrey Regiment, Holdaway went to Italy, Austria and Greece before returning to art school on an ex-Serviceman's grant.

Jim Standen

His appearances at Arsenal were limited, first by National Service and then by the presence of Wales international Jack Kelsey.

John Akister

Trained as an electrical fitter and electrical draughtsman, he worked for the Metropolitan-Vickers company from 1954 to 1959, when he began national service as a private in the 1st Battalion of the Lancashire Regiment.

Ken Simmons

During a period of National Service from 1948-50 Simmons was posted to the Suez Canal Zone, Egypt where his observations of birds provided material for later published work.

Lads' Army

Shown on ITV, Bad Lads Army is based on the premise of subjecting today's delinquent young men to the conditions of conscripts to British Army National Service of the 1950s to see if this could rehabilitate them.

Laurance Reed

Reed served his National Service with the Royal Navy from 1956 to 1958, and from 1963 to 1966 worked and studied at Brussels, Bruges, Leyden, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Paris, Rome, Bologna and Geneva.

Lionel Crawford

He was educated at Rendcomb College between 1941 and 1950 before being called up for National Service.

Martin Woodhouse

In 1959 Woodhouse was called up for National Service and worked with the Royal Air Force at the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine, and then at the Farnborough radar research establishment.

Nicholas Winterton

He undertook his National Service from 1957–59 and was commissioned into the 14th/20th King's Hussars serving in Germany before leaving to work as a trainee sales executive with Shell-Mex and BP.

Norman Willis

He worked for the TGWU from 1949–1951, before two years National Service.

Peter Goy

After two years of National Service he returned to the club in 1958 and was third-choice goalkeeper after Jack Kelsey and Jim Standen.

R. J. Hollingdale

He was called up to the Royal Air Force at a young age in the late 1940s, as part of his National Service, for two years before returning to journalism.

Raghavendran Rajasekaran

Apart from being a musician, Ragha has served in the Singapore Police Force as Special Constable Sergeant during his National Service.

Ron Gomboc

After finishing his National Service in 1971 he enrolled in an art course at Claremont School of Art.

Ron Todd

After completing his national service, Todd returned to plumbing and then worked in the Ford factory in Dagenham, where he joined the TGWU.

Roy Erskine

After completing his spell of National Service, Erskine began his football career with Hibernian.

Terry Lawless

Lawless started his coaching and management career in 1957 after his National Service, and formed a close friendship with Norman Giller, who was then Sports Editor of the local Stratford Express newspaper.

The First Casualty

Meanwhile, Douglas Kingsley, a liberal Inspector for Scotland Yard, has refused national service because he considers the war to be an affront to his highly prized sense of logic.

Thomas Nossiter

He did National Service in the Royal Corps of Signals between 1956-58.

Willie Duff

During the 1950s, all British men were obliged to fulfil a period of national service and in the latter part of 1956, Duff received call-up papers to the army's Royal Horse Artillery, based in Surrey.


see also

A More Perfect Constitution

The twenty-three proposals run the gamut from changing the length of the U.S. President's term in office and the number and terms of Supreme Court justices to altering the structure of Congress, modifying the Electoral College, and introducing universal national service.

Alma College

Other organizations include Sigma Alpha Iota, the women's music fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega, the co-ed National Service Fraternity—one of the largest organizations on campus, and a women's Christian sorority, Sigma Alpha Omega, which was formed in the Winter Term of 2006.

Angus Allan

Following a period of national service in the Gordon Highlanders from November 1954 to November 1956, having been on active service in Cyprus, Allan returned to Amalgamated Press and after working on Super Detective Library, eventually became co-editor of what was now known as "Cowboy Picture Library", with Alan Fennell.

Anthony Quiney

As a young man, Quiney performed his national service as a radar technician in the Royal Air Force, and later in life he realized a dream of piloting a restored Supermarine Spitfire.

Anthony Yates

After national service with the British Army in Kenya, Egypt, and the Suez Canal, he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1957.

Charles Hampden-Turner

He was educated at Wellington College, a military public school attended by his father, and did his national service with the same regiment his father had served in, the Suffolk Regiment.

Derek Boshier

The boredom of the previous few years of National Service in the Royal Air Force had been alleviated by reading the works of Marshall McLuhan.

Donald Deacon

When his friend and political colleague Barney Danson was appointed Minister of Defence, Deacon worked with Danson and Jacques Hébert to create Katimavik, a national service program designed to enable unemployed youth help others and themselves at the same time.

Eric Hammond

He served his apprenticeship as an electrician with the Bowater paper company, and in 1950 was called up for national service, serving for two years with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

Glenn Laffel

Deployments of Clinical Solutions' content included NHS Direct, a toll-free national service provided to UK citizens by the British National Health Service, Queensland Health (Australia), and the New South Wales Ambulance Service (Australia).

Ivan Owen

Born in South London, Owen did his National Service after World War II, and thus came into contact with Terry Scott.

Jean-Pierre Ricard

He spent one year of National Service of Cooperation in Bamako, Mali.

Jeffrey Skitch

After National Service with the Royal Air Force during World War II and for two years thereafter, he trained as an actor and singer at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and The Old Vic Theatre School.

Johnny Beerling

He began his radio career during national service from 1955-7 when he ran a radio station for the Royal Air Force station British Forces Aden in the Aden Protectorate, acting as its station manager, studio engineer and morning DJ.

Jurek Becker

After completing his national service in the East German army in the 1950s, during which time he became firm friends with the actor Manfred Krug, Becker studied philosophy in East Berlin but was expelled for expressing non-conformist views.

Leslie Woodhead

For his National Service commencing in 1956, he served in Fife at the Joint Services School for Linguists where he was taught Russian.

Mahadai Das

She was a dancer, actress, teacher and beauty queen, served as a volunteer member of the Guyana National Service around 1976 and was part of the Messenger Group promoting ‘Coolie’ art forms at a time when Indo-Guyanese culture was virtually excluded from national life.

National service in Singapore

Controversy arose when the penalties were increased in January 2006 after Melvyn Tan, who was born in Singapore, received a fine for defaulting on his National Service obligations.

From Boys To Men: A Literary Anthology Of National Service In Singapore edited by Koh Buck Song and Umej Bhatia (2002) - 50 works of poetry, prose & playscripts by 30 writers, from 1967 to 2002, the 35th anniversary of national service in Singapore.

Télam

The state's news media outlets were merged in 2001, and the agency joined public television (Canal 7) and public radio (LRA Radio Nacional) within the Servicio Nacional de Medios Públicos (National Service of Public Media).