It was the first failure (Mons Officer Training Unit, Aldershot) I’d ever had, but it was salutary.

I had begun my National Service as a committed Christian, a Conservative and, I’m sure, a prig.

Now priggishness apart, I was none of these things quite,

and though I did not know it at the time it had cured me for life of any desire to join.

Alan Bennett (1934- ), 2016.