MAGGOTBOX

It may come as a mild surprise to today's savvy generations to learn that only 35 years' ago steps were being taken by the UK military authorities to rehearse the physical control of aggressive and rioting civilian protesters. I say 'mild,' because the police do this sort of thing all the time. Crowd control, and all that. But this was the Territorial Army, with guns, training in Norfolk's busy Stanford Battle Area.
It was also at the height of the Cold War when there were problems everywhere and lots of tension. Ground to air missiles at North Pickenham, Neatishead's radar operators keeping an eye on non-NATO aircraft zooming across the North Sea, Lakenheath jets loaded with nuclear bombs and ready to go, Norfolk's 'war room' with its four-minute warning, the CND protesting, military planners wanting nuclear warheads deployed in Thetford's forests, and spyplanes creeping around the edges of space peeking at the Soviets and their satellites.
Thinking I ought to see what was going on, militarily, I sought permission to join the TA on one of their Battle Area exercises. They said 'yes,' and I still have a copy of the Press briefing notes, and an Army map, dating to that time. The notes describe the training area (17,500 acres of mixed woodland, fir plantations, marshes and deserted villages) and range facilities, point out that in 1975 some 66,000 troops used the facility, and list among 'potential tresspassers' into the area 'fire raisers' and 'saboteurs of expensive equipment.' There was also another category at the bottom of the same list, scrubbed out by someone's black Biro, which originally read, 'students and militants.'
The TA detachment I joined for three days was billeted at Bodney camp, beside the B1108, where we were all briefed and given jobs. As a neutral, I was asked to join a car load of soldiers (in civvies, one with a cine camera) who were ordered to tour the area's guarded facilities, pretend to be a civvy media team, and try to extract information from the unsuspecting sentries.
No-one, they assured me, would get into trouble. It was for assessment purposes only. So I agreed to join, and we sweet-talked sentries at three or four guarded facilities - mostly around Watton and Croxton - and managed to weedle out of them assorted information about what they were guarding, how many guards there were, and so on. The TA brass, I think, were pleased with our efforts but appalled by the results.
The big effort came the next day and involved a set-piece 'battle' in the middle of the forest between dozens of troops and opponents, loosely described as 'the enemy.' Off the record, I was told, they might be Red Army paratroopers. Or, I suppose, students and militants.
Anyway, the exercise began with a pre-dawn assembly at Brack Wood, near Buckenham Tofts park, the troops moving to the start-line in White House Strip and Square Wood, with a forward element alongside Union Belt. Then at the appointed hour the assault (using blanks, of course) on Maggotbox Wood and Bramble Wood began. It was very noisy, even exciting. And out chaps won, of course, the Red infiltrators and their weapons being pushed back towards The Arms and then surrounded. 'Prisoners', I think, were taken.
It was all explained away at the time as a necessary 'trial run' in case terrorists and such-like infiltrated the area, and it echoed the tension of the time. What was more difficult to grasp was the full implication of such preparations - the Army 'shooting' at students, or civilian protesters. Mind you, at the time we didn't fully grasp the implications of a nuclear attack on the region, either.