Get fell in! Boys sign up for action

THESE fresh-faced recruits are gearing up for Army life after swearing the Oath of Allegiance.

Family and friends watched on proudly as the group took the first step on the path of their careers with the British Army at the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment headquarters in Preston.

Ashley Gibbons (from Fitton Hill) Josh Berry (Abbeyhills) John Illingworth (Royton) Ben Mowbray (Shaw) Christopher Dale (Limeside) Sean Kershaw (Oldham) Adam Hall (Abbeyhills) Samuel Taylor (Oldham) and Chad Walker (Tameside) all join the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, which recruits soldiers exclusively from the North-West.

Ashley, Ben, Christopher, Sean and Adam have just finished school and will start a 42-week mixed programme of first-class military training and vocational studies at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate. John, Samuel and Chad will embark on a 26-week combat infantryman course at the Infantry Training Centre (ITC) in Catterick before moving to their battalions and Josh will complete his basic training at the Army Training Regiment in Winchester.

Sgt Steve Alexander, a recruiter at Oldham’s Army Careers Office in Lord Street, has helped the new recruits through the rigorous selection process.

He said: “From the stage of these lads first walking into the office to the stage where they are now, they have matured a lot throughout the process, to the men they are today — they have come on leaps and bounds.”

The North-West maintains a strong tradition of providing young men and women to serve in our armed forces.

Every year, one-sixth of all new recruits to the Army alone come from this region.

The region has already recruited 75 per cent of its target for the 2009/10 only half-way through the recruiting year.