A Life in Service – Reflections of John Richardson

We recently chatted to four of ExtraCare’s own veterans at Bournville Gardens Village, Keith, Hubert, Neville and John who have all spent time in military service. Here John Richardson shares his story about his decades in service, working for the Ministry of Defence, facing off with sharks as a sub aqua diver, a dramatic escape from the cairngorms, and a life volunteering around the world.

From the very beginning, I had a tendency to volunteer for anything that sounded interesting or challenging. While serving at the Army Apprentice College in Harrogate, I ran the drama club, oversaw the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award programme, learned to sail, and trained as a first aid instructor. I even joined a fellow soldier, who had no family, on a visit to Buckingham Palace to receive his Gold Award. Those moments taught me that the army wasn’t just about drill and discipline it was about opportunity and camaraderie.

I became involved with the City and Guilds examinations board, working to have the internal exams for army apprentices recognised externally. Before long, I was appointed Chief Examiner. That role took me next to the Royal Army Educational Corps Centre in Beaconsfield, where I assisted with training and education.

One of my most unusual tasks was a three-month attachment to the Ministry of Defence, where I organised and ran the army’s worldwide drama festival. It might sound light-hearted, but in truth, it showed me the way creativity and camaraderie keep a force united.

Then came Singapore. In 1964, I was posted there as a Staff Officer for Education (SO3) for two and a half years. It was a headquarters job, managing finances, activities, evening classes, and discipline. I even sat on two court martials as a junior captain, and as the youngest officer, had to give my verdict first. That wasn’t easy but I got through it.

My wife volunteered with the Red Cross, but when she joined me in Singapore she became the Director of the Junior Red Cross there. Together we built friendships well beyond the military community. I also volunteered at the Hong Lim Community Centre, taking children from the poorer riverside areas up to the causeway to teach them to swim. Those days, teaching the children to trust the water remain among some of my happiest memories.

Adventure seemed to follow me wherever I went. When I was nearly thirty, I volunteered in the Cairngorms in Scotland for adventurous training. Four of us climbed a mountain, and the weather turned vicious. One man began to show signs of frostbite. With three thousand feet still to descend, we put our rucksacks under us, lay back, and used our ice axes as brakes, sliding all the way down. It was terrifying, but exhilarating. Not long after, I was sent on another adventure, this time sailing across the Channel to France. I was a novice aboard a 27-foot army yacht, bound for Le Havre. The winds were much stronger than forecast. Everyone was seasick except me. We never reached our intended port, ending up instead somewhere else along the French coast, battered but proud.

Another core memory was taking a group of Gurkhas who were learning English on a field trip to London and helping them find their way to the Tower of London. For them, it was a glimpse into British history; for me, it was a reminder of the incredible diversity of people the army brings together.

My service took me all over the world. I spent a year in Iran as Senior Education Adviser to the Imperial Iranian Technical High School, a new institution to train engineers for the Iranian army. Later, I spent two and a half years in Germany, working closely with the local community and representing the General at public events. It was a diplomatic role which involved a lot. I even found myself attending the local sausage festival on the General’s behalf at one point!

By the time I finished my service, I had risen to Lieutenant Colonel. I thrived in the army. It gave me twenty-four years of purpose, challenge, and friendship. I left in 1982, closing a chapter that had begun with that first letter back in the 1950s.

Of course, there were sacrifices. With so much travel and relocation, both of our children had to go to boarding school. That wasn’t an easy decision. We made it work, as army families do, by sharing strength when the other needed it.

After leaving the army, I wasn’t ready to stop serving. I became an HM Inspector of higher education for thirteen years, later even working as an education inspector in young offenders’ prisons. My career always circled back to one belief: education is service. It’s about preparing the person for the job and shaping the job to suit the person.

These days, I live at Bournville Gardens Retirement Village. I moved here six years ago, when maintaining my house in Selly Oak became too much. Circumstance has meant my wife and her daughter live separately from me, but they visit often, half the week, really. It’s a different kind of life, one that requires becoming a new version of oneself, but we remain deeply connected and I’ve made wonderful friends here.

I have never stopped volunteering, and started here at Bournville about eighteen months after moving in. I work on reception, serve on the finance committee for ExtraCare, and I’m a member of the RA. Volunteering gives structure, community, and joy. I only have to walk toward the bistro and someone’s already got my coffee, or a beer waiting.

When I reflect on remembrance days now, I think of the ordinary men and women who had no choice but to serve. The armies that fought in the world wars weren’t professionals or volunteers; they were conscripts, ordinary people who did something extraordinary. We owe it to them to remember, not with just sadness, but with gratitude.

At eighty-nine, I can look back at a life that has been full of purpose, of travel, of people. The army gave me more than a career; it gave me an ethos. Service doesn’t end when you take off the uniform, it just changes shape. Whether teaching, inspecting, or volunteering, I’ve always found meaning in helping others grow. And that, I suppose, is the great adventure I never expected when that letter first arrived all those years ago.