Army Telemark Chaos, Cancelled Flights & Twickenham Glory | The Parallel Four

In this hilarious and heartfelt episode of The Parallel Four, the team swap rifles for ski poles — and chaos for comedy. What should’ve been a smooth trip to the Army Telemark Championships in France turns into a logistical nightmare: cancelled flights, French strikes, and enough delays to test even the calmest Sergeant Major.

But when they finally hit the slopes, the Army proves it’s got the best skiers (and banter) in uniform — even if the Navy “borrows” the trophy on a technicality. Expect real British Army humour, Cold War camaraderie, and Telemark skiing mayhem that could only happen to soldiers on “sports training.”

Back home, the pace doesn’t slow — from Chicksands HQ madness to waving the giant St George’s flag at Twickenham for the Calcutta Cup. It’s a wild ride through real military life, blending adventure, friendship, and the laughter that keeps veterans going.

If you love true stories of service, sport, travel, and teamwork, this one’s for you.

Transcript

RAF Uxbridge transit accommodation awaited us—suspiciously “well-loved,” with carpets older than some of the recruits. There, we met up with the rest of the Army Telemark team, shared a pint, and braced for the early start. And when I say early—I mean pre-dawn, bleary-eyed, still dreaming of our beds kind of early.

So there we were at Heathrow, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, kit piled high, ready for Geneva. Spirits were high… until the tannoy cracked on with the news: flight cancelled. French air traffic controllers on strike. Typical. I groaned, dropped me ski bag with a thud, and muttered, “Trained for war zones, love, but defeated by blokes with clipboards in Paris.”

From there it went downhill faster than any of us managed later on skis. We were herded from one gate to another, delayed, rebooked, delayed again. At one point I reckon we’d walked more miles round Heathrow than we’d ever cover on the slopes.

By the time we finally boarded a plane, it was the following day. Not to Geneva, as originally planned, but to Chambéry. Scenic, yes. Convenient? About as much as a chocolate fireguard.

From there, it turned into a proper “choose your own adventure.” A patchwork of regional trains that ran whenever they fancied, bus drivers who looked half-asleep, and bemused locals who had clearly never witnessed so many people clattering through town in ski boots while lugging tactical rucksacks.

When we finally stumbled into the resort—dishevelled, travel-weary, and distinctly unimpressed—we were shown to our digs: a big wooden chalet-style lodge with about a dozen rooms and just enough heating to stop us seeing our breath indoors.

With only ten of us in the Army Telemark crowd, we’d gone self-catering. The idea was noble: we fancied ourselves domestic gods and goddesses. The reality… well, let’s just say we weren’t exactly Michelin material.

That first night, though, was a triumph. I took charge of the kitchen, roping Marlin in as my sous-chef. Between us we conjured something hearty enough to silence even Stephen’s appetite.

Meanwhile, Johan and me got lumbered with aprons. Dish monkeys and waiters, that was us. We shuffled about with plates like we were servin’ at the Ritz, bowin’ so low I thought I’d do me back in. “Tips welcome,” I muttered, though all I got was Vinka’s raised eyebrow.

Truth be told, the grub was top notch. The wine weren’t bad either. After two days of airports, bus depots, and trains that clearly ran on guesswork, it felt like five-star livin’. I raised my glass, grinnin’. “See, love? Who needs the Navy’s fancy mess when you’ve got us four, a dodgy oven, and a couple of bottles of plonk. Five-star, that is.”

Morale was restored that night—laughter echoing through the chalet, plates cleared, and the kind of easy warmth that only comes after a long road and a shared table.

The next morning, all ten of us Army Telemarkers reported to the event organisers, looking like a cross between a Special Forces ski team and the cast of a holiday sitcom. Lift passes were issued, instructors assigned, and I swear one of them muttered “Army lunatics” under his breath as we clattered past in boots and rucksacks.

The first few days were all about brushing up our Telemark technique and race training. Which, in practice, meant a steady rhythm of face plants, exaggerated bravado, and regular cries of, “That gate came out of nowhere!”

In total there were about thirty of us Telemarkers: mostly Royal Marines, a couple of slightly bewildered Navy types wondering how they’d ended up here, and our ten landlubbers from the Army. The instructors were top notch, the snow was perfect, and the banter on the lifts was even better.

Truth be told? We were better. Years of practice, trips to the Alps, and a streak of stubborn competitiveness meant we had the edge. But we weren’t daft—we let the Marines strut, the Navy wobble, and just quietly got on with it.

I skied past one particularly theatrical Bootneck wipe-out—arms flailing, skis everywhere, snow up the nostrils—and muttered to Vinka, “Let ’em have their glory, love. We’ll take the medals. They can keep the bruises.”

Race day dawned crisp and blue, the kind of Alpine morning that made you wonder if you’d accidentally woken up inside a postcard. We were as ready as we’d ever be—waxed skis, sharpened edges, and nerves masked by bravado and bad jokes.

Because there were only thirty of us in the Telemark discipline, we were sent down first. The course, of course, had been set for Alpine racers, which meant some of the tight turns and Telemark transitions were nothing short of torture. Still, thirty-five gates later—through chaos, glory, and more questionable edge control than we’d care to admit—we all crossed the finish line upright. Well… mostly upright.

Impressively, all four of us landed in the top ten, with the rest of the Army team snapping at our heels. Since there were no other women in the competition, Marlin and I had insisted on skiing against the men. We didn’t just hold our own—we carved clean lines sharp enough to make even the instructors raise their eyebrows. The consensus? We’d skied the best of the day, medals or no medals.

When the results came in, the Army had comfortably taken the overall score. Victory was ours—or so we thought. That’s when the organisers pulled out a technicality: “You’re not part of the Royal Navy Ski Association.”

Just like that, the trophy vanished quicker than a pint in the Poachers’ Mess. Talk about movin’ the goalposts—on a bloody ski slope, no less. We didn’t sulk (alright, maybe a bit), but the irony weren’t lost on us. We’d come, we’d skied, we’d conquered… apparently in the wrong cap badge.

The prize-giving ceremony had all the pomp of a Buckingham Palace garden party—if Buckingham Palace had been relocated to a draughty French ski lodge. A long trestle table was lined with trophies big enough to serve soup from, while a Naval officer in a blazer three sizes too small cleared his throat like he was about to announce the next monarch.

“Third place, Alpine discipline…” he began, droning on through categories while we shifted from foot to foot, waiting for the Telemark results.

By the time they got to our turn, I leaned over to Johan and muttered, “Bet you a fiver they’ve invented a new rule that says ‘No landlubbers allowed.’” Sure enough, that’s exactly how it played out.

When it came, we braced for glory. “And the winners, with the highest overall score…” A dramatic pause. “The Royal Navy Telemark Ski Association!”

We just stared. The Navy lads, bless them, looked as shocked as we did. One even mouthed, “That’s not right.” Our lot erupted into laughter, boos, and a chorus of, “We wuz robbed!”

Johan cupped his hands and shouted across the room: “Do we get a medal for being the wrong service?”

The officer coughed, shuffled his notes, and muttered something about “eligibility criteria” before fleeing straight into the raffle.

Back at the chalet that night, the sting had dulled into pure banter. Marlin raised her glass, eyes gleaming: “Technicality my arse—we skied rings round them.”

“Too right,” Vinka grinned. “They can keep their tin cup. We’ll take the moral victory—and the schnapps.”

The Marines tried to salvage some pride, muttering that if the course had been set properly for Telemark, the results might’ve been different. That earned howls of laughter from us and an offer to draw them a map for the gates they’d missed.

By the time the wine bottles were drained and the fondue pot scraped clean, the trophy debacle had turned into legend. In our version, the Army had stormed the podium, the Navy had fled in disgrace, and the organisers had begged us to return next year—on the condition we wore sailor suits.

After dinner came the inevitable speeches—short, heartfelt, and increasingly slurred. Johan raised his glass first: “To the Navy lads—without them, we wouldn’t have had anyone to beat!” The room erupted, cheers and jeers bouncing off the chalet walls.

I joined in with a grin: “And to us—clearly the only people here who know their left ski from their right!”

Marlin’s toast was softer, but it stilled the room for a beat: “To good friends, good snow, and making sure we never stop doing mad things like this.”

Glasses clinked, schnapps flowed, and laughter rolled long into the night. We might not have come home with a trophy, but we left with something better—stories, camaraderie, and the smug satisfaction of knowing the truth: the Army had run the slope that day.

By then the chalet was shaking with laughter, clinking glasses, and the occasional spontaneous burst of oompah-band impressions. Someone unearthed an old guitar in the corner, and before long Johan was butchering “Country Roads” with a Telemark rewrite while the rest of us attempted harmonies so off-key they could have curdled the fondue.

We finally crawled into bed wine-stained, aching from laughter, and utterly content. Trophy or no trophy, we knew exactly who’d won that week.

Next morning, heads pounding like a regimental drumline, we stuffed ourselves into woolly hats and dragged our kit down the mountain. Miraculously, the trip home was smoother than the fiasco on the way out—though clattering through French railway stations with skis lashed to rucksacks did get us a few raised eyebrows.

By the time we staggered back through the door at Hitchin—smelling of cheese, sweat, and duty-free—we were already scheming the next “training event.” After all, when you’ve got good snow, good banter, and the best mates on earth, why stop at one stolen trophy?

The trip did wonders for morale. Word got round, too. We’d cemented ourselves as that slightly bonkers bunch of soldiers who could brief generals one day and carve Telemark turns the next.

So when the following year the Army announced it would host the British Telemark Championships in Rauris, Austria, we didn’t hesitate. Gauntlet thrown down, gauntlet taken up. This time it wasn’t just a jolly—it was official. A sanctioned “sports event,” which in MOD language meant travel, accommodation, and lift passes were all on Her Majesty’s tab.

Lesson learned, though: no airports. No strikes, no delays, no lost skis. Four of us, four sets of kit, and one trusty van. Simple. Foolproof. Probably.

Sliding back into Chicksands after our Alpine adventure felt like stepping off the slopes and straight into another world. One week we were carving Telemark turns in the French Alps, the next we were up to our elbows in lesson plans, kit checks, and the usual admin chaos. The contrast was almost comical—powder snow swapped for PowerPoint.

“Ain’t right, love,” I grumbled, thumping a projector that refused to switch on. “Last week I’m skippin’ through gates like Franz Klammer, now I’m fightin’ a glorified lightbulb. Bring back the bloody mountains.”

But the tempo had shifted. Pre-deployment training was slicker, sharper, the lads coming through tougher than ever. The new kit was another story—half of it gleaming like Q Branch had lent us prototypes, the other half looking like it had been rescued from a scrapyard. We laughed, we cursed, we carried on. Outwardly, business as usual.

Thing is, you could feel it underneath. Every briefing, every sitrep, Iraq was creeping closer into focus. Saddam was rattlin’ cages, and suddenly Afghanistan looked old news. Blokes still cracked jokes in the mess, still fought over chips like it was the last supper, but deep down? We all knew summat was coming. Something Big.

One lunchtime, right in the middle of Stephen and Johan’s heated debate over Jonny Wilkinson’s left boot, one of the Pti's wandered over with that smug grin only Pti's can manage. Tray in hand, head cocked like he’d just solved the meaning of life.

“Oi, you lot fancy tickets to the Calcutta Cup at Twickenham?” he says, all casual, like he’s offerin’ us a free paper. Forks froze, chips halfway to mouths. Even Johan stopped mid-sentence.

The moment the PTI left the table, we all just sat there grinning at each other like schoolkids who’d just blagged free tickets to the circus. Chips went cold, the Wilkinson debate forgotten, and for once there was no sniping, no sarcasm—just the giddy realisation that we were going to Twickenham, centre stage, with a flag the size of a football pitch.

Stephen finally broke the silence. “Blimey, love… I’ve fought in three wars, but this? This is the big league.”

Marlin raised her mug of tea in mock salute. “To the Scrummery at nine, then. May the sausages be hot and the flag not blow away.”

Laughter rippled round the table, the buzz of anticipation chasing us all the way back to the office. Work suddenly seemed very far away. Twickenham was calling.

Because if there’s one thing soldiering teaches you, it’s that nothing—absolutely nothing—is ever that straightforward. Directions get lost, timings get bent, and someone always ends up sprinting across a car park with half a bacon sandwich still in their gob. With our combats folded into day sacks—freshly ironed and still smelling faintly of lavender mothballs—we caught the early train from Hitchin. The boys were fizzing like shaken cans of coke, while Marlin and I mostly rolled our eyes and tried not to laugh at how seriously they were taking it.

The Scrummery was our first stop, and honestly, it was worth the journey just for that. Full English, black pudding included. Johan had so much on his plate it looked like he was laying out sandbags, and I weren’t in any danger of leavin’ hungry either. Best tactical move of the day, that fry-up—fuel for glory.

By 10 sharp, we were mustered with twenty-eight others—thirty-two of us in total. A proper tri-service mix: squaddies, matlows, and crabfats all crammed together like the start of a bad joke. Two over-keen events lads marched us into the bowels of the stadium and handed out giant flag bags with the solemnity of presenting us with Excalibur.

“Twenty minutes to get changed,” they barked. Which, in practice, meant thirty-two of us tripping over boots, swapping shirts, and trying to look professional while kitting up in combats. No ties, no collar dogs—just straight working dress and a lot of nervous energy.

Then came the flags. Two massive beasts: the St George’s Cross for England and the Saltire for Scotland. Sixteen bodies on each. Naturally, me and Johan made a beeline straight for the England side—tryin’ to look all humble while glowin’ like a pair of kids on Christmas morning. Vinka and Marlin cheered us on like we’d already scored the winnin’ try.

The first practice? Absolute carnage. Flags flapping, twisting, and at one point nearly taking out a poor RAF lad who clearly thought “unfurl with flair” meant “wrap yourself in it like a toga.” The Saltire lot weren’t much better—half of them tangled before they’d even reached halfway. Still, with a bit of shouting, laughing, and the occasional tactical untangling, it started to look less like a windy school sports day and more like something the cameras might actually want to film.

We got cut loose for a few hours before the main show—meal vouchers in hand and strict orders to “behave.” First stop, naturally, was fish and chips. Wolfed down like it was our last meal on earth. Johan inhaled his so fast I swear the cod didn’t know what hit it.

After that came coffee, a wander, and far too many touristy photos around the stadium. Grown adults posing like schoolkids on a field trip. Stephen insisted on standing in front of every single Calcutta Cup sign, while Marlin managed to photobomb at least half of them with that mischievous grin of hers.

We even caught the teams arriving—cue a flurry of grainy snaps that made us feel like undercover paparazzi. One poor Scotland player looked genuinely alarmed at the wall of camo-clad flag-wavers waving camera phones like excitable teenagers.

The fan zone was next: Saltires and St George’s crosses everywhere, kilts swishing, tam o’shanters with ginger wigs bobbing through the crowd, inflatable thistles on sticks, and more face paint than you’d find at a children’s party. Stephen had to be physically restrained from buying an England shirt three sizes too small, while Johan was immediately swept into a photo with a gang of kilted Scotsmen who tried to recruit him on the spot.

With twenty-five minutes to go, they marched us out—flag bearers with purpose, pride, and enough butterflies in our stomachs to qualify as a squadron. We lined up on the touchline, each of us clingin’ to our bit of fabric like it was the crown jewels. The place was heaving—eighty-odd thousand voices rising in one great roar as England and Scotland warmed up. Every kick, every stretch, got a cheer or a boo that rattled your ribs.

Then came the ten-minute call. My heart leapt straight into my throat. We lifted, unfurled, and stepped forward as one—thirty-two bodies in perfect military rhythm, a giant red-and-white cross blooming across the grass. The sound hit like a wave—cheers, applause, camera flashes everywhere. For a moment, we weren’t just soldiers in combats. We were part of Twickenham itself, stitched into something vast and unforgettable.

Boots polished, grip firm—though if I’m honest, love, my brain was screamin’ one thing: “Don’t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip!” ’Cause there’s cock-ups… and then there’s cock-ups in front of half the rugby world. Showtime.

Just as the teams disappeared down the tunnel, it was our cue. Go-time. Thirty-two of us moved like a synchronised military flash mob, each flag unfurling across the turf with the grace of a royal bedsheet flung over a four-poster. Down we went, one knee on the grass, ringed around the edges in perfect formation—stoic, patriotic, and silently praying nobody fainted or face-planted.

The roar from the stands was thunder itself. Then the anthems. Flower of Scotland first—tens of thousands of voices bellowing it with such raw passion I half-expected William Wallace to come charging out of the South Stand. Then came God Save the Queen. My chest swelled, chin lifted, and for those few minutes I felt ten feet tall. We sang it like our lives depended on it, lungs burning, pride spilling into every note.

Three beats after the last “Queen” faded, we were up, flags lifted, sprinting off the pitch at full tilt like we’d just nicked the Crown Jewels. Mission accomplished.

Back at the storeroom, the flags were folded with military precision—no creases, no tangles, no fuss. Packed away, they looked less like nylon and more like sacred relics, treasures we’d been trusted to guard. In return, the organisers slipped match tickets into our hands—our real prize.

What a match it was. England triumphed, the Calcutta Cup was ours, and Twickenham shook with the roar of victory. Every chant rattled straight through your ribs and left you grinning whether you wanted to or not.

“Best bit, love? Sprintin’ off the pitch. I tell ya, if they’d timed us, we’d have beaten half the wingers out there.”

We stayed in uniform, riding the train home like conquering heroes, strangers nodding at us as though we’d personally carried the ball over the line.

“Didn’t correct ’em, did we? Nah. Let ’em think we won it for England. Nice change from Kabul—carryin’ flags instead of rifles.”

We grinned back, happy to let them believe it.

Later that year, the phone rang again. Another call-up. This time, the autumn internationals against the mighty All Blacks. Twickenham, round two. Did we hesitate? Not for a heartbeat. Who would?

“Oi, love—carryin’ the flag for England and starin’ down the haka? That’s bucket-list stuff right there. Beats stag duty in Sennybridge, don’t it?”

While the CO and his chosen few were barricaded in the Ops Room, pushing arrows across maps like schoolboys with toy soldiers, the rest of the Group turned into a hive. The print cell hammered away at leaflets until the air smelled permanently of toner. The radio lads lived in a constant haze of static, testing frequencies like they were trying to talk to Mars. Everywhere you looked there were crates, clipboards, and men swearing at cables that refused to coil the way they were supposed to.

It wasn’t tidy, but it was effective. Like an orchestra warming up—discordant, noisy, but undeniably moving toward something big.

You couldn’t walk ten paces without bumpin’ into someone with a stopwatch, a clipboard, or an acronym you’d never heard of. “JRPQO’s signed off on the FROPS for the TLQWPs,” one lad muttered to me, dead serious. I just nodded and said, “Lovely, mate. I’ll have mine medium rare.”

The stores looked like they’d been looted by overenthusiastic squirrels. Batteries stacked like sandbags, antennas half-built in corridors, bergen mountains everywhere you turned. Everyone had their own idea of the “best system” for packing—none of which involved actually finding anything when you needed it.

Still, under the caffeine shakes and the grumbling, there was a rhythm to it. We’d done this dance before: the frantic gearing-up, the sense that time was running out, the quiet knowledge that something bigger than all of us was coming. You could feel the weight pressing in, even if no one dared say it aloud.

While the CO and the planners were locked away in their war rooms, drawing arrows on maps and dreaming up scenarios worthy of a Tom Clancy novel, the rest of us were living in a constant state of “hurry up and wait.” Leaflets were stacked, radios checked, kit packed, repacked, and packed again. Every corridor hummed with the sound of caffeine and acronyms. It was high-stakes, yes, but also claustrophobic—too much thinking, not enough breathing.