The Armed Forces’ Chaplaincy Centre – Training for and by chaplains

Padre Giles Legood

One of the great things about my current posting is the chance to work every day alongside chaplains in the Royal Navy and army and with others from these two services as well as my own, the RAF. The “purple” mix, as it is called, of navy blue, red and light blue is the daily experience on Operations and it is increasingly the daily experience of military personnel in the UK too.

The Armed Forces’ Chaplaincy Centre, Amport House, is part of the Defence Academy of the UK. It trains full-time chaplains from all three services. This is both their initial chaplaincy training and their on-going ministerial education. In addition, courses are delivered for chaplains pre- and post-Operational tours, on promotion, for specific ministries, as well as for reservist chaplains and chaplains to the Air Training Corps and Army Cadet Force.

There are five padres, from all three services, based at Amport House. We teach not only chaplains but men and women of all ranks, and civil servants, from across the military community. We train Casualty Notification and Visiting Officers, teach courses on Listening Skills and Bereavement and Loss. Each morning at 0800 we meet in the House chapel for 30 minutes of prayer and worship. Amport reflects the denominational breadth of the armed forces’ chaplains and so this time might be a Communion Service or a Service of the Word, held in the tradition of the padre whose turn it is to lead the service. We may be joined by any of the course attendees who are staying in the House at the time. The House can accommodation 60 personnel and the chapel a similar number.

As well as the spiritual home of the Commissioned Christian chaplains, Amport House is also home to the five, full-time, Civilian Chaplains to the Military (CCMs). In addition to attending courses here themselves, the CCMs bring serving military personnel for conferences and faith meetings. We are currently constructing a World Faiths’ Prayer Room to accommodated their needs.

After chapel, and a quick breakfast with course members, teaching begins at 0900 and continues to 1700. This year we are scheduled to have over 11,000 student days at Amport House, so we are fairly busy! Given the nature of the courses which we teach, coming to Amport can be an emotional time for some. The building in which we work is beautiful, peaceful and set in wonderful gardens and it needs to be. Those attending some of our courses could soon be knocking of the door of a stranger to tell them a loved one had died or is very seriously injured in Afghanistan. Similarly, chaplains attending their training may know that they will soon be in a place of danger too.

Each week we will have different courses running concurrently and this brings great opportunities for dialogue and encounter. Men and women of high rank or low rank, of all three services will meet in the classroom, in the all-ranks’ dining room or over coffee between sessions and communicate in way that they would not easily otherwise do in the normal work environment. In the evenings too, friendships are formed, or renewed in the bar and connections made.