This article is part of the FT’s Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign joint seasonal appeal with Magic Breakfast
Lympstone Commando — probably the only railway station in the world named after an elite military brigade — is an arresting spot. As you pull into this dedicated halt for the Royal Marines’ central training facility on the Devon coast, you are faced on your right with the bleak mud flats of the Exe estuary and on your left Lympstone’s Bottom Field, the hardcore assault course where Marines are routinely “beasted”, or put through arduous exercises, either for training or punishment.
Barely half of the recruits make it through the gruelling, 32 week-training — a programme that the camp’s commandant, Colonel Innes Catton, describes as “the most demanding of any in Nato”: although the 4,500-strong Marines — the amphibious commando force of the Royal Navy — account for only 3 per cent of armed forces personnel, 48 per cent of UK elite special forces are recruited from the Marines.
Lympstone’s synchronised gym sessions — instructor-co-ordinated routines of press-ups, planks and parade poses — are like militarised ballet. But there is no disguising the brutality of the Bottom Field training — and the often iced-up tank of water that recruits have to swim through.
Catton is clear, though, that training to be a Royal Marine these days is about a lot more than tough-guy physicality. New mattresses reflect a focus on sleep quality. Old-style mess halls no longer serve fatty burgers and chips — but high-protein, high-nutrition meals. An adviser to the Australian Olympic swimming team has been deployed to teach de-stressing techniques.
And more thought is given to remedying fallout from training: exertional heat illness, a side-effect of the Marines’ traditional 30-mile treks across the wilds of Exmouth and Dartmoor, is now treated by specially trained medics; bone fractures, a byproduct of night-time hikes, can be mitigated with weightless devices in the gym that allow someone with a severe lower limb injury to keep running and help maintain their vital fitness build-up.
For everyone, there is baseline training in maths and English, GCSE- equivalent qualifications and the opportunity for further education, including fully paid undergraduate study; one psychology PhD candidate is focusing on how leadership can be enhanced by emotional intelligence training.
From next year, recruits will also get a programme of foundational financial education, provided by FLIC, the Financial Times’ Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign. This is an adult adjunct to the school-focused financial training that is the focus of this year’s FT Seasonal Appeal in aid of FLIC and partner charity Magic Breakfast.
Developed in collaboration with RMA-The Royal Marines Charity, FLIC’s eight-module course will teach the basics of budgeting, borrowing, savings and investing. “Equipping Marines with the knowledge to make sound financial decisions will help to secure a better future for them and their families,” says Mark Fitzgerald, chair of the RMA’s investment committee and a career-long City of London financier. Having led the FLIC initiative for the Marines with Tim Jukes, the corps regimental sergeant major, Fitzgerald is now working with senior leaders on a rollout to the Royal Navy and Army.
Funded by an initial grant from the Association of British Insurers, FLIC’s new adult programme will also be made available across the NHS. But the bulk of FLIC’s ongoing work is only possible thanks to the generous charitable donations that we’re once again asking readers to make via the FT Seasonal Appeal.
Like so much of the population, Marines — at least on the evidence of my trip to Lympstone — have limited understanding of how core financial products work, but are keen to know more. There is a particular appetite to learn among new recruits, most of them teenagers who have gone from school pocket money to earning more than £25,000 a year in a sheltered environment with few outgoings.
“What would your advice to me be?” asks Taylor Nash, a fresh-faced 17-year-old with crewcut hair. “I have £1,000 spare every month. What should I do with it? You hear about stocks, crypto, forex. But I don’t know.”
Jack Sandover, a Canadian national who is training with the Royal Marines as part of a Commonwealth recruitment scheme, has a question about repatriating his savings. What’s the best way to manage foreign exchange risk and pay the least fees, he asks? Others simply want to know how to fully understand their payslips.
But it’s not just the new recruits who are seeking financial guidance. There is general confusion about the difference between financial advisers, hedge funds and pension funds. Investing in buy-to-let property is a favourite idea but without much thought about alternative asset classes. No one can agree where they might find trustworthy neutral information.
One seasoned lieutenant colonel, who is close to retirement, asks: “I’ll be getting my lump sum,” referring to a payment of several tens of thousands of pounds that retiring service personnel typically receive. “Should I invest it in bitcoin, buy a sports car or put a deposit down on a flat?”
But if this cohort of Marines is worried about having spare cash and how best to invest it, there is also a big problem across the armed forces — and among ex-service personnel — relating to the build-up of debt and gaps in basic budgeting skills, says Clare Bain, mentoring service manager at armed forces charity SSAFA.
“It’s a significant problem,” she says. “When you join up, you’re often really young. All your bills are taken out of your pay packet at source, so you don’t understand how to manage the cost of living. You have people taking out unaffordable payday loans just to buy a round of beer without understanding how they’ll pay the money back.”
Those kinds of skills gaps can lead to homelessness, with veteran homelessness in England up 14 per cent last year, according to the Department of Housing.
Stephen*, a 19-year-old who failed his basic army training, couldn’t return to the family home because of issues with alcohol and violence, and ended up in London sleeping rough. “Fortunately,” says Bain, “I’ve managed to secure him some housing now.”
But she is convinced that a foundational programme of money training could ensure all armed forces personnel are better equipped for life. “Financial education is really important. It can just give you that all-important financial intelligence.”
As I head back down to Lympstone Commando station, Stu Clark, the regimental sergeant major who has hosted our visit, tells me a little of his own personal finance story. Ahead of his retirement, he has used savings to self-build a new home and has learnt by trial and error some of the key lessons that a FLIC educational programme would aim to teach throughout a Marine’s career. “Financial training like this will be great for the current cohort,” he says with a wry smile. “I’ve just got one question: where were you 30 years ago when I was starting out?”
* not his real name
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