USMA IN THE NEWS

The clatter of 200 pairs of Army boots climbing a fire escape to Mass in an old classroom at Sandhurst's Royal Military Academy will be silenced this week as work begins on its first permanent Roman Catholic chapel.

The academy, built in 1812, sent its Catholic cadets to attend church outside the gates until 1948 when it converted a second-floor lecture room in Old College.

Now pounds 500,000 is being raised to remove the cheap, temporary fixtures, including the rattling black metal stairs, and build a lasting chapel.

Most of the money is expected to be donated by the 2,851 serving Roman Catholic officers and 3,000 retired officers with additional help from regiments, Catholic public schools and Catholic trusts.

The two chaplains currently use a champagne bucket for baptisms and an ordinary table as an altar but the Royal Irish Regiment has paid for a Celtic stone font bearing the badges of disbanded southern Irish regiments.

The new altar is made of four old Portland stone graves retrieved from Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries around the world, including the Falklands. The soldiers' names will be erased.

Relics of St Philip Fitzalan Howard, 13th Earl of Arundel hanged in 1588, St George, the patron saint of England, and St Thomas Becket, a former Archbishop of Canterbury murdered in 1170, will lie inside the new altar.

"It will give the chapel a direct link between those who have given their lives and the altar of sacrifice," said Francis Hobbs, director of the appeal and a former Colonel in the Foot Guards.

Gen Andrew Ritchie, Commandant of Sandhurst, an Anglican, accompanied Fr Andrew Lloyd, the Roman Catholic chaplain, to the Vatican before Christmas to have the relics blessed by the Pope.

The chapel will also have a plaque of the Pope's words: "Those who are dedicated to the service of their country and are members of the Armed Forces should regard themselves as ministering to the security and freedom of their peoples."

There is a higher proportion of Roman Catholics in the Army than the general population, with 17 per cent of cadets baptised Catholic, and the congregation on Sundays is usually more than 200.

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, one of the patrons, will open the chapel in December although building should be finished by Oct 15.

The metal fire escape is replaced with a 17ft Palladian-style stone staircase leading to a glassed porch, suspended by wires resembling the crown of thorns.

The theme continues inside with a circle of lights above the altar shaped like a crown. The seating capacity will increase from 160 to 220 and HMS Sandhurst has donated a ship's bell.

Seven stained glass windows have been commissioned, all of which will represent the life of the academy and the Army's core values. The Sergeants' Mess at Sandhurst is paying for a window on "discipline" which shows Jesus curing the centurion's servant and in the background Sandhurst cadets in overalls polishing their boots.

Other windows will reflect core values of loyalty, honesty and courage. The United States Military Academy of West Point is paying for the seventh window which is expected to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the work of Nato and the "special relationship" between the two forces.

The existing Stations of the Cross painted by war artist Stella Schmole on to the lids of Army packing boxes are being preserved.