Blandford Camp is home to the communications experts of the Royal Corps of Signals, as well as ancient monuments, a Hindu temple and precious wildlife. Tina Rowe reports. Pictures: Steve Roberts

The image of soldiers from the Royal Signals in white helmets giving motorcycle displays is a world away from the reality of their day-to-day work providing crucial communications for the British Army and fighting an electronic war with the enemy.

Their weapons are computers, radio systems and satellites, and they learn their skills at a unique school in the Dorset countryside.

No operation can succeed without good communications, and the Royal Corps of Signals, based at Blandford Camp, has a proud record of providing those links over more than 80 years.

From laying and maintaining field telephone lines under heavy fire on D-Day, through playing cat and mouse with communist electronics experts in the Cold War, to ensuring data and messages get through in the testing environments of the Falklands, the Gulf and Afghanistan, the Corps has always risen to the challenge.

Their own technology is constantly advancing, but the enemy is constantly trying to outwit and sabotage. At the Royal School of Signals, young men and women aged 18 or 19 begin the intensive training which will see them deliver communications on battlefields and in command centres all over the world, and defeat attempts to distort or disrupt those links.

The school at the base high on the Dorset downs can take 6,000 students a year, including some from overseas. Some will be returning for specialist courses, which can also lead to higher civilian qualifications. Success in the intensive Foreman of Signals course, for example, will also bring a BA, accredited by Bournemouth University.

Blandford is a big camp – 1,200 acres. As well as the School of Signals, it is headquarters of the Tri-Service Defence College of Communications and Information Systems, and to the 30th Signal Regiment. With its mass of MoD housing, it is a town in its own right, with its own cinema, church, GPs' surgery, sports and other facilities.

There is also a significant Gurkha presence on the base. Gurkha Royal Signals operates alongside British soldiers all over the world, and there are more than 40 Gurkha families at Blandford. Earlier this year, a Hindu temple was opened on site. The Hindu religion has 15 festivals throughout the year, and families welcome the chance to celebrate together in a dedicated building.

Dil Kumari Gurung, wife of Gurkha officer Kamal Gurung, is a Gurkha support worker, helping families feel at home. She and her husband were previously based in Colerne, and their children, Arati and Anuj, are pupils at Kingswood School, Bath.

Dil is wearing a beautiful red sari when we meet, a wonderful splash of colour on a raw November day.

The Gurungs are from Pokhara, one of Nepal's most popular tourist destinations, famed for its lake and mountain landscape and known as the Switzerland of Nepal.

Can Dorset compare? Dil says: "We like it here. It is nice and quiet, the countryside is some of the best, and the sea is not far away. Whenever new families come, from Nepal, or other places, I show them around and help them settle in. Most of the time, women's husbands aren't with them because they are off on courses or exercises. Sometimes, if there is an emergency, and one of the family needs to be taken to hospital, for example, then I will take them, because the woman may not drive. There are not many Asian shops round here so we organise visits to Southall to buy saris and so on."

Army service is a famously strong tradition amongst Nepalese families. Dil's father was a British Army major, while Kamal's father was a major in the Indian Army.

Captain Prem Ale, senior Gurkha officer at Blandford and training adjutant, is also from an army family. His father, a retired Gurkha, lives with Captain Ale's brother and his family at Catterick.

Lee Taylor, 34, a yeoman of signals, is back at the school after serving with 16 Air Assault Brigade at Camp Bastion, the huge British military base in Afghanistan's Helmand province. He says: "It isn't so much war fighting now, it is about reconstruction and development and liaising with local tribal elders to bring about peace and change, civilisation.

"The terrain has quite a vast impact on signals because it is mountainous and rugged and remote. We have difficulty at times but we have managed well and found ways and systems which deal with it.

"The advice in the careers office led me down this road, I knew I would have a qualification and it's a really enjoyable job. I don't regret a day of joining the army and can't think of a better life.

"I've travelled the world and got some great mates now who will be mates for life. It's hard at times when you are deployed, working long hours away from family, but the rewards are there when you come back and you get plenty of downtime. I have never seen an issue about that and we are getting all the equipment we could possibly want."

Beyond the brick and Tarmac the camp encloses a swathe of chalk downland and woods, havens for wildlife, including four scarce species of butterfly. There are three Sites of Scientific Interest and three of National Conservation Interest, neolithic barrows, Bronze Age structures and the remains of a Romano-British hamlet and World War I practice trenches.

The landscape is the daily workplace of Rachel Crees, one of the few MoD conservation officers. She runs a volunteer scheme with volunteers from the camp who work in collaboration with archaeologists clearing overgrowth from the ancient monuments, and liaises with farmers over the right type of grazing to encourage wildlife.

"We have a lot of species of birds here that are in decline – cirl buntings, linnets, skylarks, grey partridge, yellowhammer, and we are hoping that barn owls will nest," she says. "And we have Chalkhill Blue and Adonis Blue butterflies. I am very lucky to work here." Blandford Camp has had a fascinating history. The first recorded military presence is of a troop of the 7th Hussars stationed nearby to combat smuggling.

The camp's link with signalling goes back to 1806 when a relay station was built as part of the Admiralty telegraph system for passing messages between London, Portsmouth and Plymouth.

The pioneering troop of Royal Engineers who provided telegraph communication for the field army in the 1870s were based here and, in World War I, the Royal Navy Division moved in. Rupert Brooke, who served with them, is said to have written "If I should die, think only this of me" while here.

In World War II, the camp was used for training for the Allied invasion of Europe, and after D-Day many wounded personnel were treated at American hospitals set up here.

Under the current Defence Training Review plans to centralise technology training, the Royal School of Signals and the tri-service college will move to St Athan in Wales in about 2014.

But Blandford Camp has been designated a core site, and it is expected to be a military base for a good time yet.