Scouting

[poliphilo]

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Scouting movement and scouts from all round the world assembled at Brownsea Island (wherever that is) and did whatever it is scouts do.

I was a Wolfcub for a few months back in the late 50s and hated it. But then I'm not a team player. 

We met in the overwhelmingly brown hall of the local Presbyterian Church and all the other kids knew one another from school- but I went to another posher school and was the odd one out. I never got the hang of climbing ropes or tying knots or- what else did we do? I forget.

I remember marching round the streets in a church parade once and feeling noble.

That's a memory I'd suppressed. I don't suppose I've visited it in fifty years. The Wolfcub uniform was green and one wore a dinky little "Just William" cap- which wasn't such a terrible imposition because I wore a similar cap- a red one- for school. And then there was the woggle- a leather band that fastened with a press stud and kept your scarf in place. Ian Hislop had a programme about scouting a few weeks back in which he explained how every item of the scout uniform has a secondary practical application. The scarf doubles as a bandage or sling  and the woggle- no- I can't remember what the woggle is for.

Scouting is so much about the Empire and the healthy, outdoor, homoerotic ethos of the early 1900s you'd have thought it would have died out by now but, no- quite the reverse- numbers are growing and I even get the impression it's becoming cool.

And apparently- to judge from the crowds at Brownsea- they're now admitting girls. In my day you had the boy scouts and the girl guides and never the twain shall meet. They interviewed a Dutch Girl Scout who rmade me think of Luna Lovegood. She was saying the organisers had asked her to remove her traditional wide-brimmed pointy hat because it's no longer official uniform in Britain and she'd told them to swivel. They should bring the traditional pointy hats back, they really should. 

Like I said I hated the whole thing, but that's because I'm a duffer. Now that I'm no longer threatened with having to dress up in silly clothes and walk in church parades and mess about with knots I'm ready to concede it's rather a good idea. Baden Powell was a bit of a visionary really. (And a wonderfully full-blooded great British eccentric who used to sleep on the balcony even when it was snowing). He wanted to teach kids to be healthy and useful and self-reliant- like the Lunalike in the pointy hat.  And though he'd been a soldier of the Empire, he wasn't a militarist or a war junkie or a little Englander. He once said that if the children of the world got together to run things there'd be an end to war. I don't think he and I would have found much to talk about, but I like the cut of his jib.

My former headmaster- who was very like the headmaster in the movie If  (who deservedly receives a bullet between the eyes)- served a term as UK Chief Scout. The current Chief Scout is the former Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan. There was a clip of him on Brownsea Island summoning the tribes with a ram's horn. Now that is definitely cool.

Comments

[jfs.livejournal.com]

For me, Hislop's programme brought a massive lump to my throat. I was a Cub from the age of 7 through to a Scout patrol leader at the age of 16, and I'd forgotten just how much fun and good things being a member of the Scouts had brought me. I remembered seeing the Patrol Leader's den at Gilwell Park (which you had to climb a ladder and walk across a narrow bridge 20 feet up in the air to get to - no shrinking violets allowed) when I was just a lowly Scout and wondering some day if I'd be allowed in there. I remembered a holiday in the Scout camp at Lake Windermere, where we were taken into the woods to build huts, and then allowed to sleep in them overnight. If you hadn't made your hut waterproof? Better hope that your friends had made room for you. I remember wide games of hunt the flag where a thread tied around your left wrist was your life, and when that got broken, you were out until the next game. It didn't matter if it was another scout or a branch that did it - you were on your honour to retreat at that point.

I remember the FMH-BST challenge, where scouts from all over Shropshire took part in a number of challenges one summer, culminating in a camp near to Bridgenorth where the first challenge was to get to the site without being caught by roving patrols, at night, with only a map reference to go by and with your food, clothing, tent and sleeping bag on your back. I remember the farmer who gave me and my partner a lift in the back of his land-rover past the two checkpoints where we might have got caught, and the scout leaders praising us for that ingenuity rather than berating us for stranger-danger. I must have been 14 at the time.

I hope the Scouts of today get to do as many cool things as I did, and more.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a lot of fun. I clearly missed out.

And I like it that they gave you points for hitching a ride through the enemy roadblocks. All's fair in love and war.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

That particular event was a whole heap of fun. I remember that the punishment for being caught that night was that your neckerchief got taken from you, and the next morning, there was a neckerchief inspection. (Given we were all from different troops, we all had different coloured scarves.) Anyone who didn't have theirs was made to do some meaningless but not particularly onerous punishment - litter duty for an hour - something like that. At the end of the inspection, all the neckerchiefs were handed back, leaving one in the hands of the organisers. They went over to the only scout it could have belonged to, and asked if it was his.

He replied that it was, and on being asked if he had been captured the night before, he replied that he had.

He then pointed out that the punishments were for lack of neckerchief, not being captured, and that a good scout, always prepared, should have more than one neckerchief; them being so useful.

The leaders agreed, and handed him back his spare neckerchief.

(Though, to be fair, I seem to remember that he and all of the rest of us who had evaded capture had to put on an entertainment at the campfire that evening for everyone else.)

[jfs.livejournal.com]

And in a fit of complete nostalgia, the badge we got to wear for taking part in the challenge was this one:

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Nice.

Is that the Scouting coat of arms?

Do the Scouts have a coat of arms?

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Don't know about the Scouts, but that's the Shropshire coat of arms in the centre there.

(And it's the Francis Michael Hall British Summer Time Challenge - F M Hall being the Head Scout in Shropshire at the time.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

What did British Summer Time have to do with it?

[jfs.livejournal.com]

*grin*

The first challenge was to work out what the initials FMH-BST stood for. The start and end dates of the whole challenge were the beginning and end of British Summer Time that year.

I think there were about 30 challenges we had to accomplish in that time. Some were easy / quick, like the name of the challenge. Others were far more complex - build a raft that supports 3 scouts for a distance of 100m on water without spending any money was far more time consuming.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I see from your post over yonder that those funny things with their mouths open wide are Talbots hounds. I just love anything mediaeval.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Brownsea Island is in Poole Harbour, Dorset, and is my favourite place in the world. It's what I imagine Heaven is like, though I'd want some more animals besides the red squirrels and peacocks.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You see, I don't know that part of the world at all. Such a small island, so many places I haven't visited!

[momof2girls.livejournal.com]

Interesting post. I think if I had boys, I'd be reluctant to have them join the Boy Scouts here, but Cub Scouts would probably be okay. It seems to have devolved into a Christian, homophobic organization (IMHO), but the Girl Scouts have not. Also, it seems like everyone becomes an Eagle Scout; I thought that was the pinnacle and supposed to be very difficult to reach.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's inevitable that scout troops get sponsored by churches. They can provide the willing youth workers, they can provide the premises.

It seems likely that Baden Powell was himself homosexual- though very, very deeply in the closet.

[momof2girls.livejournal.com]

Hunh! I'd never heard that!

It just seems that the whole organization, with its requirement that the boys believe in God, is becoming right-wing Christian, no matter where the meetings are held.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think it's always been Theist. I remember taking an official oath in the 50s "to do my duty to God and the Queen" - but I don't think it's specifically Christian. It's an international organisation with branches in countries where Christianity is NOT the main religion.

Baden Powell was a man's man who married very late in life. I believe he's on record as having written- probably in private correspondence- that he found girls yukky.

I don't for a moment believe he was actively homosexual. I think he sublimated whatever sexual feelings he may have had in good, clean, manly activities.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

We had at least one Hindu in our troop, back in the early 80s. - I remember that the main impact was that when we got packed lunches, he never got the beef flavoured crisps.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There used to be an organisation called The Woodcraft Folk- which was like the Scouts only apapted to the beliefs (or lack of beliefs) of lefty intellectuals. I wonder if its still going?

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is. Two of their members were walking with us for part of one of the anti Iraq marches through London. They lent me their tambourine for a while. :-)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's good to know.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I was at the national Scout jamboree here in the US in 1977 and met one of Baden-Powell's original scouts from Brownsea Island, at that time just a jolly little old man in a colorful uniform. My memory says he was the last surviving member, but then thirty years plays havoc with memories.

It rained for four days running and the mud - the consistancy of pancake batter - sloshed higher than my ankles everywhere we went. That much I remember all to well.

I started in Scouting at the age of eight and remained very active for thirteen years. I still have mixed feelings about it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Your old chap must have been in his 80s in 1977- so I suppose he could well have been the last survivor.

According to Ian Hislop a great number of those Brownsea pioneers were killed in the First World War.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

That seems about right. I was told how old the fellow was at the time. To a fourteen-year-old, he was as old as God, if not older.

Not surprising that many were killed in the Great War. Makes sense.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Wow, over the edge. I can't picture you in a dinky cap to save my life, though!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I had a little round face and very fair hair.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

How charming!!!! <3

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I can totally picture you now. Hee hee hee.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

Me and Joe were in the Children of the Woodcraft Folk for a while. It was a pretty soft endeavour, really. We hung around indoors and did crafts. There was nothing competitive, ie- fun, cos competitive stuff I guess was considered to be 'bad'.

The highlight as I recall it was- they laid out blue mats in a circle on the floor at the start, and me and Joe used to run around them leaping from one to the next, pretending to be Indiana Jones and that to touch the wooden floor would mean being eaten by aligators.

I actually had a whip too, I think, made out of bits of string tied together. As I recall, I could even make it make a cracking sound! That was exhilaratingly fun. But I think it was just mine and Joe's idea, and not particularly condoned.

After that they settled us down to making masks or pottery. Yawn.

Scouting- a friend of mine told us one about a Dragnet thing he was going to do- over 3-4 days, a massive manhunt on the moors or somewhere, camping, sleeping rough, on your own recognizance. Sounds like the thing you describe. He told us scout masters would be hunting them on quad bikes.

Quad bikes!

I was way jealous.

We didn't go to the Woodcraft folk for long, I think.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That will have been your mother's doing not mine- the Woodcraft Folk, I mean.

I was in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme- which involved lots of tough guy stuff, like camping out and orienteering. After a year they kicked me out for having achieved exactly nul points.

What a slacker!