A History of Scouting in Kenilworth
By Reg Palmer 1926 - 2009
EARLY DAYS OF SCOUTING IN KENILWORTH
The FIRST KENILWORTH Scout Group is undoubtedly the oldest Scout Group in Kenilworth. Although its present Registration with the Scout Association dates from 1922, the Scout Group has been re-registered at least once before 1922; there were Kenilworth Scouts carrying on activities as least as far back as 1906, two years before the Scout Association received its Charter from King Edward the Seventh. There was a good deal written about early Kenilworth Scouting in 1982 when First Kenilworth celebrated its sixtieth year since registration. At that time, one Harold Gloster, in a rather indignant letter to the Kenilworth Weekly News pointed out that there were a few Kenilworth lads in the Movement in 1906 but it seems that they were 'attached to First Coventry Group' This implies that First Coventry Troop must have 'jumped the gun' by starting up in 1906- one year before the first trial camp which Robert Baden-Powell organised on Brownsea Island in 1907. It must be pointed out, however, that very often, all over England, Scouts were forming their own Troops and making up their own uniforms in some instances, using ideas gleaned from 'Scouting for Boys'. This book (originally published in instalments), was written and illustrated by 'B.P.' himself and is still regarded as a Scout 'Bible'. Harold Gloster himself joined the Scouts at the age of ten in 1908, so possibly this marks the first registration of First Kenilworth. In his letter to the K,W.N, Harold Gloster details a long list of the members of the First Kenilworth Troop at that time. Quite a roll-call of well-known Kenilworth families; such as the Bonehams, the Pooles, the Drews, the Glosters and many others. Apparently the Scouts met on the Common for training and camping, with an Annual Camp at Stoneleigh Deer Park (in August). Fifty per cent of the members of First Kenilworth Scout Troop were in the Great War, four were killed. Harold Gloster also writes that when Louis Bleriot the pioneer aviator 'came to Coventry from France about 1910' six Kenilworth Scouts 'looked after Bleriot's plane at night on the Holyhead Road' with First Coventry Scouts. In John Drew's book, 'Yesterday's Town' there is reproduced an entry from the log book of the First Kenilworth Scout Troop dated 1912. John Drew's father, Jack Drew was a member of the First Kenilworth Troop
REG. PALMER.
We were within walking distance of Dovedale and a number of other beauty spots. Ever since that time Derbyshire and the Peak District have been special favourite areas of mine. One day we had an outing and made our way to Dovedale taking with us food for the day and some soft drinks to deal with thirst.
We entered Dovedale and crossed the stepping stones that began the walk up the Dale itself, (none of the footpath was surfaced in concrete as it is today.) After walking for some time we made a small detour from the footpath and ate our lunch sitting around on groundsheets and waterproofs on the rather steep grassy banks which formed the sides of the Dale. For the picnic we opened tins of corned beef and cut up loaves of bread into slices to make sandwiches. Some fresh fruit the, lot washed down with the squash was exactly what was needed. Dusk was falling when we arrived back at camp. After the main meal we probably had a short sing-song but we were tired and got to bed as soon as possible. One of the reasons that I would have for remembering the time of year was that was very near to my twenty first birthday
0-RP EarlyDays of Scouting.doc
1947 - 1948
"WE'LL CALL THEM THE GOOD OLD DAYS
”
This collection of reminiscences is the direct result of a _suggestion put to me by Graham Hyde who was then the Scout Leader of 1st. Kenilworth (1994) We were sorting through the items in the old lst Kenilworth Headquarters preparatory to an impending move to new Premises, deciding what to keep and what to dispose of when we came upon a metal box containing what might be described as 'Archive Material'. One item was an unsigned letter in what I recognised as the handwriting of 'Skipper' John Royal, who was running the lst. Kenilworth Scout Troop when I came into the Scout Movement in 1947. So here was something of the History of Scouting in Kenilworth. Skipper Royal's document dealt with Scouting in Kenilworth before 1947 so clearly I had something to add! Since my arrival in the Scout Movement there have been a lot of social changes and the Scout Movement has changed accordingly. Many of the people I knew in earlier times have moved away and one or two have 'passed on'. In fact, apart from Skipper Royal, I am the only person I know of who was a Scout or Cub Leader in Kenilworth, in 1947 and still about to consult if necessary. However Skip is over ninety years of age and even though his memory has faded a little he has been able to help me with information relating to the times when I had just joined the Movement. It may well be that, like Oliver Cromwell's portrait my historical account will be 'warts and all' In case anyone is wondering where the title of this essay comes from well, it's from a Gang Show song by Ralph Reader. Finally I feel that, like Herodotus, the historian of Ancient Greece, I have set forth what has been learnt by enquiry in order that the memory of the past may not be blotted from the mind of men by time (Translated by A.D.Godley) or perhaps a slightly later Greek Historian, Xenophon To my mind it is worth while to relate not only the serious acts of great and good men but also what the do in their lighter moods (Translated by O.J.Todd.) As regards the title of these memories, the line is taken from one of Ralph Reader's Gang Show songs "When all our youth is but memories and the years bring parting of the ways, These are the times we will dream about and We will call them the good old days”
Reg. Palmer September 1994 Revised 2001
CHAPTER ONE THE EARLY YEARS.
I have never been a BOY Scout. I first came into contact with the Scout Movement when I was twenty in 1947. I had been involved with Air Raid Precautions during World War Two, when I was a Messenger and a member of one of the First Aid Detachments. Although we did not see action, the companionship was stimulating and when ARP operations were 'wound up'. After 1945 I looked around for something else as agreeable. A colleague in the same office as myself was a Cub Leader with the 10th.Leamington Scout Group and put me in touch with the District Scout Commissioner, Major Masters. I soon made my way round to the Major's residence to offer myself to give help with Scouting. I thought at the time of First Aid work, as I had gathered some experience with the ARP services. Major Masters proved to be a tall lean man, in his early fifties. I estimated. He lived with his wife, a hospital matron, in a small but comfortable cottage in Moseley Road, Kenilworth, nearly opposite to the Worcester Road turning. I had to admit that I knew nothing of practical Scouting but the Major soon made it clear that I would be given the necessary training after I had been 'vetted' by Scout Headquarters, (this being the standard practice). It was an amiable meeting, my first contact with Scouting, but my next port of call was to prove to be even more interesting. I found myself calling on the Scout Leader (Scoutmaster in those days). This was John Royal, a shoemaker by trade but the proprietor and chief operative in a shoe repair business in the Warwick Road, a large, double-fronted shop situated almost opposite to the Waverley Road turning. The premises still exist. However they have been completely refurbished several times since 1947 with entirely different businesses operating there. As I entered the door of the shop, the bell rang, operated by the action of the door opening and Skipper Royal darted out round the edge of a tall cupboard at the end of the counter. From the back of the shop could hear the sound of hammering and the shoe repairing machinery operating. He was a man in his late forties, I judged, quick in his movements and of above average height. When I had explained my reason for coming he shook me by the hand, lifted the counter flap so that I could follow him into the rear part of the shop where the shoe repair work was carried out. I could now see the exact reason for all the noise I had heard from the front part of the shop. Several other men were working at the benches nailing heels into place and making repairs of all kinds. There was also a strong smell of leather and of the polish and other materials being used. I was to learn that the worn-out soles and heels stripped off the footwear brought in for repair were burnt in a cast-iron stove to provide a source of heat for the shop during the winter months. The old saying ‘To burn like old boots' thus acquired a new significance for me from that day forward! Skipper Royal invited me to the next Troop Meeting which was to take place on the following Tuesday. At that time the Troop consisted of about eighteen lads. The meetings were held in a rather solid looking brick building near to the Saint. John’s Church School Rooms at the far end of the town. The Troop, however, was not connected with Saint. John’s Church, being an 'Open' Troop Although, as will be mentioned later, Skipper Royal had quite a lot of assistance from some of his ex-scouts such as Fred Potts and John Lawrence, he was, until my arrival, the only adult Leader. With his brisk and lively approach to Scouting matters he was popular with and respected by his Scouts. I was naturally a new figure on the scene and had no practical experience to offer to Scouting; no-one seemed to be concerned about that. Skipper Royal quickly went through the routine matters at this, my first Troop meeting so that we would have time to discuss arrangements for a camp planned for Whitsun, about six weeks away.
I remember Skipper Royal explaining, standing in front of the half-circle of scouts in which I included myself. (I sat on the floor at one end cross-legged like the rest of the listeners.) We would be camping at Stoneleigh,on a site high above the Leamington Road just outside the village. The camping field was actually on part of the estates belonging to Stoneleigh Abbey. Bookings for the camp site were supervised by Coventry Scouts who would account for most of the campers on the site. The Coventry Scouts had installed a water tap at the bottom of the hill just off the Leamington Road and we would be able to obtain all our water supplies from it. There should be plenty of wood about for our fires and gadgets. We must only use dead timber of course! I remember very little more about this, my first Scout Meeting except that we settled, as far as possible, who would be coming to the camp so that the composition of the patrols could be settled and thus what tentage would be needed. From a personal point of view I would have to find some sort of bag or rucsac big enough to contain all my camping gear. I would need a Scout shirt and some shorts and, as soon as convenient, a scout hat-the old fashioned 'cowboy' type was worn in those days! Skipper Royal, as I recall it, found some of the uniform items for me but, in the end, I had to send off to the Scout Shop in London for the rest of the items. In the meantime, however, I got along with what I could scrounge or what was donated to me. In the weeks before the camp time arrived, however, I got involved in quite a lot of other Scouting activities. One of them was a 'Wide Game' in the Thickthorn Woods. These days these Woods hardly exist but in 1947 there were not only quite extensive woods on either side of the road to Leamington but a stone lodge straddled the bridle path through the woods on the Thickthorn House side of the road and one could see, through the substantial iron gates that dark leaved laurels and other shrubs formed the edges of the bridle path. We ran our Wide Games in these woods. A Wide Game, by the way, is a game held in woods or open country, as opposed to one held in a much smaller area such as in a playground or even on a large lawn. No doubt, Skipper Royal had the permission of the owners of the woods and their agents to utilize the land in this way and it was good fun. I did a lot of running about, I remember, being the pursued as well as the pursuer as the games developed! Not bad for a young man who had been quite ill and confined to bed for about a month in the previous year! Eventually I discovered that the bridle path continued until it crossed the old stone bridge over Rocky Lane thence to Glasshouse Woods where we could continue with our games! As the time for the Whitsun camp drew nearer we thought it timely to inspect the camping gear. I discovered that all the heavier items were stored on the second floor above the shoe repair shop in Warwick Road. To get to the area where the gear was stored required something of an effort. First one had to ascend a flight of stairs from the shoe repair workshop in the back room of the premises, squeeze along a narrow passage on the first floor and finally ascend a second flight of stairs which led into the storage area on the top floor. Once there, one was surrounded by bags which contained tents and groundsheets.
There were also boxes and various other containers in which items such as ropes, pulley blocks and folded sheets of stout canvas were stored. In one corner of the room there was a large pile of 'billy cans' and several large 3 gallon 'Dixies'. A lot of the tents were quite elderly but still reckoned to be serviceable. It was to this room that Skipper Royal and myself ascended, well before camp to survey the equipment. After a careful inspection of the condition of the equipment items Skipper Royal said that perhaps some of the tents ought to be re-proofed. We could do the job sometime at camp while the tents were erected (weather permitting, of course!). But not at this camp. Skipper Royal made sure that we had a big sheet of stout canvas, ready to transport to the camp. In answer to a question he said that we might have the time and the weather to make a boat of some sort to go on the river in. 'How were we going to do that' I asked myself! The tent I was to sleep in was known as 'The Cornet' because of its shape, being like an ice cream cone cut down its length. There was only one tent pole. At the entrance. The back end of the tent went down the ground and it was explained to me that the idea was peg down the walls all round, hoist the tent pole, and push a log or even a piece of rock in the back end of the tent for stability I had never heard of such a type of tent. It seems that the backwoodsmen often had tents of this design! The matter of camping equipment having been settled, we squeezed our way through the narrow passages and arrived back at ground level where Skip remarked that we would need to seek some assistance to get to our equipment to Stoneleigh. It was true that the Troop possessed a strong 'trek cart'. This was stored elsewhere as it would hardly have been possible to manhandle it up into the storage room! The distance involved and the amount of kit we had to transport to a Troop camp at Stoneleigh put the use of a single trek cart out of court. Skipper Royal said that he would look into the matter of transport before the next Troop Meeting and we parted company outside the door of the shop. I made my way back to a flat, my family home on the corner of Waverley Road and Skipper Royal cycled off rapidly to his home at No.33 Waverley Road. There were interesting developments at the next Troop Meeting.
We now had a firm list of those who would be coming to camp and several people had offered to help us with transport. Fred Potts played a leading part in carrying the heavier items over to the camp site as he had a car. In 1947,only two years after the end of World War Two, not many people owned a car and most of these cars were small by today's standards. Fred Potts, however, was quite willing to make several trips to the site not loading his car boot too much. This would also be kinder to his car suspension while driving over the bumpy field!. It took a good deal of the morning of the first day to get all the gear over to the site but all was accomplished in due course. Fred Potts and the other helpers drove off after receiving the grateful thanks of all us leaders. We marked out our camp site which was surrounded by other Troop sites. As anticipated, most of the Scouts from Coventry District, still we had enough room for our needs which is all any Scout could ask for. With Skipper Royal's brisk leadership everything was soon shipshape.
We had a lively programme and, at the start good weather, so all the tents were pitched in dry weather As soon as possible, we changed into our camp clothes and our tennis shoes or plimsolls. No socks, of course, as they would have got wet in the grass. We had the raising of the flag ceremony ('flag up') and Skipper Royal gave out the camp rules round the flag pole. He emphasised that we should all try and get a good night's sleep in when we got to bed. It was considered that only a tenderfoot could not sleep on the first night he told them! They should have slept soundly, in all conscience, what with the setting up of camp, the camp fire sing song and so forth. However I heard them chattering for a good deal of the night and there might have been a lot of small boys wandering about but for the rain which confined them to their tents! For my own part I started off well enough, snuggling down into my blankets inside the Cornet tent and prepared to enjoy this, my first Scout camp. I was naturally tired after my exertions during the day but the distant babble of Scout voices was a bit disturbing and other camps were evidently having the same problem. Skipper Royal got out of bed once in the small hours to admonish the miscreants and the noise stopped. It was very quiet at about 5.30 when I looked out of the doorway of the Cornet. The duty cooks began moving about at 6.30. Skipper Royal was already in the kitchen area to direct operations. As it was a long week-end camp we had troop cooking. That is one kitchen for the whole camp so we only needed one set of cooks. Breakfast proceeded after the flag raising ceremony and then the rain started again It had been raining during the night as has already noted but we had a respite in the late morning. It was probably at this time that a nearby Coventry Troop organised a quite substantial meal. Most of this meal was cooked in the usual scout fashion on a open fire but they also had a 'Camp Oven' fashioned out of a metal biscuit tin with a 'push on' lid. In those days biscuits were supplied in such tins in about 14lb. lots. Having eaten the biscuits or scrounged the empty tin from a helpful grocer who had sold the biscuits from the tin in his shop, you could set about making your camp oven. In addition to the biscuit tin you would need three or four pieces of steel bar, say 3/8ths of an inch in diameter and about 6 inches longer than the oven was wide. Last of all you would have to make up a handle to go in the centre of the lid of the tin as something to grip to pull the lid off with, especially when the stove was hot. I heard that the usual thing was to use an empty cotton reel held in place with a suitable nut and bolt. Then there was the matter of a 'chimney' to provide a draught and to carry the smoke of the burning fuel away. In the case of the Coventry Scouts the stove chimney seemed to consist, as I recall it, of a piece of thin-walled metal tube about 4 inches in diameter and probably about 24 inches long. To save digging out the level ground only to pack the soil the best idea was to find a piece of rising ground and dig out a piece of it to put the oven into, place the oven in position and pack earth round the pipe, round the sides and over the top of the oven This is what the Coventry Scouts had done and I was impressed, naturally.
After a while, when the fire under the oven had been stoked up, acrid clouds of smoke enveloped practically all the camp site, not to mention part of the village. A further supply of much drier wood was brought in by the wood gatherers so that more heat and rather less smoke was produced. When the oven was adjudged to have heated sufficiently the Coventry Scouts produced a large jam tart on an enamel plate. The impression that we were intended to have from the rather nonchalant Patrol Leader was that the tart had been cooked in the oven earlier and was now about to be warmed up as the dessert part of an eagerly awaited meal, the rest having been cooked elsewhere. The lid of the oven having been lifted off, however and the plate offered up to the oven it was instantly quite clear that the plate was much too big to enter the oven. Fortunately from the point of view of the Coventry Scouts as severe shower of rain came on at about this time and we all rushed back to our tents thus saving much embarrassment all round. After a day or two Skipper Royal announced at 'Flag Up' that we would arrange our programme for the day in such a way that we would have time for a Scout activity as soon as possible. The Patrol Leaders and their seconds would meet with the Scout Leaders after our camp site and tents had been inspected and found to be in satisfactory and tidy order. Before the meeting with the Patrol Leaders Skip explained to me what we were going to do and the psychology behind it. 'Once the lads realise that we are going to be involved in a 'project'" he said "It will speed up inspection a great deal, but we will have to make sure that the site is up to scratch before we start on the activity! "We are going to improvise a boat, or rather a coracle and float it on the river' that is what we brought that big tarpaulin to camp for! After the Patrol Leaders and their Seconds had been briefed about the project there was a great flurry of activity following a very stringent inspection of the camp site and in particular the kitchen and the stores. We did want to have a tidy site and surrounds, naturally, but it was important for the boys to understand that they could not have the fun until the chores had been seen to, Besides that, as skip pointed out, the Commissioner might appear and ask us to show him round the site for his inspection and we did not want to be 'caught on the hop'.
It was fascinating to watch the progress of the making of the coracle. First of all a lot of the younger Scouts (under the supervision of the Patrol Leaders and the older boys) were sent off with axes and saws to gather twigs and small branches. They came back with quite an assortment of pieces of different lengths and thicknesses. These were sorted into piles. Then some of the pieces about 1 inch in thickness were made into stout stakes about 12" long. With great care, these were pointed on the one end and driven into the ground to form a ring of stakes in a circle about six feet in in diameter with the stakes projecting from the ground by about 7"(These were driven into the ground using tent-peg mallets The more slender, longer twigs were trimmed and wound in and out of the stakes in the ground, thus forming a large ring. Before pulling the completed ring off the stakes it was lashed firmly round its cross-section with string to keep the ring shape when levered off the vertical stakes.
The ring resembled a very large life-belt (some six feet in diameter) at this stage. With the combined efforts of some of the bigger lads the ring was turned over and several stout branches fastened securely across the diameter of the ring.
These pieces were to provide something for the occupants of the proposed coracle to stand on. When the rough ends of the twigs had been cleaned off to avoid punching holes in the canvas, the sheet of canvas was stretched over the ring and secured firmly in position. A pair of paddles were improvised and many willing hands carried the coracle down to the water’s edge. The big moment had arrived! Had the river have been deeper than it was, then it would have been ‘Swimmers only' in the boat but the water was only about waist deep and it was sufficient to post 'life-guards' ready to help anyone who appeared to be in difficulties. We discovered, too, that the coracle shipped water over the sides mostly due to the excitable crew there were also leaks due to several small holes in the canvas, then again, because of the round shape of the coracle the craft tended to travel in circles and so paddling had to be balanced on opposite sides of the boat. However, after these and other 'teething troubles' had been dealt with, the project was voted a success and a satisfying experience for all those participating. We managed to get in at least two camp-fire 'sing-songs' in the course of the camp and I learnt some items for future use. Skipper Royal led the items, with the 'hit list' (camp-fire programme) in one hand and a torch in the other. The songs and rounds were interspersed with sketches 'stunts' and 'yells'. The yell was really intended to let off steam but could be employed to express approval or (sometimes), veiled disapproval. Doug and Gordon Knight were prominent members of the Kenilworth Methodist Church and Church choir members to boot. Their voices were a distinct asset at the camp fires and sing songs. I soon found myself on my feet and 'having a go' naturally built up my confidence. It was to take quite a time, though. (I was not going to improve much at this camp) After the camp had finished and we had returned home, we resumed our Tuesday evening Troop meetings as before. As already described, the building we met in was quite near to St. John's Church at the far end of Kenilworth. At first, I thought that the building had been where the First Aid Detachment had met in during World War 2, but further research seems to indicate that the building was, in fact, a 'Decontamination Centre' intended for washing traces of Mustard Gas or Lewisite off people who had been involved with such chemicals during World War Two. Happily, gas was never used as a weapon in the War, although many of us had carried gas masks for most of the War. As far as the Scouts were concerned, however, we had a good solid building in which to hold our Troop Meetings, even if the windows were high up and rather small! There was a 'inquest' on the Stoneleigh camp at the next Troop Meeting and we all agreed we had had a very successful camp in spite of the wet weather. The coracle-building was an item that many scouts mentioned and we also the camp fire 'sing songs'. As for me, I felt that joining the Scouts and, more significantly, being accepted, had changed the course of my life.
For some reason I cannot now remember, the Troop had now to find another meeting place. In those days the Duffy Boys were in the Troop and Mr. and Mrs Duffy offered us meeting space in their rather rambling premises-soon to become a guest house) on what is now the big traffic island nearly opposite to St. John's Church. Thus we did not have far to go to convey items from our old meeting place to the new one.
We were to meet at this 'new' meeting place for just a short while before we moved again, this was probably when Mr and Mrs Duffy came out of the Guest House business and moved to elsewhere in Kenilworth, probably into a private house in Waverley Road. While it lasted, it was fun meeting at the Duffy's premises and we had all the items needed for the running of the Troop Meetings but major items of camping equipment were stored above Skipper Royal's shoe repair shop, where they had been placed after the Whitsun camp. While we were making our preparations for a proposed Annual Camp, in Derbyshire, however, there was a fire above Skipper Royal's shop, and most of the First Kenilworth's camping gear was destroyed. It was a disaster. However, Skipper Royal called a meeting of all parents and helpers and it was decided to hold a series of fund-raising events. There was a great deal of enthusiasm from our impromptu committee and all sorts of events were planned and carried out. (Skipper Royal once confided in me that he did not believe in a permanent Parents' Committee but only set one up when there was work for it to do. The moment that the work was completed the Committee would be disbanded!) We had a good deal of public sympathy for the plight that First Kenilworth was in and I remember assisting with a collection amongst the audience at a production of the Talisman theatre. We passed collecting tins around the audience and raised a contribution in this way. Then there was an 'Olde Tyme' dance held at the Parochial Hall and I attended that, although this was not my kind of activity. However, it appeared to be something that suited Skipper Royal for when I left the Parochial Hall he was still dancing. It may have been a case of 'Play it again Sam!' With these two events and a number of others of various kinds the sum of £120 was raised- quite a sum for those days. Therefore, when we held our Summer camp later in the year we had a lot of brand-new tents and other equipment. We booked in at an 'Official' camp site, that is to say, one owned by the Boy Scout Association. The site was Osmaston Park near Ashbourne in Derbyshire. It being under sixty miles to Osmaston Park some of the scouts cycled from Kenilworth to the camp, while the camping equipment with some of the lads and us two leaders travelled on a lorry owned and driven by Mr. Tidmarsh, a local haulage contractor and always a good friend of Scouting. We had, as I recall it rather mixed weather but quite a good time. We were within walking distance of Dovedale and a number of other beauty spots. Ever since that time Derbyshire and the Peak District have been special favourite areas of mine. One day we had an outing and made our way to Dovedale taking with us food for the day and some soft drinks to deal with thirst.
We entered Dovedale and crossed the stepping stones that began the walk up the Dale itself. (None of the footpath was surfaced in concrete as it is today.) After walking for some time we made a small detour from the footpath and ate our lunch sitting around on groundsheets and waterproofs on the rather steep grassy banks which formed the sides of the Dale. For the picnic we opened tins of corned beef and cut up loaves of bread into slices to make sandwiches. Some fresh fruit the, lot washed down with the squash was exactly what was needed. Dusk was falling when we arrived back at camp. After the main meal we probably had a short sing-song but we were tired and got to bed as soon as possible. One of the reasons that I would have for remembering the time of year was that was very near to my twenty-first birthday, probably in that very week. The fact had come to the ears of Skipper Royal so one morning after Flag Break I was ceremoniously and solemnly presented with a 'key' artfully bent up from a piece of fencing wire, no doubt found somewhere in the vicinity. Although the Osmaston camp site was not large and had been camped on hard by countless Scout Troops which had left the camping areas to be covered in a fine grey wood ash rather than green grass, There was a fair amount of wood land and we were able to do quite a lot of tracking and ran a number of wide games during the week. Although I did not yet have real authority with the Scouts, I may have had slightly more but rather brash energy than Skipper Royal. It was when it came to the camp fires and sing-songs however, that I was really lacking in experience and, therefore in confidence, I rapidly learnt that at the camp fires it was essential to have a programme in one's head but preferably on a piece of card or paper before rising to one's feet and facing the circle of faces staring out of the darkness. In every camp fire there was a yarn or story and the first time I was present when Skipper Royal delivered his yarn I was very impressed. It was a relaxed and skilful performance which my Scouting techniques would not allow me to carry it off in such a way. Of course, Skipper Royal had been in the Scout Movement for a long time before I appeared on the scene and the scouts regarded him as a leader and me as a rather raw recruit! A chance appeared for me to improve my skills towards the end of the camp when we were to take part in a campfire/sing-song for all those Troops camping on the Osmaston site. Skipper Royal, ever mindful of giving his assistants opportunities to improve their skills and to delegate some of the work and responsibility, had me on my feet for most of our Troop's contribution to the camp fire. I must have got some of it wrong, I feel sure. It was a great time to learn 'new' songs and sketches and to learn by other people's mistakes as well as one's own! There is an old and rather cynical saying that "you can't beat the old ones" and I soon found that, in fact, there were very few 'new' stunts! I have always had a good memory and was soon able to remember most of the stunts as regards the words but not necessarily the tunes, if any. Thus, I was able to use these stunts at subsequent camp fires- (perhaps one of my fellow leaders would remember the tunes if I could not).
All those involved became connoisseurs of stunts and took a delight in comparing various versions and performances of a particular stunt, whenever heard. When the camp was almost over the stores tent was opened to issue what were traditionally called ‘remains’. No item issued was sufficiently big for a complete meal. The lucky recipients could conceivably dine off tins of sardines with jam and cornflakes! Right at the end of camp with the winners of the winners of the Patrol competition having been announced, there was the task of breaking camp, bringing the tents down and cleaning up the odd bits of rubbish off the camp site. No one wanted to break camp and the Patrol Leaders were hard pushed to stop the tenderfoot scouts from packing their own kit and sitting on it to await the arrival of the truck to get them back home, leaving others to see to the details of packing up! I did not stop long enough to see the final playing out of the drama, however, because I was to cycle to Nuneaton where I had a place on a Scout Leader's Preliminary Training Course. It has never been recommended to cycle carrying all one's gear in a large framed rucsac but, being inexperienced I did not give the matter much thought at the time and set off on the journey to the cheers of a guard of honour at the gateway of the camp-site. I lasted well enough until I got to Lichfield, probably something less than thirty miles from the camp and then felt, as they say, shattered! I made enquiries at the railway station and took a train to Nuneaton, the bicycle being accommodated in the guard's van! I must have been a little late for the start of the 'Prelim. 'but it went all right and cycled back to Kenilworth in due course probably having been put up for the night in Nuneaton. I felt that I had learnt quite a lot about Scouting on the course and had certainly met a number of people of a like mind, all prepared to be friends in Scouting The final leg of the journey must have been about eighteen miles when I carried the rucsac as before, this time with happier results! Looking back at my experiences at camp and on the Prelim. course, I realise that I was lucky to get away with it without some mishaps and that Skipper Royal was a real 'brick' to let me leave camp realising that he would be the only adult left at the camp. He had confidence in his Patrol Leaders and their Seconds, however and reckoned he could carry the day! His judgement was vindicated.
Scouting in 1948
The plan for this year was to follow what was evidently standard practice that is to have a hike at Easter, a camp at Whitsun, with the Annual Summer Camp later in the year. However, the main event of the first part of the year was a camp at Leek Wootton in which members of the First Kenilworth Troop joined in with the Leek Wootton Troop. Denn Dee ran the Leek Wootton Troop and had contacted some Scouts from Holland who were to camp at Leek Wootton with us English Scouts on what was to be the first half of an International Exchange visit. Denn Dee was a keen and very experienced Scoutmaster who lived in Leek Wootton village which is located about half way between Kenilworth.
Denn's father and mother ran the village shop and bakery, which was situated quite near to the 'Anchor' pub. Helping Denn was a distinctly 'way out' character called Johnny Scarsbrook. It seems that he had been in the Commandos during the then recent World War Two and that his experiences as a quite young man had jolted his character into its unconventional style. This made him a 'cert' for wild camp fire stunts and rather fast moving 'Wide Games'. The Dutch Scouts and their leaders camped with us Kenilworth Scouts and Denn Dee's Scouts and Leaders at Leek Wootton for about ten days and we went out on trips most days so that we could see local places of interest. Thus firstly to St. Mary's Church at Warwick. Most of the party, including myself, went up the tower of St. Mary's but I found it to be rather a claustrophobic and to be honest, somewhat un-nerving experience ascending and descending the narrow spiral staircase one was obliged to use to get to the top of the tower and back. I did not repeat my experience when the party visited the old Coventry Cathedral Just as well, because the tower was taller here than the one at St. Mary's and the spiral staircase therefore longer! It was, perhaps, inevitable that one of the scouts would have his hat blown off by the wind at the top of the tower of the cathedral I was standing, near to Denn at the bottom of the tower when the hat came floating gently down, swinging from side to side due to the resistance of the air on the broad hat brim. When Denn had picked up the hat and established the name of the owner from the name written inside the hat, he remarked to me that he would deliver a reprimand later! Although in these more 'enlightened' times, the visitors to England from the continent speak, by and large, excellent English, in 1948, this was not necessarily the case. Most mornings, one particular Dutch scout used to strip to the waist, wash himself vigorously and then rush around the camp-site shouting 'Good for the body' Denn was not all that amused after the phrase had been overworked the first few days. The Dutch party included a Lady Cub Leader who had brought with her one or two Cubs, really too young to be included on such a visit as this. In particular, one of these boys suffered from home sickness from time to time and was difficult for his Cub Leader to pacify but he eventually seemed to settle down. There were quite a few of our older lst Kenilworth scouts in camp this time. Thus we had the two Wilson lads, Rob and John and made the most of the company that was available. The camp fires were really fun and we learnt some new stunts and 'yells'. Naturally a lot of the songs etc. which we learnt were in Dutch but there was usually a good tune to help matters along. So long as the tune has a right good ring, it really doesn't matter what words you sing'.
CHARLBURY ANNUAL CAMP.
For the Annual Camp in 1948, Skipper Royal suggested that the Troop should camp at Charlbury in Oxfordshire. At this time it was anticipated that this would be the last Annual Camp in which Skip would be in charge but, in fact, this did not turn out to be the case- as will be shown.
The area around Charlbury was quite familiar to Skipper Royal as he had served out his apprenticeship as a shoemaker (cordweigner) As Skipper Royal knew the area so well I fancy that he had settled all the preliminary details without any of the other campers being involved and so the first that I saw of the camp site was on the day when we travelled to camp site on the big furniture van with all the lads and the camping gear. The site turned out to be very secluded at the end of a long drive leading off the Woodstock Road. The farm buildings were situated on the right of the farm road while the camp site was to the left of the track and some way from the farm. There was a well, in its own well house adjacent to the camp site. For obtaining fuel for our fires there was a large wood behind the well house.
All these matters were explained by Skipper Royal, round the flag-pole, when we had put the tents up and changed into camp kit. There were to be expeditions into the locality and visits to places of interest, such as Blenheim Palace, the latter within walking distance. When we had settled in and the beds ready to sleep in, we responded to an invitation for a buffet meal over at the the charming old timbered farmhouse. The farmer, Ivor Hunt, who was evidently someone who knew Skipper Royal well was himself un-married but had a man and his wife to help with the farm work. Between them they had put together this quite large meal so that there was plenty for all of us to eat. In addition, Mick Grindrod, one of our Scout Patrol Leaders was a more than good pianist and was able to handle Ivor Hunts instrument more than adequately for some community singing after our repast, a quite unusual accomplishment in those days and very rare in later times for, these days, the television and the 'music centre' occupy, in most households, the place where the piano once stood. We ran a few 'Wide Games' in the wood where we obtained our firewood and Skipper Royal ran a kind of 'Tree Study and Identification walk-about in there, too but the big outing was when we visited Blenheim Palace in about the middle of the week. By almost any standards, Blenheim Palace, where Winston Churchill was born, is enormous. Originally built for the first Duke of Malborough, John Churchill it was designed by the famous architect and playwright, Sir John Vanbrugh. The Palace was not completed in the lifetime of John Churchill. It derived its name from the Battle of Blenheim, John Churchill's 'Famous Victory' of 1704. When we arrived at the Ditchley Gate of the Palace we peered through the massive ironwork of the gate at the Lodge and were astounded at the length of the drive stretching before us. In the far distance we could just make out a tall column with some sort of robed figure standing on the top. We edged our way through the gates as silently as possible without being challenged by anyone from the nearby lodge. 'Things are not what they were' remarked Skipper Royal, 'They are probably not retainers so this is now just their home!' 'The Palace is about two miles from here, and that column is one mile off!, he added', waving an arm in the direction of the column. We were able to eat our sandwiches sitting on the base of the column in dry weather (although it was rather dull for most of the day).
While eating our lunch we stared at the Palace, still a mile off, of course, and on the far side of a massive bridge which straddled a narrow stretch of water between two large and picturesque lakes. When we directed our eyes up the column we could make out a figure depicting John Churchill in the toga of a Roman Senator. On either side of the column were rows of trees said to represent the lines of troops as drawn up before the Battle of Blenheim. Like so many of these very big country estates of this period, the architect had the advantage of having 'Capability' Brown to advise on the landscaping of the grounds. When we visited Blenheim, however, there were numerous signs that the passage of time and the effects of the weather over about two hundred and fifty years had resulted in much deterioration.
The brick boundary wall, said to have a total length of over three miles had collapsed in many places. When we had finished off the sandwiches and drunk the soft drinks we had carried with us we walked up to the bridge, crossed it and traversed the large area of grass to the massive pile of Blenheim Palace. It was easy for me to believe the tale that a thousand guests were accommodated at the Palace on the occasion of the twenty-first Birthday celebrations for one of Winston Churchill's daughters! After carrying out a rather superficial assessment of the outside of the main parts of the Palace, we wandered round the edges of the lakes. Skipper Royal explained that the lakes did not exist at all until Capability Brown suggested created them, by damming up two streams, submerging one or two villages in the process. We did not go round the house itself but retraced our steps down the long drive and departing through the same gate that we had gone through on entering the grounds, this gate being the nearest to our camp site. It was still a fair walk to our camp site. We certainly slept soundly enough the night! One of the days towards the end of the week, Skipper Royal left me in charge while he renewed old friendships in the village This seemed to be an opportune moment. The District Commissioner, or his representative had been to inspect the camp and so had the Scout leader of the Charlbury Troop with some of his Scouts. I should have been all right and was so for most of the day but some of the older scouts proved to be a 'handful'. At the end of the week we struck camp and packed all the gear. We had, as I recall it, dry conditions and so dry canvas. Our transport arrived and we loaded up before going over the whole site to collect and rubbish. (Baden Powell had said, on one occasion, that a Scout leaves nothing but his thanks after camp.) It had been a good camp, on a good site and the farmer had been kind to us. The future was to bring me back to Charlbury again,for another camp, but that is another story, as will be seen.
GILWELL PARK.
Gilwell Park, near Chingford, London is an international camp site for Scouting. It was the home of 'The Chief', Robert Baden Powell, the founder of Scouting and it is a privilege to go there at any time if only as a visitor. But I was lucky enough to obtain a place on Course 182 to take Part Two, the Practical section of the Wood Badge, the Training Course for Scout Leaders. The complete Wood Badge consisted of three parts. Part One was a theoretical Part, a species of Correspondence Course, handled by Scout Headquarters the intention being to teach and test the Scouters knowledge of Scout leadership techniques. Part Three was a period of assessment supervised by your own (local) District Commissioner to make certain that what has been learnt on Parts One and Two was being applied in Scouting practice). The entire Wood Badge takes about eighteen months to complete but I had already completed most of Part One when I went to Gilwell Park for Part Two, so I was obviously keen to get on with the job!
At that time 'The House' in Gilwell Park contained a display of many of "B.P's" personal possessions and mementos Outside the house parked on the gravel 'drive-in there was the caravan presented to B.P. in the late 1920's. The cost of which was raised by asking every scout in the world to contribute One Penny. It is recorded that when B.P. saw the caravan for the first time he christened it, with his typical lack of pomposity, 'The Jam Roll’, presumably because of its shape! Not that any one of us on the Course had much time to study the items on display in and around the house. We were too busy. The Course was really structured as a Scout Camp. Therefore the first thing was to gather round the flag-pole in the camping area where we met the Camp Chief and his staff. The Camp Chief was John Thurman a remarkable man indeed. Within a very short time he could identify everybody on the course and appeared to know them all by their surnames, at least! Not bad, considering there must have been over a hundred leaders on the course. His assistants (staff) were only a little less remarkable than the camp chief himself and between them they were to give the lectures and run the other events which made up the course. After further instructions, we were formed into Patrols and directed to our camp sites, where we found ourselves facing a large 'patrol' tent in a marked off area containing a large 'altar' fire and the usual pots and pans and other camping equipment. Cooking was done on being obtainable from a large communal wood pile. One task that none of those on the Course had to carry out was to put up the tents. They had been put up earlier in the year and would probably stay in their positions for the entire summer unless the area round the tent entrance wore out! Our Raven patrol was multi-national, with leaders from all over the world. We soon 'shook down', however but, having one more member than the other patrols (eight instead of seven) we were a little tight for room. After an active day, however, none of us was likely to worry too much about tent space, we were always far too tired! I remember, however, that one member of the Raven Patrol told us that he knew that he had smelly feet and volunteered to sleep with his feet outside the tent! As with all the Patrols on the course every member of our patrol (the Ravens) had a spell as Patrol Leader but each patrol voted for the Leader for the hike on the last day. We had to be efficient in managing our cooking and other activities because the course was quite demanding for time and we had to keep our log books up to date. as they had to be handed in now and again to member of the training staff before they were returned to the us Course members. Thus, a check was kept on our progress and diligence!. It did not seem to matter if the log books were not written in English. John Thurman told us at our initial briefing round the flag-pole that we were to write our notes in our own language and leave the training staff to sort it out! Either John Thurman or another member of the training staff would give us the lectures, usually out of doors- we were blessed with good weather on the course- but sometimes we got together in the 'Gidney Cabin' which was a replica of a traditional Log Cabin, named after a Canadian or American Commissioner, quite a celebrity in his own country, it seems! The camp fires were one of the delights of Gilwell. They were usually run by Mac of Gilwell, famous throughout the Scouting world and the items came from all over the world. Of course, the singing was quite impressive. but, as far as I know, using male voices only. Naturally, we missed having the youngsters with us and, at other camp fires, the Girl Guides added something special! On the Course, camp fires were intended to be part of the training course and we were given some instruction as we went along. The importance of having a programme, or at least some sort of running order was stressed.(I had already found this out for myself, elsewhere) We also gathered some interesting tips on how to teach some of the more complicated camp fire especially those with tricky rhythms and actions. The recommended method was to teach one thing at a time, tune first, clapping out the rhythm, words and actions last of all, My experiences before Gillwell had led me to believe that the Girl Guides and Brownies learnt action songs quicker than Scouts! The Wood Badge Course was not all camping skills and camp-fires, however here was another aspect of practical Scouting which was 'down on the list'. This was activities under the general title of 'Pioneering' By the use of ropes, sisal string, basic knots and lashings, scout staves, wooden poles, and sheets of stout canvas Scouts were able to cross rivers, throw bridges across ravines or simply have fun building an aerial runway! Each patrol had a different project, the Raven Patrol making a raft out of wooden spars about three inches in diameter lashed together and firmly secured to about four empty but large oil drums. The area we had to cross was what amounted to a small lake thoughtfully provided during World War Two by the crew of a German Bomber. They decided to bomb Gillwell Park, the story we heard being that the German High Command thought that British secret agents were being trained at Gillwell. Perish the thought! Although I did not have a place on the contraption when it was pushed out from the edge of the water logged bomb hole, (places were strictly limited) it certainly floated all right and the improvised paddles were good enough for their intended use. When we had completed the work and had the project approved as satisfactory by the course leaders, we were invited to have a look at the projects that the other patrols had been working on. One patrol had thrown a rope bridge high up from the footpath.
As the trick was to go across the 'chasm' without using the footpath it had involved the first leader going hand over hand on a single rope, the far end of which was secured initially with a grapnel -thrown across on the end of the rope! The bridge looked fine to us and we traversed the chasm in safety. We learnt that the trick with these overhead bridges was to tension the two 'handrail' ropes rather than the 'footrope' as this gave one more confidence - and we needed all the confidence we could muster! Many of us had a go on the aerial runway! As part of the pioneering there was a competitive event known as 'The Chariot Race. This proved to be a great success for the Cheery Ravens’ as we had come to be known by this time.
Each patrol made up a 'chariot’ out of six scout staves secured together with scout lashings. In the race it was towed by two members of the patrol while a third member of the patrol stood on the bottom rail holding on for dear life as the chariot flew along the course, it made an angle of about forty- five degrees from the vertical. but the faster the chariot went, the lower the angle from the ground it seemed to make As at that time in my life I was quite a lot slimmer than I am nowadays and weighed less than nine stone then it was agreed that I would be the 'charioteer'. Most of the remainder of the Raven Patrol were quite strong and fit but after a few trials the best ‘horses’ to pull our chariot were two Scout Leaders who in their normal existence were Physical Training Teachers. We could hardly have lost and made the most of the company that was available. The camp fires were really fun and we learnt some new stunts and 'yells'. Naturally a lot of the songs etc. which we learnt were in Dutch but there was usually a good tune to help matters along. So long as the tune has a right good ring, it really doesn't matter what words you sing'.
RP 1st Ken 1947-48.doc
1948 - 1949
Various other members of our Patrol were tried out as the charioteer and as the horses, for that matter, but I was the charioteer in the end! In early experiments, I seem to remember that we had four horses, two of them to steady the chariot from the rear but this arrangement was too cumbersome and two horses, holding the ropes as high as possible (to keep the top rail of the chariot well up) became the usual arrangement and the two horses had not the 'drag' of the rear horses to consider! Being the charioteer sounds like a good number but it was actually hard work. Due to the lanes of the race track being straight and half the total length of the race, there was a complete reversal after the first half of the race with the horses being required to pull in the opposite direction relative to the first half of the race. The easiest way to reverse the direction seemed to be for the charioteer to dismount from chariot while the chariot was turned over and the 'reins' passed over the chariot for the reverse ride. Then the charioteer was expected to leap back onto his perch; but he had to be quickly and firmly in place before the chariot moved away. If he was not sufficiently quick with the procedure he would find himself lying on the ground as the chariot gathered speed and the chariot could be eliminated or disqualified. Happily, unlike one or two charioteers elsewhere in the race I managed to get aboard and find firm footings inside the chariot framing! The Scout rope lashings that held the chariot together were under quite severe strain, especially as the chariot was turned over during the race and our ever-watchful Patrol Leader of the day directed us us, between the heats of the competition, to re-tie one or two lashings. Then there was the Scavenger Hunt. Each patrol was provided with a list of articles which were to be collected during the time allocated. These articles to be displayed at the flag pole at the end of the event. As is often the case there is one of the number who seems to be a natural leader, or who at least wants to do the job. Our leader for the hunt was a rather hearty and experienced Scouter who had the knack of carrying us all along with him- quite a useful quality in a leader! First of all he read carefully through the list and noted that, in addition to what one might have expected to see there we were required to 'bring back an usual item of transport 'which would excite the admiration' of the Camp Chief At the end of the day, returning to the camp site with what we thought would be regarded as a good score as regards the list of articles, we noticed a large and heavy farm cart in the yard of an adjacent farm. The horse normally required to draw the cart was not in evidence, but a trial of strength from the combined Raven Patrol proved that we could move the cart the short distance to the camping field. Accordingly, our resourceful Leader approached the farmer who, somewhat bemusedly, agreed to the temporary loan of the vehicle. We were perhaps a little late in arriving back at the camp flag-pole as many of the members of the other patrols were already in their places and the Camp Chief and his entourage were about to join them. When we joined the others at the flag-pole we 'parked' the wagon behind us. The rest of the camp decided that it was all quite amusing but the arrival of the vehicle had not proved to be a complete surprise fort those waiting round the flag pole. This was due to the rumbling of wheels which had preceded the arrival of the Ravens! It was clear that the obtaining of the cart had satisfied the Camp Chief's desire to be stimulated but he felt it incumbent on him to ask our Raven's Leader if he might keep the cart! 'That might be a matter for negotiation' said our Patrol Leader, gravely. The cart was returned to the farmer within the hour. The final event on the Course was the Hike. This was intended to be a test of Scoutcraft at the end of the Course and was related to the First Class Scout Badge Hike. As with all the other patrols on the Course, we were free to choose our own Leader for the Hike. We chose the man who had been in charge when we took the initiative. We took minimum equipment and what amounted to iron rations for food as we set of into 'the wilds' of Epping Forest. My recollection of the aura of the Forest tells me that it was gloomy camping but with the best company that I could imagine. I remember writing out my report by the light of electric torches after our meal at night. This is why the writing in my record book looks rather spidery The next day rather tired but not wet-no rain on the Hike. We all trailed back to Gilwell and handed in our reports. When we assembled for the final meeting of the Course, John Thurman, the Camp Chief ,said that he was pleased with everyone on the Course, and that only one or two had not reached the required standard. The 'Cheery Ravens' were mentioned specifically and disappointment was expressed that the Camp Chief would not be able to keep the cart for his own use! Our respective District Commissioners would be receiving a report from him and those who had been successful on the Course would be sent their certificates. hen we had completed all three parts of the training would receive their Wood Badges, replicas of a trophy which Baden Powell took off a Zulu Chief during BP's army career. In addition, every Wood Badge holder automatically becomes a member of the First Gilwell Park Scout Troop which has a membership of thousands and holds a reunion in the first week of September every year Each one of us on Course 182 had a great deal to take home with us including a voluminous notebook, full of notes and sketches, accumulated on the course and the memory of working with the other members of our patrol. There was the feeling that were now truly members of the Worldwide Brotherhood of Scouting. Bearing in mind that Major Masters, my Kenilworth District Commissioner would be receiving a report from the Gilwell Camp Chief, I made sure that, as far as possible, I would put into practice what I had learnt on the Course. Thus I hoped to complete Part Three of the Wood Badge. Be that as it may, almost as soon as I got back from Gilwell I was involved with the day to day moments which I had now come to think of as 'Scouting'. As the nights grew longer and the days shorter we had our Wide Games, occasional night hikes and a few Treasure or Scavenger Hunts (could it be that the idea of the Scavenger Hunt was something was brought to mind at Gilwell!) It was probably at about this time that John Lawrence resigned from the job of Akela to the First Kenilworth Cub Pack and Mrs. Barnett of White's Row took over. At this point in time, the only other Scout Troop in Kenilworth was the Abbey, run by the redoubtable Sid West, a red haired French Scout possessed of an interesting set of attributes, both real and rumoured. Chief amongst the rumours was that, during the then recent World War Two Sid had escaped from occupied France by paddling his own canoe across the Channel. Whatever the veracity of this canoe rumour, one very real attributes was Sid's smart uniform and the pride he took in wearing it. He would put on his uniform and walk about in Kenilworth in it for no other reason than that he was proud to be a Scout. Those of us who had not the advantage of being members of the Abbey Scout Troop were nevertheless admirers of the high standard of Scouting of the Abbey Troop, All the members of the Abbey Troop were able to tie the Test Knots with skilful ease and to camp in all weathers. Some comedians had even suggested that the Abbey Troop Scouts could light a fire with two matches using only a bucket of water and a sheet of asbestos! If, at that time, the Abbey Troop members had a fault it would have been that they were too serious. Sid West took his Scouting seriously and this was reflected in the attitude of his Troop. Only a little less of a character in the Abbey Group at this time was the redoubtable Buck. Buck was the Akela of the Abbey Pack and had the distinction of owning and riding a horse. He was quite often to be seen, wearing his leather 'zip-up' jacket as he rode around the town and onto the country roads. What I remember about Buck was that, as opposed to Sid West, Buck had a more easy going style. I used to meet him in the Abbey Fields from time to time and usually when he was supervising the Cub Pack playing football, or may be practising for an imminent Cub Sports Day. There was only the one Girl Guide Company in Kenilworth in those days and things being what they were it was a fact that most of the girls in the Company were known to the Scouts, partly because many of the Scouts had sisters in the Company but also because Skipper Royal's wife had been closely associated with the Guide Movement. for some time. Then there was the Leek Wootton Troop. which, as already indicated, was run by Denn Dee and the three Scout Troops mentioned and the Guide Company formed the extent of my interests in 1948.
Scouting in 1949
It was planned to have an annual summer camp again in 1949 but it was some time before the venue was decided but we used the intervening time to go over your camping equipment and to buy new or replace older items. The task was made easier because we had bought new tents and other equipment the 1948 camp so we only had smaller items to consider The dark nights were also the time learn signalling techniques (Morse Code etc.) Eventually, however, the Patrol Leaders' went along with the idea of camping at an 'Official' camp site called Brynbach in North Wales, not far from Denbigh. Brynbach has long since disappeared from the lists but in those days it was an extensive site in quite hilly country and the nearest town was about six miles from the site. The site was owned by the Scout Association (hence the title 'Official). While we were considering the various matters in connection with the Annual Camp, we kept up winter activities such as night hikes and when Easter came we had a Troop Hike, followed, as the calendar advanced, by the Whitsun camp. The year also saw the beginnings of a move to have a new H.Q. for the Scouts and Guides of Kenilworth. The First Kenilworth Scouts and Cubs had met in a series of different places as far as anyone could remember The reader will have noticed that the First Kenilworth had met in three different places since I came to Scouting. Thus any scheme which looked like providing the Scouts and Cubs with a permanent H.Q. was to be welcomed. There was a piece of land available at the end of Barrow Road and, due to a great deal of good will on the part of the people of Kenilworth and also to the Ex-servicemen returning from World War Two, the land was purchased and the Youth Centre built on it. Thus the site on which it was proposed to build the Scout Headquarters was part of a site which would contain the Youth Centre (now the B.T. Telephone Exchange) and before the Scout Headquarters was built the Troop was accommodated in this Youth Centre. It was intended that the two storey building would be fitted out with small side-rooms but, like most schemes of this type, the money ran out and the building remained as a tall barn of a place right up till the time that it was sold to B.T. Any noise generated inside the building echoed around much as will be related later much to the annoyance of the residents at the end of nearby Barrow Road, then a cul-de-sac. However it may have turned out in the future, it was somewhere to meet and there was plenty of room for games and the like. while the Scout H.Q. was being proceeded with. Alec Masters, the District Commissioner played a significant part in getting the the project going The plans were drawn up by John Lawrence -First Kenilworth Cub Pack Akela, he being an architectural draughtsman. Major Masters, was not involved in the later stages of the development of the site and the building of the H.Q. because in the late 1950's our D.C. became part of the Scout County organisation as Assistant County Commissioner for Cubs. This meant that we would have a new District Commissioner and, due to re-organisation, we found ourselves to be part of a potentially larger Scout District. to be referred to as 'Mid-Warwickshire' The upshot of the matter was that we found ourselves not only involved with the day-to-day activities of the Scout Troop and the planning of the Annual Camp but also considerations regarding the new scout H.Q. and the development of the site on to which the H.Q. was to be set. In the discussions with the Patrol Leaders it was decided that the Troop would travel to Denbigh on the train and most of the camping equipment would travel with them. As this was the only holiday I would be getting in 1949 I thought that it would be best if I could combine the Annual Scout Camp, with a cycle tour so, with the kind understanding of Skipper Royal, it was agreed that I could cycle to camp at Brynbach, be under canvas for the week and cycle back to Kenilworth. I will always remember this concession of Skipper Royal with gratitude for it meant that en route being the only Scout Leader with the party he would be obliged to manage the Scouts and the camping gear on his own and it turned out that the this would involve changing trains at least twice and the whole procedure would have to be duplicated in reverse on the return journey after camp. I was the proud possessor of a tandem bicycle and Don Pilcher, one of the Scouts in First. Kenilworth Troop boys was in n agreement with being the rear rider (or 'stoker' in cycling parlance.) and we proved to be a good duo as he was a strong lad and willing to make the most of everything. He was also invariably cheerful which is an excellent virtue when you are so dependent on each other. The machine we were to ride was no racing model but reliable and heavy-heavier still by the time we were loaded up. This was because we had elected to camp out for some of the time and to stay at Youth Hostels for the rest of the time along the route to Brynbach and return. Before we actually set off for Brynbach Don and I had a few practice runs to get the feel of the tandem and one of them was when we cycled to the far side of Banbury to stay with some of Don's relations for the weekend. The tandem was fun and we were young and happily on all our runs, including the ride to and from Brynbach I don't remember any inclement weather, so we were lucky. In spite of early experiences when we were getting used to the machine and making an effective duo of ourselves the tandem was steadier on the road than a solo machine and could travel at a good rate on a slight downhill. For instance, on the day that we set off for Brynbach and had just passed the 'George in the Tree pub along the Birmingham Road, a van appeared alongside and the friendly driver commented that we were travelling at twenty-five miles an hour! As will be seen, though, it was a quite different matter when we came to cycling the hills. Our first night a wheel was spent not far away from the AS5 and the far side of Lichfield. A young farmer who gave us permission to camp on his farm was concerned about our welfare as it was going to be a cold night. We had offers of food, blankets and other items but we were determined to manage with the items we had brought with us The next day saw us cycling along the A5 and aiming for our first Youth Hostel, Tyndwr Hall at Langollen. This was the first Youth Hostel had ever visited and I acquired a long-lasting taste for hostelling. The hostel was crowded, most of them from Merseysiide which was not far away. We booked in at reception and wheeled our tandem to the cycle sheds. As we were comparatively early there were not many other bicycles there at the time, just a few cycles and the odd tandem, rather a lighter machine than ours! We made our way to the dormitory and made up our beds. It was a large room but full of noise, there being a large party of quite small boys apparently on a school journey trip from somewhere in Yorkshire. Most of these boys seemed to have brought their personal items in suit cases and large hand luggage bags rather than in rucsacs We were rather tired after our cycling and very hungry. Having the luxury of 'Meals Provided' we made our way to the dining room. This turned out to be a truly huge room with the food being served off long trestle tables with the ends of their tables butted closely together to get the maximum possible number of tables in. We were wearing Scout uniforms and soon found that there was a small party of Girl Guides, not in uniform but who made themselves known to us and helped us to learn the ropes, they having been to this particular hostel before. "When the teapot appears" said one of the girls "grab it and our tea into every empty cup within range" Accordingly, when this truly enormous aluminium tea-pot appeared suddenly at my elbow I went into rapid action and followed the my instructions to the letter Almost before I had finished pouring ,the pot was snatched out of my hands and, , disappeared into the distance up the table. Shortly afterwards, there was a howl of rage and a complaint that the pot was empty! It seems that the advice that we had received was sound enough. We had, of course brought our cutlery with us which was fortunate as the Hostel did not seem to have available some of these useful items. Almost before we had finished our meal, the boys in the large school party, having finished their own repast, began running about, and making a nuisance of themselves. Some of them, armed with dessert spoons snatched from the tables used the spoons to hit people, especially men with bald heads over the head, until a rather severe-looking man, evidently a teacher with the party, ordered them off elsewhere, to right reports. After a sound night's sleep Don and I had a good breakfast carried out our hostel duties and, having collected our membership cards from the reception desk, made our way out to the cycle sheds On the way, we discovered that there had been many people, evidently unbooked and late arrivals, who had been sleeping all over the place and even on the rather 'baronial; staircase. It was clear, though, that we would not be able to leave right away as our tandem was hemmed in by a host of other machines which must have arrived after us on the previous evening We noted, with some interest,that there were several tandems, other than ours in the sheds and a lot even the odd lightweight tricycle or two. As we had some time to cool our heels in the hostel I had final look in the dormitory that we had slept in. I was apprehensive that something might have been left behind. The small boys were still running about. There was a slight lull in the noise when the Warden appeared with a broom in his hand. "I am looking for a boy called Morgourtroyd" said the Warden to one of the of the small boys chasing another round the beds. "There is nobody of that name here" said the boy, hardly pausing in his haste "Oh yes there is" said the warden, firmly "and it's you" indicating a battered suitcase on the end of bed. The name of Murgourtroyd was clearly marked on the side of the case. Sensing that he was beaten, the lad took the broom and set to work without further comment. Finding that we could now retrieve our tandem from the cycle shed, Don and I loaded the machine up and set off along the A5 to the next hostel. Our next hostel was to be at Llanwrst, which, unlike Tyndwr Hall, no longer appears in the Youth Hostel Handbook. It had the enticing name of 'Oaklands' and amongst the list of its attractions a 'swimming pool in the grounds was listed. Don, always a keen lad to get into the water, looked forward to the prospect of a swim. We had to pass the Swallow Falls on the way to Oaklands and found another tandem pair, a man and a young woman whom we took to be his fiancée looking at the Falls but, being occupied with each other they said that they would probably see us later as they would also be at Oaklands that evening. Don and I, being tactful people took the hint and moved on. When we arrived at the hostel, as with other things in life, it was not quite what we had anticipated. The pool turned out to be of the open air type, naturally enough and on the hot day looked very inviting. There were quite a lot of other hostellers about in a a sort of ragged queue many of them had been to Oaklands before so that they had heard of the Pool and pointed out that the locals used it as a sort of rubbish tip and some of the items under the surface of the placid looking pool could be quite dangerous. However, Don was overheating quite a lot and asked for advice on the best place to enter the Pool and consequently escaped with only a minor cut on one of his feet. While Don was drying himself after his dip, a small car drove up to the door of the hostel When a rather lean figure emerged from the vehicle, several hoteliers greeted him rather caustically -it must be remembered that it was not the regular thing for hostellers to turn up in cars in those days! Having regarded them in silence for a few minutes the man produced a large key and held it up before opening the front door remarking as he did so that they were in fact talking to the warden of the hostel! There was a 'pregnant silence 'as we all filed into the hostel Apart from the fact that the hostel possessed this rather menacing Pool, and that the hostel was set in extensive grounds with its own collection of fine trees, I do not have any special memories of Oaklands Youth Hostel. Our third hostel was to be Llanberis and was where we were to hit the high hills, some of them amongst the tallest in the British Isles. We cycled along a relatively level length of the A5 before we arrived at the foot of the Llanberis Pass, however. It was as good and beautiful a day as we would have for the whole trip. It was warm, too and so when the road ran alongside a large lake in which a youngish looking man with two children were swimming. It was too much for Don who called for a halt so that he could change into swimming trunks and immerse himself in the water. I am rather more cautious, however. believing that one should cool off before diving in. By the time I had considered the matter, though, Don had found a large bush or something of the sort, was changed and in the water- but out again in almost as quick a time. He looked quite blue with cold! When he had dried himself, got dressed and stopped his teeth chattering, he asked the man, who was still swimming in the lake with the children how they managed not to feel the cold. 'It's always cold in the lake' explained the man 'but we come here every day-we only live just up the road and are used to it' We cycled away rapidly after our talk with the man, so that Don could get his breath back. I remembered afterwards that the peaks of a mountain, probably Snowdon formed a back cloth to the lake and if the water which filled it came down from such mountain peaks, no Later in the day we had to cycle up the Llanberis Pass and this was proved to be the hardest part of the tour with a lot of grinding low gear work. It was precisely here that Don proved to be such a good 'stoker' Always cheerful and as strong as a horse. Llanberis Youth Hostel seemed to be at the top of the pass, too. At least, it seemed that way tous as we struggled up the incline cycling most of the way but having recourse to our feet from time to time, while we pushed our heavily loaded machine. After our evening meal we decided that the following day we would somehow get to the top peak of Snowdon (3560 feet above sea level) before cycling on to the Scout Camp at Brybach. It is a walking job (unless one goes upon the Snowdon mountain railway and the distance to the top up this route was about three and a half miles. This is a shorter route than the other routes to the top but the incline is much lass The next morning we placed the tandem into the tender care of an official at the small railway station and set off on our trip up the mountain. A glance at the map had shown that our route crossed and re-crossed the railway track and the little trains were seen several times as we walked up the mountain.
Track, that is to say that it was a solid rail rather like an ordinary train rail but with teeth cut into it along its whole length to match a driving cog on the underside of the engine. By this arrangement the engine and the rest of the train with it, could not possibly fall off the rails no matter what the incline might be and the gear and rack ensured that the engine would always get a grip The carriages and engine were much smaller than main line steam trains and because of the former time in which the whole set-up was designed, it all looked rather old-fashioned, especially with the tall chimney on the engine. One can imagine the odd experience of suddenly seeing the tall chimney followed by the rest of the engine and the carriages appearing through the swirling mists which were common on the mountain as we proceeded upwards towards the summit of Snowdon. The comic effect was increased at the times when the train was tipped over at a crazy angle, quite impossible for an ordinary train. Then there were the people in some of the carriages who stared out at us whenever they happened to be near enough to us. We might as well have been on Mars! After an hour or so we found ourselves at a species of 'shack' which bore the title of 'The Half Way House Nowhere near to half way we decided later, but nearer to the foot of Snowdon After a stop at the Half-way House we carried on with a steady climb towards the summit. As we got nearer to the top it was colder and the mountain sheep became less numerous. The actual summit of the mountain turned out to be a large rocky area with a large building on it. This building not only accommodated the terminus of the railway but also a large and expensive cafe. The mist on that day made it difficult to see far even though we had heard it claimed that the Isle of Man could be seen from here. We dug deep into our pockets and purchased something to fortify ourselves with before starting on the descent down the mountain. There were a number of rather fat and squawky seagulls waddling about and they consumed the last of our sandwiches, some of which had proved to be stale as well as expensive As it was easier going downhill than up we were soon at the little railway station and there we collected our tandem Our destination was now the Scout Camp at Brynbach some thirty miles away. Happily the going was mostly along the flat and took us round the coast through such sea-side resorts as Rhyl, where we had time
2-HIST3 1948-49.doc
1949 - 1952
Other events in 1949 It was some time in 1949 that I was finally presented with my Wood Badge by the District Commissioner, Major Masters. Major Masters was a character In his younger days he had served in the Army in India where he had been an athlete and won many long-distance races. When he retired from the Army he went into industry and when we knew him was involved with the Service Department of the 'Triumph' Motor Cycle Company. He frequently rode one of these machines himself. There were stories of Major Masters riding along the Kenilworth Road from Coventry, for instance and overtaking fellow Leaders, such as our Akela of the day, John Lawrence who had a rather slow small car Nevertheless, Major Masters found time to give a cheery wave of recognition at sixty or seventy miles an hour! I heard from the D.C. that I would shortly be presented with my Wood Badge as I had successfully completed Part Three (putting my training into practice) The presentation would take place at a camp fire which was already organised for some other purpose with one of the Scout Meeting places in Leamington as the venue. The actual ceremony took very little time during the sing-song and the singing continued according to schedule after the presentation. It was then that Major Masters displayed a previously unsuspected talent. After being called upon by the camp fire leader to render an item as entered into the programme, he led his fascinated colleagues in a Negro Spiritual called 'Them Dry Bones', accompanying himself quite skilfully on a musical instrument which looked like a ukulele or small guitar. He went through the piece on his own first of all and then taught the words to his audience, line by line, playing us all,in with the ukulele as necessary. It seemed to me that this was not the first time that Major Masters had done this! I was never present at any other sing-somg when the D.C. did anything like this which made me think that he was doing something special for us! There was an International Camp for Senior Scouts at Moisson in France that year and Doug and Gordon Knight attended it. The Senior Scouts do not have a place in Scouting these days. The Ventures have taken their place, even though the Ventures are for a more extended range than the Seniors were and can include girls in their ranks. The boys seemed to have an enjoyable time in camp and, after many 'Badge Swapping' came home in rather different uniforms to the ones they set out in. Even the D.C. seemed to relish the story of a time when the rations were being issued for the day. As the queue moved slowly past the table where the French Scouts were handing out the food, one of the English scouts found he was being issued with a piece of very dark meat in the shape of a very large sausage. Before he could frame a question, the French scout said, with a perfectly straight face 'Scouting is an adventure' and the queue moved on.
Scouting in 1950
In 1950 the structure of local Scouting was changing. Kenilworth District as a separate entity ceased to exist and became part of a new District called 'Kenilworth, Leamington and Southam' Major Masters was still the District Commissioner at least at the beginning of the year before he moved to County Staff as Assistant County Commissioner for Cubs- or Wolf Cubs as they were called then. It was rumoured at about this time that wee would soon have an Assistant District Commissioner for Kenilworth but I don't think that this happened until fairly late in the year when the Rev. F.G. Clarke came to join us .
THE BERKSWELL COUNTY CAMP
The First Kenilworth attended this camp in the quite extensive grounds of the County Commissioner, at Berkswell. In those days Coventry was part of Warwickshire Scout County, but nowadays it is a Scout County on its own. The cmp was well supported by the various Scout Troops in the area with a large contingent from Coventry. Our Troop attended all the special .events and displays and the camp fires and contributed a number of items from our rapidly expanding repertoire. The way repertoires are built up is by attending and joining in camp fires wherever possible and, of course, we had been to a lot of such events just before this camp came along. The camp fire Leader makes or breaks the camp fire and the leaders at this camp were good and kept the programmes moving. I don't think, however, that the Leaders here were as good as the Warden had been when he ran the camp fires at Brynbach. but there are not many in that class and after all, the Warden must have had a lot more experience. With so many boys in camp, there were inevitably going to be a few mishaps. The one I remember, vividly was when a Scout dropped his soap in the fresh water supply tank- a large canvas container about eight feet long five feet wide and three feet deep mounted in a supporting tubular framework. It was reminiscent of war-time static water tank, although this one was smaller, of course. We all had to pay for the mishap as we had to go farther for the water to a distant tap.
ANNUAL SCOUT LEADERS' CONFERENCE.
When the camp at Berkswell was over and almost forgotten, the time came for the Annual Scout Leaders' Conference. If memory serves me aright, it was held in Coventry this in 1950. Conferences are interesting for, apart from new information that one might glean, those attending get the chance of making new friendships and meeting old acquaintances. There were also talks, often by speakers from Scout Headquarters in London. I remember having many informal chats with fellow Scout Leaders while eating a meal or drinking tea. To a young person, such as myself only recently having joined the Movement, it was particularly useful and helpful to meet older and more experienced Scouters and to hear what they had to say.
I attended the special non-denominational Service for Leaders (The 'Scouts Own') and to join in the hymns, always sung with such volume and gusto. There seemed to be so much to gain from the Conference.
THE ANNUAL CAMP 1950
This was the first Annual Camp where I was actually 'in charge', and like Richard Gordon's 'Doctor in the House' I soon began to feel that I had learnt just enough to find out how ignorant I was. Fortunately, Skipper Royal, back in Kenilworth and running his shoe repair business, realised that I might well be having problems. Accordingly, he negotiated with Doug and Gordon Knight to get them to make their way up to the camp to help out with the running of it. Unfortunately, with my limited experience of running such an enterprise I had not realised that I should have moved faster than I did to get the camp straight and presentable before the local Commissioner came to see us. He turned out to be very much the martinet, too and even came to us at the worst possible time when we were just about to go out for the day. I did get a good camp report in consequence! However, that was in the future. We had a wonderful day out in Dovedale. The weather was warm and the sun shone brilliantly and every where looked green. This was in stark contrast to our camp site which was rather grey with not a great deal of grass on it anywhere. The camping area had frankly been camped on too much. By the time that Doug and Gorden appeared on the Wednesday or Thusday, however, we had got a much tidier site than when the Commissioner came earlier in the week and the three of us put the finishing touches to the camp and we had a very pleasant end to the week with quite a lot of sunshine. We got packed up in good time for the arrival of the transport probably a large furniture van, rather than Mr.Tidmarsh's truck and everybody went home tired and happy but probably quite dirty, even though we had all stripped out for a wash before breakfast in the morning. The site was covered in grey ash, probably the result of all the wood fires which had been lit on it over the years. This was the site, remember, that lst Kenilworth had camped on in 1947, only three years before and when Skipper Royal was in charge. About a fortnight after the camp I was summoned by Major Masters, the District Commissioner and had a very uncomfortable half an hour when the D.C.'laid it on the line'. The report from the District Commissioner of the area where the Annual Camp had been sent to Major Masters and I left his presence feeling very chastened. Later, I heard from Skipper Royal that Major Masters had given Skipper Royal a 'wigging ,too. It seemed that the D.C. took the view that, in view of my limited experience at the time it was hardly right for me to be running an Annual Camp virtually on my own, even though help was to hand after a day or two. € Happily, even though I had been 'panned' by the D.C., many of the younger Scouts in the Troop thought the camp to have been quite an adventure. In one sense,'that is what it's all about'
THE 1951 ANNUAL CAMP
The 1951 Annual Camp turned out to be a combined camp with 3 different Troops camping together near to Arundel in Sussex. After my rather unfortunate experiences in 1950, I was to find myself under an interdict so lst. Kenilworth was better off with the joint arrangement. The Abbey Troop and a Troop from Maldon in Essex were the other members in the joint arrangement. The Rev.Clarke was tobe in charge of the camp and the Abbey Troop, The Maldon Troop would naturally have their own Leaders. Most of the campers travelled to camp by rail but the Rev. Clarke took to the road in his rather small Ford car. One of the parents of the lads in 1st. Kenilworth offered me a seat in his car, he had some business which would take him down to near Arundel at that time. The Rev. gentleman had predilection for camping on the crests of hills with the idea of getting the best possible view of the scenery, no doubt! In this case, the idea seemed unlikely to pay off, It was raining cats and dogs when we arrived at the bottom end of the camping field. There could not have been much of a view from the top part of the field on the hill! It was clear that we were going to find it difficult to set up camp under such conditions so the Rev. Clarke negotiated with a local Church Minister to accommodate us in his Church Hall while Doug and Gordon Knight erected one of the larger tents and slept in it with the rest of the camping equipment for company. How Doug and Gordon slept I can't imagine and they did not say but we heard that they spent npart of the evening, at least in a local cinema where they caused some discomfort for a few of the other patrons by moving into their seats, in the dark, wearing wet cycle capes. I am sure, however, that Doug and Gordon must have slept better than I did as it was very noisy in that Church Hall with so many chattering boys. We had one or two sore spots when we got up the next morning, having slept on the floor but we soon had to forget that as we had to set up camp. There was still some rain about and the ground was wet but the sun came out after a while and we laid out the camp on the top of the hill as expected. There was even time for a scratch game of cricket before the end of the day. Unfortunately, there was hardly any area of unobstructed grass available away from the trees and so a special scoring system had to be devised account for balls being deflected from tree trunks etc. Several hikes and a few 'Wide Games' were organised in the course of the week as we were only a short distance from the enchanting South Downs (largely made of chalk,) Another form of amusement occurred to some of the campers (until 'officialdom' put a stop to it). This was to line up the fence which overlooked Arundel Railway station and to shout a chorus of BRIGHTON! in the hope that families would tumble out of the trains clutching buckets, imagining that they had arrived at the sea-side. At the end of the week we all split up. The Maldon Troop went back to Essex but it would not be long before we met up with them again as we were to camp with them on Northey Island in the Blackwater Estuary, not far from Maldon and in the company of a group of German Scouts from Hamburg It was the first half of an exchange visit. But more of this later. The Annual Camp at Arundel will not go down in my memory as significant but once the first day with all its rain was over it was not a bad camp but it proved to be difficult to get any real cohesion into it. There were three Troops camping together and, whilst the Maldon Troop was one that the Rev. Clarke had close connections with and he was more or less running the Abbey Scout Troop at the time, 1st Kenilworth was another matter. We were inclined to be what is referred to as 'reactionary' these days When we arrived back in Kenilworth and picked up the threads of 'ordinary' Scout existence, we also had to give some attention to the work required to erect our new Scout and Guide H.Q. The plans for the new H.Q.had been drawn up by John Lawrence,an architectural draughtsman The whole project was overseen by Major Masters, the District Commissioner. Major Masters, however, took much more than a perfunctory interest in things and proved to have a sharp eye for the details, especially those of a legal kind . Fred Potts, one of Skipper Royal's assistants in the Scouts and. actually one of Skip's Scouts at one time borrowed a tractor fitted with a gadget for boring 'post holes , that is quite big holes (something about twelve inches in diameter) as partnbo0f the building project. This must have saved a great deal of labour on the site. The Scout and Guide Headquarters building was officially opened in 1952 by the then County Commissioner, Lord Guernsey, later to become the Earl of Aylesford on the death of his father. The ceremony of actually unlocking the door of the H.Q. was performed by a diminutive member of the Brownie Pack, with the help of the County Commissioner! he seat of the Earl was at Packington Park near Meriden and was taken over during the war by various activities connected with the Army but some of the huts were made use of by the Scout Organisation for use in connection with Scout Training. The area used for these purposes became known as 'Broadwater'. After lst. Kenilworth had left the pre,ises neaR John's Church it spent some time meeting in 'The Old Council House' near to where the Fire Station' then was as written about elsewhere bu eventually we met in the building called the Youth Centre in those days. This building was a large brick-built building at the end of Barrow Road, which finished as a cul-de-sac in those days. The original plans for the building envisaged the eventual addition of many side rooms for the use of the organisations using the place but these additions did not materialise at the time when the Scouts were meeting there, only one or two store rooms were provided. The building was also very tall, probably to have galleries or other facilities for storage or the use of spectators. Because of this height and floor area and the fact that there was not a lot of furniture or of drapes to absorb any sound, the building, when in use was very noisy. This was especially true when the Youth Centre was full of excited and active young people. The reader will not be surprised that some people living locally were not well disposed to any noisy activities goi8ng on in the building. In particular, Mr. Shepherd, who lived at No. 43, just by the Youth Centre was soon complaining about the din. I myself was in fact' favoured' by the opinions of Mr Shepherd from time to time when he would burst into the meeting, completely un-announced, of course, just when I was doing my best to carry on with some activity I had planned. There were harsh things said but I had to take the comments as best I could, one of the Scout Laws being that a Scout is courteous! Some time later we heard of an event being run in the same building but on a different night and it appeared that Mr. Shepherd did not emerge after this event with any real satisfaction. It seems that the event was a Social Event run by a local cycling club. Before Mr.Shepherd could lodge his complaint he had to pass the doorkeeper who was a young, very large man of powerful physique. Without any difficulty he stopped Mr. Shepherd in his tracks. 'You cannot get in here without a ticket' said the young man, who appeared to take his duties very seriously. 'But I wish to complain about the noise!' shouted Mr. Shepherd above the booming noise of a powerful radiogram, recently installed 'Goodnight Grandad !' said the young man shoving the intruder to one side. It was clear that matters had to rest there, at least for the time being for the time being and Mr. Shepherd had little alternative but to walk slowly homeward to metaphorically lick his wounds. Mr.Shepherd and his colleagues got their act together and took the matter to a higher authority and there were a few letters in the 'Kenilworth Weekly News' about the matter. The Management Committee of the Youth Centre discussed the matter. Some improvements were activated such as reducing the volume of sound from the radiogram. Gradually the hue and cry faded and a lot of organization seem to have drifted away from the inherently noisy building lst Kenilworth Scouts were soon in the happy position of having the choice of two adjacent places to meet in as the new Scout and Guide H.Q. was coming into use. The two Knight boys and a neighbour of theirs, one Derek Baker decided exercise their carpentry skill to make two or three large wooden trunks which would be good furniture for the small lst. Kenilworth room in the new H.Q. Camping items could be stored in the trunks which could also be used as seats. In due course a 'Courtier' stove made its welcome appearance as a means of heating up the main part of the H.Q. This stove had actually been donated by the District Commissioner who had found the stove to be surplus to requirements when modernised his home. It was a very large area of building to be heated by a stove op that size but we struggled with it for quite a while. A strong steel fire-guard was obtained to make sure that lads and girls playing active games in the hut did not burn themselves on the stove and a piece of concrete was put under the stove lest the heat of the stove melted the plastic floor material. This stove was only the very first of many methods of heating the hut that were to try over the years. The problem was not, in fact solved until, many years later, we had 'strip' infra-red heaters installed high under the apex of the roof where dust and errant missiles would cause minimum damage. One day when we were stoking the monster up, somebody remembered about the coke bin which had been acquired during Skipper Royals time as Scoutmaster of lst Kenilworth. This bin had been transported around wherever the Scout the lst Kenilworth Troop went, rather after the fashion of the transportation of the relics of St. Cuthbert. After much thought a plot was hatched until all that was needed was a suitably dark night to provide a cloak for our activities. We had established that the bin was stored in one of the side room of the Youth Centre. On the evening that we were putting the finishing touches to our plan as we sat on 'fold-up' chairs in the Scout H.Q., the Rev F.G. Clarke turned up. and sat down with us Of course, he approved of us getting what was our own property back but, he delicately brushed aside any suggestion that he might join us on the expedition. Indeed in his grey suit and clerical collar, he would hardly have 'fitted in' After a little more discussion, our small party set off across the piece of bramble-covered land which separated our new H.Q. from the Youth Centre. Someone carried the key to the store-room but I recall that we blundered abouit when we had gained entry to the little store room, since we had not had enough foresight to bring a torch along with us. Happily, the rest of the Youth Centre was in darkness and we were not disturbed. The bin was not heavy but proved to be awkward to handle as we stumbled back to the Scout H.Q. The whole operation had not taken more than about twenty minutes but the Rev. Clarke had departed. We stood the bin up at one side of the stove and stared at it vith some pride. It certainly looked well in its new position. Without further ado we then departed to our own homes to make pots of tea to recuperate after our exertions. As regards the Rev. Clarke, it would be unfair to his memory to give the impression that he was always the formal grey-suited clergyman. He was a man of many parts, as we were to discover when he started moving around the District, visiting all the sections of the lst. Kenilworth and Abbey Scout Groups. We leaders were invited to District Meetings at 21, Priory Road which was the house placed at the disposal of the Minister in charge at the (then) Congregational Church on Abbey Hill. One of Rev. Clarke's wishes, often being mentioned to us was to actually stage a Gang Show. Us young Leaders were always a little puzzled as to why such a person as F.G. Clarke could ever wish to be involved with a Gang Show. but in the end, in 1957,his wish was to be fulfilled .As far as First Kenilworth was concerned, we saw little of him at this stage but we heard that he was giving much of his time to helping the Abbey Group which then had its own problems. I had mine too as I was probably the most active warranted leader with First Kenilworth at that time. It would have been at about this time that there were several rapid changes in the leadership of the First Kenilworth Cub Pack When I came into the movement the Cub Pack was run by a Mrs. Barnet who lived in Whites Row, quite near to where I was living (in Dudley Road) John Lawrence, the Architect of the new Scout H.Q but he eventually found the task too demanding and Hilda Hillyard was soon to consider taking over the Pack over. When this happened she became a major force in the First Kenilworth Group for some years.
3-RP Scouting 1949-50.doc
1949 to 1952
Skipper Royal would travel back to Kenilworth on the train. (Kenilworth had a railway station in those days.) The Charlbury Troop would be quite likely to travel on the same route as the Kenilworth Troop for at least part of the journey with similar changes of train, probably at Crewe and Birmingham. In fact, when, after camp, we had all arrived back in Kenilworth, with the normal Troop Meetings taking place, we heard from Skipper Royal that the changes of trains had been quite tight for time involving rushing across from one platform to another, the scouts moving the camping gear on trucks 'borrowed' from the station porters and sometimes coming within an ace of losing some of the gear in their haste! Don and I, however, had no such adventures as we pedalled away, first on minor roads but later, on the A5.almost exactly what we had done on the outward journey about a week before (but in the reverse direction). The original plan had been to camp for the night somewhere on the way and to arrive back in Kenilworth the following morning but, in the end we decided to cover the whole distance in one go which meant covering well over seventy miles in one long day. The tandem was beginning to feel the strain by now, carrying all that gear and having been thrown about in the cycle sheds of Youth Hostels and similar rough treatment. The machine was fitted with hub brakes which meant that if the rims went slightly out of true the brakes still operated albeit with slightly reduced efficiency. This facility was put to the test during the day as we could hear snapping noises as we cycled along the A5. It was the breaking of spokes in the back wheel and at the point where the spoke is formed in a right angles and at the hub flange. By the time that we arrived at Don's house in Kenilworth we had heard about 7 spokes breaking but we were too tired to care! I spent what was left of the night on a sofa in Don's house before cycling solo back to my own home in Waverley Road.
Other events in 1949
It was some time in 1949 that I was finally presented with my Wood Badge by the District Commissioner, Major Masters. Major Masters was a character In his younger days he had served in the Army in India where he had been an athlete and won many long-distance races. When he retired from the Army he went into industry and when we knew him was involved with the Service Department of the 'Triumph' Motor Cycle Company. He frequently rode one of these machines himself. There were stories of Major Masters riding along the Kenilworth Road from Coventry, for instance and overtaking fellow Leaders, such as our Akela of the day, John Lawrence who had a rather slow small car Nevertheless, Major Masters found time to give a cheery wave of recognition at sixty or seventy miles an hour! I heard from the D.C. that I would shortly be presented with my Wood Badge as I had successfully completed Part Three (putting my training into practice) The presentation would take place at a camp fire which was already organised for some other purpose with one of the Scout Meeting places in Leamington as the venue. The actual ceremony took very little time during the sing-song and the singing continued according to schedule after the presentation. It was then that Major Masters displayed a previously unsuspected talent. After being called upon by the camp fire leader to render an item as entered into the programme, he led his fascinated colleagues in a Negro Spiritual called 'Them Dry Bones', accompanying himself quite skilfully on a musical instrument which looked like a ukulele or small guitar. He went through the piece on his own first of all and then taught the words to his audience, line by line, playing us all,in with the ukulele as necessary. It seemed to me that this was not the first time that Major Masters had done this! I was never present at any other sing-song when the D.C. did anything like this which made me think that he was doing something special for us! There was an International Camp for Senior Scouts at Moisson in France that year and Doug and Gordon Knight attended it. The Senior Scouts do not have a place in Scouting these days. The Ventures have taken their place, even though the Ventures are for a more extended range than the Seniors were and can include girls in their ranks. The boys seemed to have an enjoyable time in camp and, after many 'Badge Swapping' came home in rather different uniforms to the ones they set out in.
Even the D.C. seemed to relish the story of a time when the rations were being issued for the day. As the queue moved slowly past the table where the French Scouts were handing out the food, one of the English scouts found he was being issued with a piece of very dark meat in the shape of a very large sausage. Before he could frame a question, the French scout said, with a perfectly straight face' Scouting is an adventure' and the queue moved on.
Scouting in 1950
In 1950 the structure of local Scouting was changing. Kenilworth District as a separate entity ceased to exist and became part of a new District called 'Kenilworth, Leamington and Southam' Major Masters was still the District Commissioner at least at the beginning of the year before he moved to County Staff as Assistant County Commissioner for Cubs- or Wolf Cubs as they were called then. It was rumoured at about this time that we would soon have an Assistant District Commissioner for Kenilworth but I don't think that this happened until fairly late in the year when the Rev. F.G. Clarke came to join us
THE BERKSWELL COUNTY CAMP
The First Kenilworth attended this camp in the quite extensive grounds of the County Commissioner, at Berkswell. In those days Coventry was part of Warwickshire Scout County, but nowadays it is a Scout County on its own. The camp was well supported by the various Scout Troops in the area with a large contingent from Coventry. Our Troop attended all the special .events and displays and the camp fires and contributed a number of items from our rapidly expanding repertoire. The way repertoires are built up is by attending and joining in camp fires wherever possible and, of course, we had been to a lot of such events just before this camp came along. The camp fire Leader makes or breaks the camp fire and the leaders at this camp were good and kept the programmes moving. I don't think, however, that the Leaders here were as good as the Warden had been when he ran the camp fires at Brynbach. but there are not many in that class and after all, the Warden must have had a lot more experience. With so many boys in camp, there were inevitably going to be a few mishaps. The one I remember, vividly was when a Scout dropped his soap in the fresh water supply tank- a large canvas container about eight feet long five feet wide and three feet deep mounted in a supporting tubular framework. It was reminiscent of war-time static water tank, although this one was smaller, of course. We all had to pay for the mishap as we had to go farther for the water to a distant tap..
ANNUAL SCOUT LEADERS' CONFERENCE
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When the camp at Berkswell was over and almost forgotten, the time came for the Annual Scout Leaders' Conference. If memory serves me aright, it was held in Coventry this in 1950. Conferences are interesting for, apart from new information that one might glean, those attending get the chance of making new friendships and meeting old acquaintances. There were also talks, often by speakers from Scout Headquarters in London. I remember having many informal chats with fellow Scout Leaders while eating a meal or drinking tea. To a young person, such as myself only recently having joined the Movement, it was particularly useful and helpful to meet older and more experienced Scouters and to hear what they had to say. I attended the special non-denominational Service for Leaders (The 'Scouts Own') and to join in the hymns, always sung with such volume and gusto.
There seemed to be so much to gain from the Conference
THE ANNUAL CAMP 1950
This was the first Annual Camp where I was actually 'in charge'. and like Richard Gordon's 'Doctor in the House' I soon began to feel that I had learnt just enough to find out how ignorant I was. Fortunately, Skipper Royal, back in Kenilworth and running his shoe repair business, realised that I might well be having problems. Accordingly, he negotiated with Doug and Gordon Knight to get them to make their way up to the camp to help out with the running of it. Unfortunately, with my limited experience of running such an enterprise I had not realised that I should have moved faster than I did to get the camp straight and presentable before the local Commissioner came to see us. He turned out to be very much the martinet, too and even came to us at the worst possible time when we were just about to go out for the day. I did not get a good camp report in consequence! However, that was in the future. We had a wonderful day out in Dovedale. The weather was warm and the sun shone brilliantly and every where looked green. This was in stark contrast to our camp site which was rather grey with not a great deal of grass on it anywhere. The camping area had frankly been camped on too much. By the time that Doug and Gordon appeared on the Wednesday or Thursday, however, we had got a much tidier site than when the Commissioner came earlier in the week and the three of us put the finishing touches to the camp and we had a very pleasant end to the week with quite a lot of sunshine. We got packed up in good time for the arrival of the transport probably a large furniture van, rather than Mr.Tidmarsh's truck and everybody went home tired and happy but probably quite dirty, even though we had all stripped out for a wash before breakfast in the morning. The site was covered in grey ash, probably the result of all the wood fires which had been lit on it over the years. This was the site, remember, that lst Kenilworth had camped on in 1947, only three years before and when Skipper Royal was in charge. About a fortnight after the camp I was summoned by Major Masters, the District Commissioner and had a very uncomfortable half an hour when the D.C. 'laid it on the line' The report from the District Commissioner of the area where the Annual Camp had been sent to Major Masters and I left his presence feeling very chastened. Later, I heard from Skipper Royal that Major Masters had given Skipper Royal a 'wigging, too. It seemed that the D.C. took the view that, in view of my limited experience at the time it was hardly right for me to be running an Annual Camp virtually on my own, even though help was to hand after a day or two. Happily, even though I had been 'panned' by the D.C., many of the younger Scouts in the Troop thought the camp to have been quite an adventure. In one sense, 'that is what it's all about'
THE 1951 ANNUAL CAMP
The 1951 Annual Camp turned out to be a combined camp with 3 different Troops camping together near to Arundel in Sussex. After my rather unfortunate experiences in 1950, I was to find myself under an interdict so lst. Kenilworth was better off with the joint arrangement. The Abbey Troop and a Troop from Maldon in Essex were the other members in the joint arrangement. The Rev.Clarke was to be in charge of the camp and the Abbey Troop, The Maldon Troop would naturally have their own Leaders. Most of the campers travelled to camp by rail but the Rev. Clarke took to the road in his rather small Ford car. One of the parents of the lads in 1st. Kenilworth offered me a seat in his car, he had some business which would take him down to near Arundel at that time. The Rev. gentleman had predilection for camping on the crests of hills with the idea of getting the best possible view of the scenery, no doubt! In this case,the idea seemed unlikely to pay off, It was raining cats and dogs when we arrived at the bottom end of the camping field. There could not have been much of a view from the top part of the field on the hill! It was clear that we were going to find it difficult to set up camp under such conditions so the Rev. Clarke negotiated with a local Church Minister to accommodate us in his Church Hall while Doug and Gordon Knight erected one of the larger tents and slept in it with the rest of the camping equipment for company. How Doug and Gordon slept I can't imagine and they did not say but we heard that they spent part of the evening, at least in a local cinema where they caused some discomfort for a few of the other patrons by moving into their seats, in the dark, wearing wet cycle capes. I am sure, however, that Doug and Gordon must have slept better than I did as it was very noisy in that Church Hall with so many chattering boys. We had one or two sore spots when we got up the next morning, having slept on the floor but we soon had to forget that as we had to set up camp. There was still some rain about and the ground was wet but the sun came out after a while and we laid out the camp on the top of the hill as expected. There was even time for a scratch game of cricket before the end of the day. Unfortunately, there was hardly any area of unobstructed grass available away from the trees and so a special scoring system had to be devised account for balls being deflected from tree trunks etc. Several hikes and a few 'Wide Games' were organised in the course of the week as we were only a short distance from the enchanting South Downs (largely made of chalk,) Another form of amusement occurred to some of the campers (until 'officialdom' put a stop to it). This was to line up the fence which overlooked Arundel Railway station and to shout a chorus of BRIGHTON! in the hope that families would tumble out of the trains clutching buckets, imagining that they had arrived at the sea-side. At the end of the week we all split up. The Maldon Troop went back to Essex but it would not be long before we met up with them again as we were to camp with them on Northey Island in the Blackwater Estuary, not far from Maldon and in the company of a group of German Scouts from Hamburg It was the first half of an exchange visit. But more of this later.
The Annual Camp at Arundel will not go down in my memory as significant but once the first day with all its rain was over it was not a bad camp but it proved to be difficult to get any real cohesion into it. There were three Troops camping together and, whilst the Maldon Troop was one that the Rev. Clarke had close connections with and he was more or less running the Abbey Scout Troop at the time, 1st Kenilworth was another matter. We were inclined to be what is referred to as 'reactionary' these days When we arrived back in Kenilworth and picked up the threads of 'ordinary' Scout existence, we also had to give some attention to the work required to erect our new Scout and Guide H.Q. The plans for the new H.Q. had been drawn up by John Lawrence, an architectural draughtsman. The whole project was overseen by Major Masters, the District Commissioner. Major Masters, however, took much more than a perfunctory interest in things and proved to have a sharp eye for the details, especially those of a legal kind. Fred Potts, one of Skipper Royal's assistants in the Scouts and. actually one of Skip's Scouts at one time borrowed a tractor fitted with a gadget for boring 'post holes, that is quite big holes (something about twelve inches in diameter) as part of the building project. This must have saved a great deal of labour on the site. The Scout and Guide Headquarters building was officially opened in 1952 by the then County Commissioner, Lord Guernsey, later to become the Earl of Aylesford on the death of his father. The ceremony of actually unlocking the door of the H.Q. was performed by a diminutive member of the Brownie Pack, with the help of the County Commissioner! The seat of the Earl was at Packington Park near Meriden and was taken over during the war by various activities connected with the Army but some of the huts were made use of by the Scout Organisation for use in connection with Scout Training. The area used for these purposes became known as 'Broadwater'. After lst. Kenilworth had left the premises near John's Church it spent some time meeting in 'The Old Council House' near to where the Fire Station' then was as written about elsewhere but eventually we met in the building called the Youth Centre in those days. This building was a large brick-built building at the end of Barrow Road, which finished as a cul-de-sac in those days. The original plans for the building envisaged the eventual addition of many side rooms for the use of the organisations using the place but these additions did not materialise at the time when the Scouts were meeting there, only one or two store rooms were provided. The building was also very tall, probably to have galleries or other facilities for storage or the use of spectators. Because of this height and floor area and the fact that there was not a lot of furniture or of drapes to absorb any sound, the building, when in use was very noisy. This was especially true when the Youth Centre was full of excited and active young people.
The reader will not be surprised that some people living locally were not well disposed to any noisy activities going on in the building. In particular, Mr.Shepherd, who lived at No. 43, just by the Youth Centre was soon complaining about the din. I myself was in fact' favoured' by the opinions of Mr Shepherd from time to time when he would burst into the meeting, completely un-announced, of course, just when I was doing my best to carry on with some activity I had planned.
There were harsh things said but I had to take the comments as best I could, one of the Scout Laws being that a Scout is courteous! Some time later we heard of an event being run in the same building but on a different night and it appeared that Mr. Shepherd did not emerge after this event with any real satisfaction. It seems that the event was a Social Event run by a local cycling club. Before Mr.Shepherd could lodge his complaint he had to pass the doorkeeper who was a young, very large man of powerful physique. Without any difficulty he stopped Mr. Shepherd in his tracks. 'You cannot get in here without a ticket' said the young man, who appeared to take his duties very seriously. 'But I wish to complain about the noise!' shouted Mr. Shepherd above the booming noise of a powerful radiogram, recently installed 'Goodnight Grandad !' said the young man shoving the intruder to one side.
It was clear that matters had to rest there, at least for the time being for the time being and Mr. Shepherd had little alternative but to walk slowly homeward to metaphorically lick his wounds. Mr.Shepherd and his colleagues got their act together and took the matter to a higher authority and there were a few letters in the 'Kenilworth Weekly News' about the matter. The Management Committee of the Youth Centre discussed the matter. Some improvements were activited such as reducing the volume of sound from the radiogram. Gradually the hue and cry faded and a lot of organization seems to have drifted away from the inherently noisy building lst Kenilworth Scouts were soon in the happy position of having the choice of two adjacent places to meet in as the new Scout and Guide H.Q. was coming into use. The two Knight boys and a neighbour of theirs, one Derek Baker decided exercise their carpentry skill to make two or three large wooden trunks which would be good furniture for the small lst. Kenilworth room in the new H.Q. Camping items could be stored in the trunks which could also be used as seats. In due course a 'Courtier' stove made its welcome appearance as a means of heating up the main part of the H.Q. This stove had actually been donated by the District Commissioner who had found the stove to be surplus to requirements when modernised his home. It was a very large area of building to be heated by a stove of that size but we struggled with it for quite a while. A strong steel fire-guard was obtained to make sure that lads and girls playing active games in the hut did not burn themselves on the stove and a piece of concrete was put under the stove lest the heat of the stove melted the plastic floor material. This stove was only the very first of many methods of heating the hut that were to try over the years. The problem was not, in fact solved until, many years later, we had 'strip' infra-red heaters installed high under the apex of the roof where dust and errant missiles would cause minimum damage. One day when we were stoking the monster up, somebody remembered about the coke bin which had been acquired during Skipper Royals time as Scoutmaster of lst Kenilworth. This bin had been transported around wherever the Scout the lst Kenilworth Troop went, rather after the fashion of the transportation of the relics of St. Cuthbert. After much thought a plot was hatched until all that was needed was a suitably dark night to provide a cloak for our activities. We had established that the bin was stored in one of the side room of the Youth Centre. On the evening that we were putting the finishing touches to our plan as we sat on 'fold-up' chairs in the Scout H.Q., the Rev F.G.Clarke turned up. and sat down with us.
Of course, he approved of us getting what was our own property back but, he delicately brushed aside any suggestion that he might join us on the expedition. Indeed in his grey suit and clerical collar, he would hardly have 'fitted in' After a little more discussion, our small, party set off across the piece of bramble-covered land which separated our new H.Q. from the Youth Centre. Someone carried the key to the store-room but I recall that we blundered about when we had gained entry to the little store room, since we had not had enough foresight to bring a torch along with us. Happily, the rest of the Youth Centre was in darkness and we were not disturbed. The bin was not heavy but proved to be awkward to handle as we stumbled back to the Scout H.Q. The whole operation had not taken more than about twenty minutes but the Rev.Clarke had departed. We stood the bin up at one side of the stove and stared at it vith some pride. It certainly looked well in its new position. Without further ado we then departed to our own homes to make pots of tea to recuperate after our exertions. As regards the Rev. Clarke, it would be unfair to his memory to give the impression that he was always the formal grey-suited clergyman. He was a man of many parts, as we were to discover when he started moving around the District, visiting all the sections of the lst. Kenilworth and Abbey Scout Groups. We leaders were invited to District Meetings at 21, Priory Road which was the house placed at the disposal of the Minister in charge at, the then, Congregational Church on Abbey Hill. One of Rev. Clarke's wishes, often being mentioned to us was to actually stage a Gang Show. We young Leaders were always a little puzzled as to why such a person as F.G.Clarke could ever wish to be involved with a Gang Show. but in the end, in 1957,his wish was to be fulfilled. As far as First Kenilworth was concerned, we saw little of him at this stage but we heard that he was giving much of his time to helping the Abbey Group which then had its own problems. I had mine too as I was probably the most active warranted leader with First Kenilworth at that time. It would have been at about this time that there were several rapid changes in the leadership of the First Kenilworth Cub Pack. When I came into the movement the Cub Pack was run by a Mrs. Barnet who lived in Whites Row, quite near to where I was living (in Dudley Road) John Lawrence, the Architect of the new Scout H.Q but he eventually found the task too demanding and Hilda Hillyard was soon to consider taking over the Pack over. When this happened she became a major force in the First Kenilworth Group for some years, For the long camp of 1952 we had been recommended to stay within the Scout District as regards the Scout Troop and so elected to camp at Ladbroke which is a small village not far from Southam and near the boundary of the District. I ran the camp with the help of Doug and Gordon Knight.
We were quite lucky with the weather and the camp was enjoyable. I recall that we camped in the shadow of the church, its tower built of stone in contrasting rows of grey and ochre
RP Scouting 1948-52.doc
1952 - 1954
One thing which took the edge off our joy at the time was the illness of Mick Archer, one of the members of the First Kenilworth Troop. I never actually found out what was wrong with Mick as nobody wanted to discuss the matter. Within the year, however, the illness carried Mick off. The Knight boys were friendly with the family which lived in the lodge of a big house in Upper Spring Lane. They maintained contact with news of Mick's condition as it developed. I think that Mick must have first fallen ill soon after the Rev. Clarke arrived in Kenilworth and Mick camped with us several times, including my Annual camp in the Peak District. We visited him sometimes when he was too ill to come to Troop Meetings or to go to camp. He was always as cheerful as one could possibly imagine when we went to see him, knowing that he was very ill and that not much hope was given for him. Frequently he looked at our solemn faces and chided us for not presenting happier expressions. 'You're a bright lot to come and visit anyone' he said 'Cheer up a bit- you are supposed to be full of beans. Have a few grapes, I've got loads of them!' We ate quite a few of the grapes and other goodies but whatever we 'put away' made hardly any difference to the quantity piled up round the bed. Probably the people who had contributed all this stuff had much more idea of Mick's condition than I and how serious ill he was. Not much later than our visit to Mick we heard that he had died quite suddenly. Apparently he had woken up one morning early in the small hours, saying that he was thirsty. He drank some of the water offered and passed away. The Rev. Clarke, being well aware of the procedures, made the necessary application for a Cornwell Scout Bravery Award. This Award is only presented for exceptional fortitude and cheerfulness under conditions of bravery and suffering. The Cornwell Badge is named after a young seaman of that name. He was badly injured yet managed to stay at his post on a battleship while serving in World War One. There was a Special Service at Mr. Clarke's Church so that Mick's mother could receive it on Mick's behalf. We were all sad and more than a little thoughtful after the Service but felt that the right thing had been done. Happily, I have not had another such experience in my long time in the Scout Movement.
After the camp at Ladbroke and the end of the Camping Season, the Rev. Clarke called a meeting to discuss the visit of a group of German Scouts to England. Three Scout Troops would be involved in England, A Dunmow Troop Abbey and First Kenilworth. This visit would be the first half of an exchange visit. The three English Troops would be going to Germany on the second half of the exchange, the following year The boys would come from Hamburg, Northern Germany and stay in the homes of English Scouts for about a week and then travel to Northey Island, in the Blackwater Estuary, Essex where they would, camp with us English Scouts for a week or so. The actual camp site and most of the camping arrangements would be made by the Maldon Troop which had its Headquarters not far from Northey.
It was in 1952 that I began an association with the Methodist Church in Kenilworth, a relationship which was to last for some years. Part of the reason for my getting involved with the Methodist Church was that many members of lst. Kenilworth went there. The Methodist Church had a meeting hall with a small stage and we ran some of activities there particularly while our new H.Q. was being completed and fitted out. I got involved with the 'Young People's Circle' which met after the Evening Service. Young people of both sexes came to the Y.P.C. and not necessarily because they attended the Methodist Church Services. We had Anglicans, various members of Free Churches, with quite a strong representation from the Baptist community. In fact, we seemed to gave 'all sorts'. Our parties in the winter season were well attended. Although, later in my Scouting career, I put in a great deal, of time in fitting out the lst Kenilworth H.Q., at this stage there was a another team of people working on the Scout and Guide H.Q. Skipper Royal and Mr. Ralphs, the father of Susan, one of the members of the Guide Company were prominent in the working party. They spent many hours in painting the walls of the Scout and Guide H.Q. but many others were needed to put the building into shape to make it ‘habitable’. The lower part of the walls in the main room were painted a different colour to the upper half but the whole of the walls were made of 'plaster board' which consisted of a thickness (about 5/8ths of and inch of some kind of plaster with a skin of grey builders paper on either side. It was soon discovered that this boarding was very absorbent and a great deal of paint was needed before a satisfactory appearance was obtained. At this stage in my Scouting career I did not devote much time to working on the building but I was always surprised at the industry displayed by the people working on the 'project' and by their skills. Some one indeed must have had connections with the building trade but most had not and did a fair old job between them. I took a few photographs of the work but did not want to hinder the work. The photos are of great interest now, though as many of those on the prints are indeed no longer with us. Like all other proper builders, they left some of their materials behind when they had finished and we found, some time later, half empty barrels of putty, other building materials and a few tools such as the odd rusty crow bar. At about this time, however, I did, however begin to get involved with the team that was putting up the ceiling boards and building up a lot of the internal woodwork of the H.Q. The carpentry work was supervised by a rather abrupt but down- to-earth man. He gave me the impression that he had been in the building trade, probably as a carpenter, for most of his working life up till then. Even though we were amateurs we were still expected to do the job as well as possible. It is fair to say that some people just are not cut out for this practical work and we apparently had one of them in our number. Our foreman took him off the work of putting up some ceiling boards because the boards were being nailed in place upside down and soon the would-be carpenter found himself making the tea for our refreshments! When it happened that some of us were present at a Scout District Meeting in Leamington and, although I was not present at this meeting, I heard later that our 'tutor' was not impressed with the Scout Group in which the meeting was held. It seems that he thought that 'his' team could have done better. Later, in our own H.Q. we discovered that the sheets of plaster board which lined the walls of the building were very vulnerable from people playing boisterous games. Rodney Goodman, an energetic member of the Cub Pack and, later, of the Scout Troop, in dodging another player in a lively game butted his head into one of the wall panels and left a large oval 'dent' the shape of the top of his cranium. It was fortunate that Rodney did not butt his head a short distance away from the spot or he could have run into one of the stout wooden uprights to which the plaster boards were nailed as, in that case Rodney could have knocked himself out or even fractured his skull. This incident must have occurred some time after the commissioning of the H.Q. as the plaster 'filling' of the boards had softened (or gone 'ripe' as the builders of the place used to say) and this made it easier to damage (especially with people's heads) As the Scout Leader of those days, to say that I was a bit annoyed was the understatement of the year and I made my displeasure quite clear to Rodney Goodman. He immediately said he would see about making the defect in the plaster-board good, as the expression has it. He must have taken sound advice from his colleagues in the building trade (Rodney was an apprentice carpenter at the time). It took a day or two but, a few days later when I went down to the H.Q. the hole had been filled up and Rodney had plastered the defect almost level with the rest of the wall surface and would be coming back during the following evening to put a 'skim' of finishing plaster to level up the surface of what had been a jagged hole. I had to admit that it was a Fait accompli. However, when I asked Rodney how he had managed to deal with the problem, he replied that he had made a 'collar' out of newspaper and plaster. He had worked it round the jagged hole in the gap between the back of the plaster board and the inside of the boards of the building. Once the plaster had set the jagged hole could be filled up with a 'pulp' of soggy newspaper and plaster which would fill up most of the hole. When the mixture had set the hole could be plastered flat and level with the surface of the plaster board, exactly as Rodney had done it. If we learnt nothing else from the incident, it indicated to us all that we must be more careful in future when nwe were playing our boisterous game!
THE ANNUAL CAMP: 1953.
The Annual Camp for 1953 had its origins in the facts that Doug and Gordon Knight and also myself were members of lst. Kenilworth Troop and also of the Methodist Church in Kenilworth. The Knight boys had an acquaintance called Eric Colman who ran the 8th. Leamington (Dale Street) Scout Troop and Dale Street was (and is) a Methodist Church. Thus we had the makings of a 'coterie' to run the camp. The next thing was to set up a reconnoitre to find a suitable camp site. Somehow, in their travels, Doug Knight and Eric Coleman had a meeting where they put together the outline of a plan to carry out the reconnoitre. Eric Coleman's father was a rather well-set up business man, the Scout District Treasurer, at one time.
He had a rather 'square' black car of generous proportions and black in colour. Eric had evidently had the use of this vehicle from time to time and persuaded his father to loan the car for our trip. We had five of us as passengers and an ample supply of food and beverages when we set off for the Cotswolds on the agreed day. The five of us were Eric Doug and myself, with Eric's fiancée Margaret and Eric's sister Stella. As Stella was a Cub Leader with the 8th. Leamington Cub Pack we all wore our uniforms, except who was not in the Movement. There was plenty of room inside the car and it possessed a cavernous boot. With the five of us we thought it sensible to put as much of our packages and all the refreshments and similar items into this boot to leave ourselves more 'elbow room' inside the car. Unfortunately, at some time during the day the car developed a fault and Eric turned out the contents of the boot in his search for the tools (although he did not find any! Somehow, though, we got along after Eric had done what he could to improve the workings of the vehicle tools or no tools.
We had a look at a camp site at Cowley Manor near to Cheltenham but that did not work out but we had more luck at a village called Withinghton, near to Northleach. It was a better site with a helpful and friendly farmer. The site was fairly near to Chedworth where there is a Roman Villa and we thought it could be the subject of a day outing with the Scouts during the course of the camp. We would have to cross the property of the next farmer over to get to the Chedworth road but thought we could deal with that problem when we got to it. The water supply tap we would be obliged to use turned out to be some way from the camp site but the farmer offered us the use of a trolley, like a sack truck onto which a big heavy milk churn could be secured with rope. This the scouts pulled along like a team of husky dogs whenever their duty came up. A meeting of Leaders was arranged early in the year to discuss camp arrangements and it soon became clear that the combined numbers of campers expected to be in camp could not be accommodated in the tents at our disposal so I arranged to hire some for the duration of the camp. I did this by making contact with Blacks of Greenock, a well-known firm of tent makers who also ran a hire service. As Withington had its own railway station, not far from the camp site, it was arranged that the tents we required were delivered to the little station and we found them waiting for us when we arrived on the first day of the camp. The camping field must have been the largest field I have ever camped on. We had plenty of space between the tents and camped away from the main road but were as near to the water supply tap as possible. Of course, in carrying out our morning tent inspection procedures, us leaders had farther to walk than usual, due to the large field but we were younger then!
In setting up camp there was a minor disaster when one of our more energetic First Kenilworth Patrol Leaders found a long smooth piece of wood lying in the grass and promptly ordered one of the members of his patrol to chop the piece up and out it on the kitchen fire. The first thing that Eric Coleman saw of a missing section of his bell tent pole was the end of it protruding from the fire- so he was not the happiest man in camp!
There was only one thing to do and that was to cut up a tree branch from our wood pile and shape it to fit the ends of the other sections of the bell tent pole. On the whole the weather was not too bad at camp this time. The projected visit to Chedworth Roman Villa took place at about the middle of the week, but we had to get permission to cross the land of a neighbouring farmer- if were avoid a tedious walk along the roads. The farmer whose land we were camping on came to see us from time to time as he was working on his farm and seemed pleased with the way the camp was being run. On one of his visits he surveyed the jostling crowd of merry campers busying themselves on some kind of pioneering project. After a long silence while he took in the scene at last he said 'Who sees to it that they get a square meal'. Eric and I explained to him that the Leaders were to see to it that the boys, through their Patrol Leaders, ran things as efficiently as possible so that the meals were cooked on time and things ran smoothly. The farmer listened to our explanation whilst staring intently at the Scouts working on their project. "Well", he said, after an extended silence "They look well enough on it". Then he walked away rapidly in his rather brisk fashion. In the early part of the week the parents organised themselves to come and visit us at camp. We laid on some refreshments for them. The lads were naturally pleased to see their mums and dads and other members of the family. There was a little apprehension amongst the leaders that some of the younger and less experienced scouts might get home sick but we had no trouble. The parents pottered around the site and paid special attention to how we were storing the food while the weather was so warm. We explained that we did not store meat in camp for any longer than necessary but we had improvised a camp larder out of a large box on its side with a rather thin (and comparatively clean!) tea towel hanging over the opening of the box. Our stores tent was also in as shadier place as was available. The farmer's wife had also offered us the use of space in her refrigerator at the farm house but we hesitated to take advantage of this offer as our meat was in a large quantity with the size of our camp and we might have filled up her fridge if we put all the meat in it! The farm house was a longish distance from our camp, too.)
After taking souvenir photographs while the weather was so amenable, our visitors departed. They said, by and large, that their sons looked well and adequately fed but a good bath would do none of them any harm. "Roughing it' for a while will make them appreciate their homes" said one or two of our visitors. After refreshments our visitors moved off to the coach they had hired and prepared to depart. The mother of one the Scouts, having heard that her lad had been feeling the cold during the evenings at the camp turned around to one of her other children (also a visitor) and asked her to loan him her jumper. The girl took the jumper off quite willingly and handed it to her brother but made it clear that he would have to look after it as she wanted it to come back in good condition. For the rest of the week we had a mixture of fine and showery weather but we hoped for dry weather on the day that we packed the tents as we wanted to send the canvas back to the hire place in as dry a condition as possible. Well, it worked out well enough, as far as we were concerned! When we departed the dry tents were deposited on the local Railway station platform, properly labelled, dry and ready for collection.
THE ANNUAL CAMP 1954
During the early part of 1954 we began to consider where we could hold our camp this year. As Doug and Gordon Knight had both indicated that they could come to the camp, I was assured of the camp. The next matter to be settled was where to hold this camp. 'Somewhere in Wales' was the consensus of opinion. We heard of a possible site at Fairbourne near Barmouth on the coast of Mid-Wales and we had the use of a car (due to the generosity of Doug's father, Henry Knight who loaned Doug the family car for the day.
(Doug had passed his Driving Test some time before) We made a stop on the way for a meal. Having taken all the necessary raw ingredients we only needed some form of cooker. Rather than using the traditional Scout wood fire we made use of a 'Primus' stove, using the lid of the car boot, folded down, as a sort of 'breakfast bar' The meal over, we pressed on to Mid Wales, crossed Dinas Mawdry passing through breathtaking scenery, which constantly changed in front of our eyes and then the rain came down. The more cynical and forthright members of our party remarked that we could expect little different as it was Wales, after all We travelled down the other side of the mountain range and arrived at the coast of Mid Wales near to Dolgelley from which we travelled to Fairbourne,a small Welsh town, not far from Barmouth. The site we had come to investigate was not an official Scout camp site but was a public site, although we discovered that there was a corner of the site which was generally used by Scout Troops coming to the area. The camping field had a distinct slope on it and even on this comparatively dry day it looked a little muddy on the footpath which lead down to the water tap. The tap was screwed onto the end of an iron pipe which rose straight out of the ground without any form of shelter over it. To catch the drips and overflow from the tap it was positioned over an ordinary full-size cast iron white enamelled domestic bath. No doubt it could present problems in really wet weather. There was a glorious view of the bay estuary and we could see the little trucks of the miniature railway proceeding behind their engine on the Fairbourne sands in the mid-distance. It all looked as though it could be fun, given passable weather! As it turned out, however, satisfactory weather was not what we were going to have, or at least not very often during our camp. We walked down to the beach. There were several chalet like shops selling practically anything in the way of food and other items that we would need at camp. There was also the miniature railway with its tiny engine and this would be fully operational by the time that the camp came. On closer inspection we found that some of the carriages were conventional but rather small others were open carriages rather like small coal trucks but fitted with seats and stout rails to hang onto for safety. Through the slight drizzle we could see an impressive iron railway bridge over the estuary with the town of Barmouth at the far end.
One fly in the ointment was that swimming in the estuary was considered to be dangerous due to the strong currents. Swimming near to the shore, we were assured, would be all right. All in all, we thought that the site and its local amenities and attractions would suit our purposes and so we made a provisional booking of the site with the farmer, the paperwork to be passed through after approval from our Scout District Commissioner. We established that our camping gear could be conveyed from Fairbourne railway station to the camp site by the farmer at a nominal charge. Doug drove us back to Kenilworth and we slept it off in our own beds. As time went on I began to consider arrangements for getting to camp and of sending our camping equipment to Fairbourne Station ahead of us. Accordingly, I made my way over to Leamington and sought out the Stationmaster on what was the Great Western railway station in those days. He was not in his office but I sat on the edge of his table until he eventually turned up. The Stationmaster proved to be a man in his late forties with a brisk and practical outlook. He did not think there would be any problem in getting our camping equipment to Fairbourne Station in advance of our camp. Each item would need to be correctly labelled and the whole consignment delivered to Leamington Station about a week before our camp. He would do the rest. He was as good as his word, too. We negotiated favourable rates for the Troop and sent the camping equipment ahead of us, about a week in advance. The Scouts carried personal equipment only on the journey. This, typically, meant that everyone carried a large loaded ruc-sac onto the train. One of our Scouts attending camp was the Bayliss lad. He lived in one of the very large houses along the Warwick Road well past St.John’s church and on the way to the Cricket Ground. He told me, at the last Troop Meeting before the camp that his father would be very pleased to take me and my camping gear over to the railway station. 'He has a Jaguar car', said the lad proudly. Well, I thought, you know what some boys are! It turned out, however, that the lad was not fantasizing for, sure enough, on the morning of the day of the camp, as I cycled up Dudley Road, after obtaining some much-needed money from the bank, there was this big shiny car parked outside No.25. My large and heavy rucsac and several other parcels that I was taking to camp were easily accommodated in the cavernous boot of the car. There was already an assortment of other items in the boot such as a bag of golf-clubs and a large rucsac or bag belonging to the lad but the whole lot was dwarfed by the vastness of the 'cavern' "It's a pity that I have not an hour or two to spare" remarked Mr. Bayliss as we speeded over to Leamington Railway Station, "or I could take you all the way to Fairbourne while I am at it!". Certainly, as we glided along majestically, while other, smaller cars seemed to be scuttling along in the gutter like so many ants, it did not look like taking us very long to get to camp. We all assembled on the platform at Leamington railway station and ready for the train which we discovered had the grand title of 'The Cambrian Coaster' This was because the train joined the coast line of Wales somewhere a good deal to the north of Fairbourne and then travelled southward.
The train was packed and we eventually found ourselves in a large guard's van. There was plenty of room, however and even a few small windows! There were no proper seats, of course but most of us improvised a seat out of our rucsacs. One of the Scouts however found a nice comfortable seat for himself. He was a little chagrined, later, however, when the guard arrived and claimed his seat. One of the younger Scouts made himself useful when a rather bothered lady with a small baby needed some help. He carefully held the baby for her while she searched through her capacious hold-all for some 'spares' for the infant. When she had found the items she was seeking she took the baby back and thanked the lad. "'That's O.K." he said "I've got a baby sister at home and often hold her like that for my mother! The woman was clearly pleased to have the baby back from the lad but he clearly knew how to hold the baby. It did not 'leak' either! The guard got quite used to us in the end, even though we had intruded into his 'domain' He had plenty of time to get to know us in any case, the journey took hours. We took in as much of the scenery as we could through the tiny windows of the van, but we were soon passing through a part of the densely inhabited West Midlands area and, making a effort to brighten up the atmosphere I remarked that we would soon get to our destination as we seemed to be making good progress. However, the guard replied, gloomily that we would soon find ourselves stopping at what would seem to be 'every lamp-post' when we got to those Welsh village railway stations! Well, he had done the journey before and many times!
For some hours we could only view the scenery through the tiny windows (and through the rain, of course!). It seemed that we were not likely to get fine weather for the camp, on the showing so far. We had a better view of things as time went on, however as many passengers got off the train as their destinations came up and were not replaced by the same number there was naturally more room on the train and we actually got 'proper' seats in the end and see the passing scenery through the carriage windows. Some of the luckier Scouts had been fortunate enough to get proper seats from the start and we found them much farther up the train, where, having long since eaten their sandwiches, they were singing camp fire songs to any other passengers who had been so unfortunate as to finish up in the 'wrong' carriage on the train. Well, that 'is as may be' but the ‘civilian’ passengers took it in good part, even if most of them did not actually join in the singing!
When we arrived at Fairbourne Railway Station, feeling somewhat crumpled, tired and hungry we found that our heavy camping gear had preceded us, as arranged and that the site-owner had already had it conveyed to a building on the camping site. Tired though we were however, we had to set up camp and to provide ourselves with an evening meal as soon as possible. We soon had the tents up, but the weather broke just as the last tent-peg was in the ground. We managed to get the fires started and the meals prepared, The rain was inconvenient and made things a bit uncomfortable but we had, with experience from many previous camps, a mess tent big enough for all of us to eat in, whatever the weather and canvas awnings to act as shelters in the kitchen areas thus keeping the rain off the fires. Our wet weather arrangements were thoroughly tested at Fairbourne since it rained almost continuously for the whole week. The biggest enemy we had was boredom amongst the Scouts who were cooped up in the tents for quite a part of the camp, even though we went for trips on the little railway several times in the week and we had a few items available so that draughts, and other games could be played in the tents.
5-RP Scout 1952-1954.doc
1958 - 1959
When the year 1958 arrived I already had the advantage of the services of Des Eborall. He had been co-opted onto the Parents' Committee in 1957 but had later elected to take a more direct role by helping with the Scout Troop. We called him 'Kim' when he came to join us as Leader. Kim was keen to take as active a part with the running of the Troop as he could but was soon to find that his work would prevent him from doing as much for the Troop as he would have liked. Nevertheless he was able to be with us for a good deal of the time. Kim and I had a planning meeting early in 1958, just after the start of the New Year, the idea being to plan things out better than I had been able to do when I had the task on my own..
It was also a fact that as the Cub Pack, under the leadership of Hilda Hillyard was now much larger than it was under the previous leader, we had many more Cubs coming up to the Troop than formerly and had to plan for the larger Troop, to keep the the interest of the lads. Mrs. Hillyard's younger son, Keith however, was not able to come up to us from the Pack, however, as the meetings of the Swimming Club coincided with Troop nights on Tuesdays and Keith was a keen swimmer, like his older brother, Jeff. Jeff had developed into a fine swimmer, winning many of the events when he was representing the Abbey Troop and the Seniors in the Scout Swimming Galas. Late in January, George Maynard came to see me to tell me that the details of the 'Amikaro' would shortly be circulated and that he was hoping that we would be sending some of our Scouts to camp for the event. It was to be a camp for the older boys and so, as I told George, the arrangements would have to be handled by Doug Knight who was running the Seniors by this time. As George explained, the camp would have a distinctly International flavour and, of course, this would make it all the more interesting for the participants In the end, however, it was not found possible for the First Kenilworth Senior Unit to make up a complete contingent of its own and a composite group, made up in conjunction with the Abbey Group camped at Amikaro
In another Leaders' meeting in February, Kim and I decided to organise a drive to clear up the outstanding test and badge work. Thus we held a special meeting on the fourth of March and were able to obtain the services of Skipper Royal to assist us for the evening. It was towards the end of February that an idea was mooted among all the users of the H.Q. that something must be done to improve the condition of the lower part of the plaster boarding inside the building. The vulnerability of the walls had been demonstrated on several occasions, notably when Rodney Goodman , one of our Scouts at that time, had impressed a large cavity in the boarding with his head! It was clear that something more durable was needed to line the hut with. After some discussion, it was agreed that the old boarding should be stripped off the walls and replaced with timber match boarding. Thinking through the idea, it was also decided that the inside of the outer skin of the building should be treated with creosote before the new boarding was applied. The backs of the new boards should also be treated with creosote to ensure future preservation of the building.
Now came the matter of where to get the necessary materials and at the most favourable prices Eris Darlow, who had been a stalwart member of the Abbey Group in the time of the Rev. Clarke was now on the management side of a timber business, I fell to considering how I could contact him to find out what he could do for us. Eventually I ran into him at Square Dance which our Parents' Committee was running at the 'Blundells' school at the top of Priory Road. I did not get to the Dance without effort as it was being run on a Tuesday night, the 25th. and that was our Troop meeting night but nevertheless, I attended the Dance and found that Eric could indeed help us with the project. The timber would be delivered at the H.Q. on Thursday 27th and we could then arrange for the boarding to be sawn off to length in advance of the commencement of work on Saturday 29th. A large number of people were present at the Dance and I very nearly found myself dancing with the rest of them. Not bad going for a night where it was raining 'cats and dogs' outside! Eric not being able to help with the creosote, the hunt was now on to find a source of supply for that commodity. I was able to contact Kim, though and he said that he would approach the Gas Company, then in premises on the Foleshill Road in Coventry and expected to obtain five gallons of creosote there. The Abbey Pack Cub Leaders were also at the Dance and agreed to make tea etc. while the work was going on in the H.Q. and also to assist with the painting on of creosote where needed. Anyone willing to help with the messy creosote work was more than welcome! Well, we certainly started off with plenty of goodwill! As a bonus, when all the expenses had been met, the Dance produced a handsome profit for Group funds. The timber was delivered on the Thursday as agreed but there was not the same result with the creosote as the Gas Company could not supply it and it was necessary to cast about again to solve this problem.
James Broughton, one of our Scouts took this matter in hand, obtained an empty can from Stickley's scrap yard and arranged for the can to be filled with creosote. As we had all the match-boarding down at the H.Q. on the Thursday, there was the possibility of cutting the boards to length on the Friday in advance of the of the main working parties at the week-end. Thus, I found myself, in the company of several other madmen, in the H.Q. on Friday evening, as soon as the Guide Company had vacated the building after their meeting. The weather was every bit as bad as it had been on the previous Tuesday, rain lashing down and quite a high wind. Nevertheless, we were, like the heroes of Agincourt,' we few, we happy few, we band of brothers' There were also the two Girl Cub Leaders from the Abbey Pack and Hazel Hillyard from the First Kenilworth Cub Pack, all three had come to help and to provide basic and essential services such as making tea and coffee. The Scouts and Leaders cut off the timber to the correct length to go straight onto the walls and began stripping the old plaster boarding off the lower part of the H.Q.walls The pieces of plasterboard crumbled very easily as we worked on them and we soon discovered that we had major problem. After some discussion we decided to keep the pieces together in as many large pieces as possible and to pile them up outside and to one side of the H.Q. The rain falling at that time soon got to work on the plaster in the boards and made a kind of thin slurry which soaked into the ground around and under the untidy pile. By the end of the evening most of the boards had been cut off to the correct length to go into position on the walls of the H.Q. and a lot of creosote had been applied to the back of the actual hut timbers and also onto the backs of the match boarding.
We went home quite reasonably satisfied with our achievements and ready for the work to proceed on the following day. Fortunately, the weather on the Saturday was much better. With the good start we had made on the previous evening, we were able to make real progress during the day. We had made it known that anybody who could spare the time and was willing to have a go would be welcome. Some only stayed for a comparatively short while, while others stayed for almost the whole day. It was a case of doing as much as one could spare the time for. We seemed to make a lot of new friends during the day, nailing up boards onto the walls mostly and drinking the tea and coffee which flowed out unceasingly from the kitchen. Some of us took sandwiches with us so as not to spend time travelling back to our homes for a meal, only pausing for long enough to wash our hands before eating. We all smelt quite strongly of creosote before we went home in the evening in any case!
One team of lads did a lot of the creosoting work-Rodney Goodman, Brian Court and Geoffrey Broughton from First Kenilworth Troop and Charles Allen, presumably from the Abbey Troop, but many other people worked on this too, including Akela and Rikki from the Abbey Pack. Unfortunately, it was difficult to keep the creosote from the front faces of the match-boards and this meant that we would not be able to paint the match-boarding straight away after it had been nailed into position. Newly applied creosote and paint will not mix. When Rodney Goodman and his colleagues had worked on the creosoting for a while, they turned their attentions to considering how to dispose of the huge pile of plaster boarding pieces which we had ejected from the H.Q. earlier. After much thought they borrowed some spades and dug a huge hole behind the H.Q. and buried the pieces of boarding. At the end of the day and with the piece of match-boarding in position on the walls, those who were still on their feet stood in silence contemplating what had been achieved - with a little help from their friends' The following Tuesday saw us at the Troop Meetings as usual.
We soon came to the matter of the Annual Camp for l958. After some discussion, the Patrol leaders and their Seconds decided that the New Forest area in Hampshire would be area to start looking in. The exploratory expedition started of rather late in the day because Kim had to finish work first. We made a stop on the way to the New Forest to see a friend of Kim's. This was at a place called Highworth, not far from Swindon. There was a large field behind the house and we put up the tents for the night Kim's friend and his wife were very hospitable people and put together a barbecue meal for all of us and joined us round the fire out in the field. The next morning we loaded everything back into Kim's car and set off for the proposed camping area in the New Forest. After casting about for a while we found ourselves in the Brockenhurst area and made the acquaintance of one of the New Forest bailiffs. He lived in a picturesque old New Forest cottage, complete with thatched roof. Our new acquaintance was a mine of information on the Forest and the creatures to be found in the neighbourhood so we learnt quite a lot of interest in addition to finding a likely area for our proposed camp. We wanted the site to be fairly near to the railway station as some of our equipment might need to be sent there in advance of the camp and, of course, we would want to, be assured of adequate supplies of timber for our fires etc. The availability of a water supply had also to be assured.
We were careful about the exact location and Grid Reference of the camp-site which we had in mind as we would be filling in a 'Permission to Camp' form for Skip Mullis, our District Commissioner to sign; when we had arrived back in Kenilworth. We liked the look of the New Forest scenery and felt that, given good weather, we ought to have a good Annual camp.
One thing which we remarked upon was that there seemed to be comparatively few trees in an area described as a 'Forest'. Most of the countryside seemed to consist of heathland rather than trees and there were ferns all over the land. As the ferns died off, too, they rotted away to leave, in time, a fine dust which later proved to be a nuisance, especially at meal-times when a gust of wind could deposit the dust onto the meals if precautions were not observed. These problems, however were in the future. After we had completed our investigations, we discovered that it was later in the day than we had suspected - about 4.15. p.m., in fact. It looked as though it would be a close run thing to get back to Kenilworth on in time for those of us who wanted to attend Evening Service at their various Churches. However, Kim had a powerful car and he 'got us to the Church on time'. We actually had time to get changed, too! When the time for camp was drawing near we sent some of the heavier items of gear ahead of us on the railway and we found them at Brockenhurst Railway Station when we got out of the train on the first day of camp We took with us on the train only our personal kit, packed in rucksacks and bags and a small handcart made for us by Mr Broughton, the father of two of the Scouts in the Troop. This cart was fitted with small wheels- originally on a child's pushchair. We found the handcart quite useful when we arrived at camp, although the heathland, crossed with ridges and furrows, was not ideal country for such small wheels. Kim and his family had travelled down independently in Kim's car. The car was fitted with a roof-rack and Kim was able to transport all our heavy items of gear from the station to our camp-site, thus saving a great deal of time and effort. It did not take us long to set up camp and to get the evening meal started. Any sandwiches which the lads had brought with them from Kenilworth had long since been eaten, probably as soon as everyone was on the train at Leamington station! There was plenty of exploring to carry out in the Forest and when we had done some of this and held a few Wide-games in the ideal country for these activities, we thought that it was time for an outing. We decided to go to the nearest sea side place for our first outing. We were glad that Kim was able to take us a, few at a time in the car, while the rest of us began the long walk towards the sea. Thus, we saved quite a bit of time. There was fine weather and many of the lads went swimming or paddling in the sea and some of the Scouts made sandcastles. At the end of the afternoon we were ferried back to camp by Kim in the same fashion as on the outward journey.. After a day or two in camp we decided to spend a day in Southampton, travelling on the train this time. Everyone went on the trip, including the entire Eborall family. The youngest member of the Eborall family was a small girl who travelled in a folding pushchair or buggy.
John Bayliss, one of our bigger Scouts struck up a relationship with the little girl and took over the push-chair for the day. By the time we had got to the railway station we were in a real hurry, being in danger of missing the Southampton train, so the push chair, with its tiny occupant, happily fastened in securely, was rushed through the station foyer, at a fast rate -backwards-slowing down, temporarily at the ticket barrier while the tickets were inspected and finally into the carriage of the train waiting at the platform.
Evidently the excitement had tired the little girl out, as she slept soundly on the carriage seat all the way to Southampton. She would not be pleased when she woke up, as Kim told us, since she liked the idea of train travel and would not be pleased to find that she had missed 'the fun'. At Southampton. we agreed on a meeting place for when the time came to go back to Brockenhurst on the train and then split up into smaller parties for the day. A suitably prominent 'landmark' was selected for us by one of our smallest members. Evidently his own family made a a similar arrangement on their family outings! At the end of the camp we took all the tents down, in fine weather and Kim took all the heavy gear to the station for us. We labelled all the items up and handed them over to the railway staff. Soon we boarded our train and travelled back to Leamington station. Kim and his family travelled home in their car. The camp was over. It had been fun and we had been fortunate with the weather
THE AMIKARO CAMP
This was also held in 1958. The camp was for Senior Scouts, in more modern times superseded by The 'Venture' Unit. As already mentioned, Doug Knight was in charge of the Seniors at this time. Just as well as I had plenty of other things to engage my attentions! .For one thing, the Amikaro Camp was on at almost the exact time as the Annual Camp! It was a little while, therefore, before we could have the details of how the Amikaro Camp had gone.
THE ANNUAL CAMP 1959
In considering where we should go for the Annual Camp, we bore in mind that Kim's work would make it desirable that he should not go too far away so that he could slip out of camp easily. Eventually, a return to Charlbury in Oxfordshire was considered, preferably to the same site that we had made use of when Skipper Royal ran the Annual Camp in 1948. As Kim could not spare much time to take part in the reconnoitre; I decided to do that on my own, with the proviso that I could ring up from Charlbury when I had something to report.
As most of the Patrol Leaders, seconds and helpers lived near to Kim, or could easily be contacted a party could be assembled quickly and be brought down to see the site for themselves. Accordingly, I set off on my bicycle one Saturday afternoon and made for Charlbury. I stayed at the Youth Hostel in the village. Next day I paid an un-announced visit to Ivor Hunt at the same farm which we had camped on eleven years before. Everything was more-or-less as before but both the farmhouse and its owner naturally looked rather older with the passage of time. After some refreshment, I was invited to have a look around the proposed camping site. I did this alone as Ivor, as busy with his work as ever, could not spare the time to accompany me. The old well, in its own well-house was still there and in excellent working order so water supplies would not be a problem. The availability of wood for the fires was another matter, however. At our previous camp we had been able to obtain wood from a large area of woodland on the north side of the site but the nearby Estate company now controlled this woodland and I could not consult with them that day, it being a Sunday.
As my mission was not completed, I decided to contact Kim by phone to tell him that there was no point in his coming down with the Scouts but I would try and arrange something about the wood supply later, once I could get in touch with the Estate Company. After a final chat with Ivor at the farm and taking a few photographs of the site, I made my way back to Kenilworth. At a meeting of the Patrol Leaders and Seconds we all talked over the idea of going to Charlbury and went over the details of the site. By then I had made contact with the estate owners and ensured a supply of wood for our fires and also the use of the woods for our Scout games, tracking and similar activities, provided that did no damage and took only essential timber, preferably only dead wood. Kim was not able to come to camp at all, as things turned out and I was the only adult leader in camp. I was lucky, however, to have several of the older lads with me in camp.
We went to Charlbury in Mr. Frank's furniture van. Mr Franks ran a removal business in Kenilworth. He operated from a tall, rather ramshackle-looking house, at the side of which there was a large yard, hidden behind a pair of tall and very strong garage doors. There were three children in the family. They played boisterous games in the area behind the garage doors. In the course of time, the two lads joined the Scouts and the girl the Guide Company. The Franks house has long since been demolished but I remember that it was situated approximately where Barclays Bank is today. The house passed out of Alec Frank’s hands when he moved the business out into Dalehouse Lane, well away from the centre of Kenilworth. We got through quite a lot of test work while the Troop was in camp at Charlbury.
The nearness of the woods was an asset as we could lay on trails and treasure hunts which started and finished in camp but included the wood as part of the events. We visited Blenheim Palace one day, taking sandwiches and some orange squash etc with us When we arrived at the Woodstock gate of the Palace to gain admission at the start of our visit, we discovered that we would have to pay a quite substantial entry fee each normally but, by an interesting coincidence, there was some quite large event in progress in the grounds. It also seemed that there were Scouts from the local Troops helping with the organisation of the event. After some discussion had taken place among the officials at the gate it was decided that all of our party would be admitted free of charge. We did not stop to discuss the matter further and found ourselves inside the grounds without further difficulties! We wandered about the grounds for some time. We did not go round the Palace itself because it was very busy in there and there was a queue of people waiting to be shown round. It looked like being expensive, too! The grounds of Blenheim Palace presented enough to interest us, the sheer size of the place meant that it took some time to get around it. In front of the enormous pile which is the Palace there is a massive bridge which straddles the narrow neck of water which joins the two lakes. Historians tell us that the lakes did not exist before 'Capability' Brown landscaped the grounds of Blenheim Palace in conjunction with Sir John Vanbrugh the architect It is difficult to visualise what the grounds would have looked like before the landscaping took place! The Troop assembled on the bridge and we took photographs, we ate our sandwiches sitting on the grass near to the bridge and gazed at the scenery. On the side of the bridge away from the Palace was the long drive stretching away into the distance.
On both sides of the drive were lines of trees, parallel with the drive, in formations to represent the troops as drawn up for the battle of Blenheim which took place in 1704. .About a mile away (half way down the drive) is a column on which there is a sculptured figure of the original Churchill dressed as a Roman senator, complete with toga. The irony of it is that John Churchill did not live lone enough to see the completion of the building. His wife, Sarah Churchill persuaded Queen Anne to have the Palace built in recognition of the famous military victories of her husband. Eventually, we made our way back to camp and spent most of the rest of the week in practising our Scout craft with more wide games, hikes and camp competitions. The local Commissioner paid us the obligatory visit to satisfy himself that our camping was up to standard and expressed his pleasure with the state of the camp and the quality of our camping.
He was, in fact a close friend of our own D.C., Skip Mullis and asked to be remembered to Skip when next we saw him. Up till this time we had enjoyed a good camp, everything had gone more-or-less according to plan and we had been happy enough. But a shattering experience was about to come to us which goes to prove that one should not be complacent about the ways things will turn out. It all started innocently enough. John Bayliss was coming back across the field from the farm-house when, rather absent-mindedly, he poked the stick he was holding down an apparently unoccupied rabbit-hole. Unfortunately, it seemed that the although the hole was not occupied by a rabbit it was occupied by a colony of wasps or possibly hornets. The first that we saw from the distant camp was the figure of John Bayliss coming towards us at a fast rate and pursued by a large swarm of wasps in an arrow-head formation. John was dodging and weaving as he ran and seeking to throw the insects off but their equivalent of radar had locked them firmly onto him and there was no escape. Unfortunately, too his coming into the camp area had brought the swarm into contact with the rest of the campers. Many boys were stung. There was considerable panic amongst the campers, especially, naturally, amongst the younger boys. When we had calmed everyone down and applied such first aid measures as we had available, we assessed the situation. Fortunately nobody had been stung around the eyes, in the mouth or in other dangerous places. The parents were rung up, however and one or two boys went home, but most of them came back to complete the camp with us Happily, the rest of the camp went off without any other incident and we were able to pack the tents in dry weather. Mr Franks was late in coming to pick us up, however and the lads got a bit restless as we had tidied up after packing the tents and clearing the site, leaving little work to do. There was nothing to do but to wait and to play football and run a few Scout games to keep the lads occupied. When Mr. Franks did come, he explained that the removal job he had been involved with had taken a good deal longer than had been expected, hence the delay. We could see that he, like us, had been under some stress and thought that the least said, the better! While we had been away at the Annual camp, the Seniors had been involved in a First Aid Competition and were placed Second in the final results. We were rather pleased about this as it had been a County event with quite a large number of Units taking part. The whole event had been supervised by a Mr.. Mills. He was always a dapper sort of man, dressed, always in smart uniform and clearly a capable organiser.
For some time he took a special interest in Scouting matters in Kenilworth (although I don't think that he was an actual Assistant District Commissioner for our area) One evening when we were holding our usual Troop meeting in the Scout Headquarters, he suddenly appeared, un-announced and introduced himself in his rather 'quick-fire' and staccato fashion. Happily, from my point of view, the lads were reasonably quiet and actually proceeding with some sort of Test Work. They were promptly asked to arrange themselves in front of him seated on the floor while he surveyed them rather after the fashion of General Montgomery reviewing his troops before the battle of Alamein. After a silence, during which he was thinking of something to say to them, he delivered a homily of some sort Mr Mills then complimented me on the excellent behaviour of the Troop and departed, quite as suddenly as he had arrived. I decided that the Troop had spent just about enough time sitting down and organised a boisterous game for the purpose of 'letting off steam'.
Towards the end of the meeting and when there was comparative quietness again, one of the lads asked whom our visitor had been. So much for fame! There is a sad postscript to the story of Mr Mills.
Some time later it came to our ears that he had died very suddenly of a heart attack. It was a shock for all of us who had met him for he was obviously a capable organiser and the Scout Movement can ill afford to lose people like him.
8-HIST58 1958-59.doc
SCOUTING IN 1963
During 1963 we were making good progress towards erecting our own H.Q, We needed a good deal of money to get the building and to equip it but Ron Sargent heard of two suitable wooden huts that were being disposed of. Neither of the huts, on its own was suitable but the two taken together would be all right for our purposes. There were a number of money-raising events during 1963, in particular a Square Dance and Barbecue in the September. It was decided to have another 'Show-time' in 1964 and so we began getting material together in the latter part of 1963, then to consider beginning the rehearsals. For an Annual Camp, we thought in terms of taking the Troop to Youlbury again and while the Troop camped there, the Scout Leaders could take part in a Wood Badge Training Course, providing that we could make adequate arrangements for the welfare of the Toop which would have to shift for itself, at least for some of the week. Thus it was that the Troop Patrol Leaders and the Scout Leaders found themselves planning out an unusual sort of Annual Camp. The boys would be camping on the same site as the Leaders but the Leaders would not be able to spare much time to take part in the day to day running of the camp. In the end it did not work out badly. The Leaders were not far away from the Troop which was basically run by Ron Lewis, actually recently elevated to the rank of ASL but this was his first taste of running an event on his own, with the help of the older Scouts. As it was my SECOND Wood Badge Practical Course (I had taken my original Course at Gilwell Park in 1948) I was able to make a comparison of my two experiences. Of course, in 1948 I had not been in the Scout Movement for very long (about a year) and I was younger, so on these scores alone, it would have been different. John Thurman was our Camp Chief on Course l83, whereas, a Rev. Davies was in charge at Youlbury. The Rev. Davies He turned out to be an acquaintance of the Rev. Clarke, who had been our A.D.C. for Kenilworth in the 1950's and had many of the Rev. Clarke's characteristics but he was not as decisive as the Rev. Clarke and a little more inclined to be pompous. Like the Rev. Clarke, he liked the odd siesta on his camp-bed some afternoons! As for the actual Training course, the overall impression that I retained after the course was that it lacked the very positive qualities I remembered from the course at Gilwell in 1948. Of course, Gilwell was place for training and John Thurman, the Camp Chief, an exceptional man with a good team under him. The Rev. Davis was not the same type of man in any case and some of the members of the Youlbury team had difficulty in keeping their training sessions moving. There were several young and rather headstrong young men on our Course at Youlbury, but then, we had a lively team ourselves at Gilwell.. John Thurman had the knack, however of turning such liveliness to advantage and more effectively than the Rev. Davies. At the end of the course, we all passed the test and were presented with our certificates Our older lads who were running the Troop Annual Camp were glad to see us back in camp with them as they confessed to have struggled a little from running their camp. I recall that there was a substantial wooden fence around the Training Area at Youlbury and the lads were often to be seen leaning over the top rail of the fence regarding us rather thoughtfully and asking if we needed anything. We felt rather like prisoners- of-war or evacuees! We arrived back in the Troop camp for the last part of the camp and in time to supervise the last few meals. The bailiff had kept an eye on the lads and gave them a good report which was a relief. As for Ron Lewis and the older lads, well they were pleased to see their Leaders return to take over the running of the camp. The Annual Camp and the Wood Badge over we returned to Kenilworth, and turned our attentions to the preparations for Show-time 1964 and our usual Troop activities. We were also moving on steadily towards erecting our new Headquarters building and we had probably acquired the two (second hand) wooden buildings by this time, even though they had not yet been moved to Kenilworth. The preparations for Show-time were advancing as rapidly as possible and some of the songs were being rehearsed. In view of 'trauma' I had suffered from after the previous Show-time I did consider booking a place in a suitable psychiatric hospital but it was not quite as strenuous as the first time probably as we had a little more experience by this time. We early enrolled the help of one or two local teachers. Mrs. Williams, a Physical Education teacher, helped us considerably with the 'Music and Movement' items and Mr. Tyson, a Music Teacher, with the big chorus items. We started rehearsing in the Scout H.Q. but were able to secure the use of the Roseland Road School premises again. We began rehearsals towards the end of 1963. I had all the sound equipment as before and the floodlighting system was also to hand from the previous Show-time so there was little additional work to be put into these items. I turned my attention to the Shakespearean scenes. Clearly, excerpts from Titus Andronicus and Richard the Second would hardly be suitable items for our Show, so I settled for pieces from Macbeth (the three witches and the cauldron), Romeo and Juliet (the love scene, naturally) and Richard the Third 'A horse a horse, my kingdom for a horse') I unwittingly wrote myself into the prologue as will be made clear in due course Then there was the horse to consider for the Richard the Third Scene. We could hardly have a horse, so we settled for a sort of Pantomime horse and I started work on this project as soon as possible
for some time and must have struggled with many problems such as the water supply being frozen up slippery garden paths and clearing snow away round the property, to say nothing of the cold in the winter. I couldn't help thinking that it was all very well for William W to be a 'Nature' poet, but he didn't have to run the place! I was impressed by the show of ingenuity shown by Dorothy Wordsworth and, later, William's wife in solving some of the problems arising in living in Dove Cottage. A good example was in the decorating the walls of one of the bedrooms with copies of 'The Times'. The Wordsworths gave this bedroom some designated title such as the second guest bedroom but their children called it 'The Newspaper Room' and that is the title under which the room is now known the whole world over. When William Wordsworth became famous (and richer, presumably) he moved house to 'Rydal Mount' also in Grasmere It is a much larger and grander house than Dove Cottage and I am not sure that it is open to visitors as Dove Cottage is but it has not the same appeal for people as the Cottage has. We moved around Grasmere with Robert still giving us ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud' etc. We visited an artist's studio in the centre of the village. The next day we moved on to Elterwater Hostel in Langdale. This was a long low sort of hostel but still a fair size by average hostel standards. The sunset was beautiful in Langdale as we walked about after the evening meal and playing our 'usual' games of chess and having a good chat with some of our fellow hostellers. These chats are one of the great joys of hostelling as one meets many different and interesting people from all over the world. The next day we were to stay at the last hostel of the tour. back in Kendal. It was clearly too far to walk so we took the first available bus and got into Kendal in good time to do some last minute shopping. We had to make sure of having something for breakfast as we would be cooking our own meal before leaving for the bus which was leaving Kendal at about 8.30.a.m. The hostel in Kendal was about half an hour's walk from the bus stop so we had to bear this in mind. in planning our moves. We were all in the same dormitory in the hostel when we booked in at Kendal so that would, give us no problems in making sure that we all got up together in the morning! The hostel was quite full, mostly with people just arriving to start their holidays so we met quite a lot of interesting people and played chess with some of them
10-RP-Scouting 1963.doc
SHOW-TIME 1964
As the time of the Show was fixed for the end of April and the beginning of May, we had about four months to go as soon as we came back to meetings after Christmas 1963 and this might have been thought to be a good length of time but we had a lot to put together and a lot of rehearsing to do. I put together the three or four episodes for the Shakespearean 'spot' and began work on the horse 'costume'. To keep the weight down I made a lot of the head out of hessian, a kind of sacking material and used a large block of balsa wood for the mouth of the horse. Even so, the weight of the 'yoke' piece to mount the head on the Scout who had volunteered to take the part was considerable. When the complete horse went on stage, one circuit round the stage proved to be quite enough for the duo inside the horse. Bob Bowsie decided that, for some of the scenes, a 'dimmer' would be useful and made moves to borrow one but did not have time to check its functioning properly before dress rehearsal night, with quite unfortunate consequences. All through the springtime we pressed on with the rehearsals. The chorus items proceeded well with Mr. Tyson, a Music Teacher at one of the schools 'drilled' the singers and we used the long sheets of paper with the words on them to enable the lads and Leaders to learn the words. Mrs. Williams declared that the 'Music and Movement items would be adequately performed by the time of the first night, My script-writing efforts for the Shakespearean items looked like being of an acceptable standard. The pair of boys who we going to act the part of the horse in the Richard the Third scene walked about in the costume which had not been completely finished at this stage. The ladies who were making the costumes for the show declared that they would need to make matching trousers for the boys to wear with the horse 'skin' and, furthermore some large 'clumpy' shoes would need to be worn by the two lads It also became clear that the horse act was not an easy thing to bring off, some careful rehearsal was needed! I put together some suitable 'horse' music. I spent a good deal of time in getting music and other material taped and in the right order on the various tapes as slickness of presentation and precise timing was often very important. We had a 'POP' group of our own, made up of members of the Scout Group and Seniors and there were several spots in the Show when they would be heard Eventually, all these problems and many others were more-or-less resolved, with the aphorism that 'It will be all right on the night' Comforting, but somewhat illusory! The days slid past and the night of the dress rehearsal arrived With the rest of the members of the sound crew and the electricians took up residence in our allotted space in the wing at one side of the stage. Our little space also had to accommodate important officials such as the curtain raising man on our side of the stage and, possibly, a prompter, at least at the rehearsals .We also had a cueing system of lights on the piano out in their auditorium so that the music makers would know when to start their operations, This proved to be un-necessary when we had been through the programme once or twice. Dress rehearsal night duly arrived and we all turned up at Castle High School and started to work our way through the programme. The Opening Chorus (Jamboree) was fine and the 'front of the curtain spots went well enough. In fact, although a trifle ragged, the Show looked as though it would go well on the first night. Then Bob Bowsie switched the 'dimmer' into circuit. Every light in the building went out instantly. It was obviously a major fault somewhere as there was not power at all on the this floor of the School. Fortunately, in addition to Bob Bowsie there were several other trade electricians present and after a period of blundering about it was discovered that the fault had blown the main bus-bar fuse on one of the phases of the main cable. This cable supplied power to the whole school. The electricians gained access to a small cupboard-like room marked 'Danger, High Voltage' and found inside it a trolley like a stout upright vacuum cleaner. With the practised skill of the professional, one of them plugged the trolley into a socket evidently connected to a still live power source and a light came on the trolley. Using this light they were able to find that the 250 amp. fuse on the phase supplying the floor we were using had blown. Having first of all disconnected the offending dimmer from the circuit, a fuse supplying the power to the next floor of the school was exchanged for our blown fuse and all necessary electrical power was immediately available for the show. However, all these investigations had taken some time and it was too late to complete the dress rehearsal The cast was sent home with instructions to spend any available time in learning lines that they should have memorised some time before! Bob Bowsie checked the dimmer out later and found that a wire had shorted out onto the metal casing of the apparatus which accounted for the fault. It did not, however explain why the main fuse had blown. Bob made himself available the following morning to explain to the Electricity Board representative what had happened and to pacify the Cookery Instructor, whose cooking apparatus would not work on her first floor of the building It was not an occasion that Bob was looking forward to but, in the event, The Board man turned out to be someone with whom he had worked with in his apprenticeship days and the two knew each other well. It seemed that there was a mysterious fault in the wiring of the power supply to the School and even the best efforts of the E.M.E.B. had so far, been unable to eradicate it! So, on to the opening night. The Producer, Ron Sargent, after the disastrous Dress Rehearsal, naturally hoped that the saying "It'll be all right on the night" would come true and, indeed, the lads and Leaders rose to the occasion. The opening chorus started off in a slightly ragged fashion but soon everybody settled down and the words came across quite effectively-after the first few lines! The 'Music and Movement' offering came next and the lads remembered what Mrs. Williams had told them and kept in time, by and large. There was a 'front of the curtain' item next -The Statue' where the Seniors pretended to wash down a 'statue' for the washing operation but when a second bucket was brought on from the wings and eventually thrown out over the audience it proved to contain only confetti, to the relief of the first row. While these diversions were being enacted, the back stage crew was putting together the "Huggin' and Kissin'" act with the Cubs. A small car had been put together, mostly painted hardboard and resembled a "dodg'em" car. The driver was a disabled cub in his wheel-chair concealed by the body-work of the vehicle. The lad in the chair sang at least as well and loudly as the others with him as they did their piece. The back-stage crew must have moved quite fast after this act and we may have had an extra 'quickie' item or two in front of the curtain for the Shakespeare offering was to be the next on stage and there were one or two props to be brought on. I had got myself a job here as I found myself going on as one of the group presenting the Prologue to the sketches. . There were two lads on stage with me and there was no need to learn any words as they were enclosed in the 'folios' which we took on with us to do our piece. Even so, we were a little nervous. The only thing which kept me from 'coming apart' was that the lads I had with me were even more nervous than I was! Having been drilled relentlessly by play Producers on other occasions, however I remembered to speak up and to separate my words, All three of us held our heads up, too and our folios' down so that we only talked to the audience and not to our books. It seems that the idea worked, Someone sitting in the audience, I heard later, hearing my utterances, apparently whispered to her neighbour,'Thank goodness that they have at least one proper actor!'. I got off the stage after the prologue, thankful that there was not any more for me to say! The witches and their cauldron in the next sketch went down well enough, finishing up with general recriminations in an argument with 'Macbeth' Romeo and Juliet had not started off well in rehearsals as the lad playing Juliet, Colin Rose, did not fancy acting the part until he realised the possibilities in burlesque and, after that there was no holding him, some people, rather unkindly,even suggested that he was 'hamming it up' The Piece de resistance" however proved to be the last of the sketches- Richard the Third. There was a little dialogue to start with but it was when THE HORSE came on that the audience came to life, or, more accurately, the children out there. We had one of the Pitcher lads to say the immortal line-"A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse" and then, to suitable clopping 'horse' music on staggered the horse. We had hoped that the horse might have managed a dance of some sort but,as mentioned previously, once round was almost THE LOT For the last night, however, the dynamic duo inside the horse did manage a small dance, rising to the excitement of the occasion. For the finale on the last night, the lad who was the front end of the horse carried the head on for a curtain call and sat by it when the whole cast was on stage. Only right and proper! The last item before the interval was another Cub extravaganza, telling the Jungle Story, various members of the Pack enacted the story, the Pack Leaders wore costumes to match their Jungle names, the only exception being Hazel Hillyard who was heard as the narrator, telling the actual story. It was indeed a colourful spectacle and went quite well, the Cubs picking up their cues from the narrator as the story progressed. As the curtains closed for the interval on the first night we breathed a sigh of relief. Our general reaction was 'so far, so good' At least, unlike the dress rehearsal, the fuses had not blown, so far! The interval over, we brought 'The Invaders' on stage with their 'pop' music. Their spot seemed to be popular with the teen-age members of the audience and the curtains closed after the act to prolonged applause. The Invaders were followed by a solo item. One of the Willoughby boys recited a 'Letter from Camp' A solo item is obviously an ordeal, but the lad was well received. It was an 'in front of the curtain' item as we were assembling props etc. on the stage ready for the next item. This was 'Totem Tom Tom' a Red Indian offering by the Cub Pack. Mostly small boys with war paint on their faces and feathers on their heads. There was also of course, a 'home-made' totem pole. The 'Lizzie Borden' presentation which followed was another big colourful presentation. It was a mime. The story line of 'Lizzie Borden is basically very gruesome, insofar as it is based around Lizzie chopping up her father and mother with a big axe. The townsfolk become upset because their 'Hoe-down' is cancelled to make way for Lizzie's trial. The matter is resolved when the trial and the hoe-down are combined. As the action is depicted as taking place in a Western American town in about 1850, there was an opportunity for colourful costumes to be worn. The principal part in the Lizzie Bordon item was that of the Judge and the lad who mimed his way through the sequence made a good job of it. As he was on the stage for most of the act the part proved to be a marathon. There were a few minor blemishes in the first night performance which were put right on subsequent evenings. When Lizzie had been acquitted there was general rejoicing on stage and the 'Hoe-down' was a riotous and very colourful affair. There was then a front of curtain item called 'First Aid' put on by the Seniors (“Last Aid” would have been a better title, in fact'), that over, we had the finale. It is usual these days, with District Gang Shows, for the participants to come on for the finale in their uniforms, as they are all from different Companies, Troop and Packs and, therefore have neckerchiefs of their own colours. In our case, however, being from the same Group, we had the same uniforms so some of them at least were in their costumes. The lad who was the front of the horse sat by the head of it.
11-RP-Scouting 1964 GS
SCOUTING IN 1965.
The events of 1965 were dominated by the much-awaited erection of the First Kenilworth H.Q. This started in the earlier part of the year, We had our Troop Annual Camp to think about too and this camp would to be towards the end of August and in the first week of September although we had to carry out a reconnaissance for the camp much earlier in the year, at about the same time as work started on the H.Q. Thus, having heard about a camp site in the Peak District, at Upper Booth Farm. Edale, we decided to go and inspect it. Studying the relevant map showed that it was not far from where the Pennine Way now begins. Our reconnoitring party was contained in two cars, one driven by Jack Banner and the other by Don Balderstone. We travelled to the 'Peak District' via Lichfield, and had something in the way of refreshments at Buxton. Our proposed camp site lay in a sombre part of the area, on the far side of Mam Tor, sometimes called the 'Shivering Mountain' from the fact that pieces of rock tumble down into the bowl shaped depression at the top of the mountain. We could clearly see the contours of the depression as the cars proceeded slowly up the steep road which rounded the shoulder of Mam Tor. There was a mist over the whole countryside This part of the Peak District is more sombre than the lower part of the area and the Peak itself can be quite dangerous in bad weather. We found our camp site in due course and recognised its potential for throwing an aerial runway across a deep ravine and our mind's eyes could already envisage a scout sitting in the bo's'n's chair and whizzing down the rope until stopped by the padded sheer legs at the bottom. A small stream flowed in the ravine. After making preliminary arrangements with the farmer, we set off back to Kenilworth. Before the new First Kenilworth H.Q. could be opened however, there was a great deal of work to be done. The building had been obtained, originally, in the form of two separate second-hand wooden huts. These had been owned by a local engineering firm and transported over to the site in Randall Road. Here they were to be erected by jobbing builders. The erectors did a good job in rather difficult circumstances, combining the two huts they were presented with so that we finally had one quite large but rather bare structure to make a Headquarters. Much of the credit for the way that the building actually materialised must be handed to Ron Sargent, Group Scout Leader, and his wife, Margaret, who was Group Secretary. They also had a hard working Group Committee who had to raise a lot of money for the project. As it was planned to have an Official Opening Ceremony as soon as possible, all concerned had a lot to do to before the ceremony could take place but the building, although solid and secure enough, was not, at the end of 1965 ready for an opening ceremony . The heating arrangements, for instance, were not really ready and working until long after 1965 when Bob. Bowsie installed infra-red heaters high up on the ceiling boards, with the actual heater reflectors suspended from the ceiling boards by chains recall that I was part of a working party which had the job of replacing a large number of window panes into the frames of our new H.Q. and we simply had to improve on our glass-cutting skills particularly as the panes were notoriously hard and brittle being weathered glass from dismantled greenhouses. As there were about seventy of these panes to cut down, by about the twentieth pane we were reasonably expert. Alas, once the H.Q. was glazed our skills fell into default due to lack of use. The smaller back room of the H.Q.was unfinished for some quite long time due to pressure of other work and of running the Troop and Pack. The Parents' Committee were naturally very busy in money raising and in working on the new H.Q. The existing H.Q. had to be maintained as well. The matter of the supply of electricity to the new H.Q. had to be considered. The cable which had been laid to supply current to the original building was now far too small to supply the number of buildings now being considered for the site. However, the Abbey Scout Group had built a fine new brick meeting place on the land behind the original H.Q. and, thinking ahead, had financed the laying of a three phase supply cable from a connection point at the top of the path in Randall Road right down to the Abbey building. First Kenilworth Group negotiated a share of the cost of this cable, for electrical supply to its own H.Q. When the Guides opened their own H.Q.(in 1971), on the land beside the original H.Q. they also carried out a similar negotiation in respect of this cable. During the year ideas circulated to be considered for a combined Gang Show with the Guides, possibly using material from the very successful ‘Show-time' show which 1st.Kenilworth had produced in 1964. In 1965, however, the idea was only in a very early stage which was just as well, because we had the First Kenilworth Scout Camp to run for later in the year, as already reconnoitred. There was also the usual and traditional Easter Hike and a Whitsun Camp in the pipeline. Finally, we were to submit an entry for a tableau in the 1965 Carnival Procession at about the second week in July. For the July we decided to hold an 'Open' Camp, where we would be pleased to welcome visitors, to see the Scouts and Cubs 'at work' We held the event in a large field by the side of the Castle and just to the right of Purlieu Lane This particular field was in the property of Mr. Bates of a well-known local building firm and the father of a boy in First Kenilworth Scout Group at that time. The main purpose of Open Day was to get some publicity for the Group, but we also hoped to run some tests for the Cooks Badge, these tests would be held early in the day before we received our visitors, of which we hoped there would be a large number. It was arranged at the Leaders' Meeting on 24th.of June that Ron Sargent and myself would go and inspect the field to see how much room we had for the events we were planning. In the event, when we had visited the field we were able to report that the area of the field was far greater than we had anticipated. Thus there was plenty of room to stage an obstacle race of some kind for the Cubs and also for a Pancake Race, another idea that we had in mind. Firewood was there in plenty and a water supply was available in a nearby builder's yard. As there was a natural hollow in one place in the field, we could hold a camp-fire, providing time permitted! Car parking could be arranged.
When the Leaders had discussed the arrangements we proposed, we passed the plans over to the Committee Meeting which was to be held soon after our own meeting On the day of the event the weather was fine and, of course, we did not manage to carry out everything which we had on our programme and we didn’t run precisely to time, either! It was a good day nevertheless and good publicity. The Cubs did their stuff in the Obstacle Race and we also made a go of some Miniature Sports' which were in the programme. During the Camp Fire hot dogs and cocoa were consumed in large quantities and the fire we had lit almost roasted the camp-fire leaders as they officiated. Almost before we knew it, we were going to the Annual Camp! We hired a large van and set off for the camp site at the end of August and set up camp in Edale under rather gloomy conditions. The early part of the week was naturally spent in setting up camp and the aerial runway over the ravine. On the Sunday we held our "Scouts' Own" Service in camp and made special arrangements for two of our members who happened to be Roman Catholics. Jack Banner took them into the nearest town where there was a Catholic Church so that the boys could attend Mass. It was during the latter part of the week, in a moment of tiredness and so lack of concentration that I had a rather unpleasant and traumatic experience. I damaged the end of my left thumb while at the woodpile. It could have been much worse as I only lost a portion of the extreme tip of the flesh on the thumb, also part of the nail. In fact, my own doctor saw the thumb about a week later and it looked very much better by that time. He declared that was going on nicely and that in due course, there would be little to show for the experience. 'There are a lot of accidents of this sort in the countryside' he remarked in a typically laconic fashion '-Especially if one gets tired' The fact remains, however, that the camp was a fair success in terms of activities and there were a number of outings to the area about us. The weather, however, left a good deal to be desired with rain and some wind. The visiting commissioner gave us a good report, although he did think that we should have camped lower down on the site instead of pitching our tents on the rather windy ridge. The aerial runway was a great success When we had got back and dried out our tentage we were soon back to the routine of working on our new hut and keeping the old one in good order. We had the very useful assistance of the Baden Powell Scout Guild, already mentioned in connection with the H.Q. and the site This organization was very helpful with some of the work on our new premises as it had been with the Abbey Group building when that was being erected. As 1965 drew to an end, Hilda Hillyard decided that she would have to lay down her task as Akela (Leader in Charge or C.M.) of First Kenilworth Cub Pack. She had worked very hard with the Pack and had become a legend for efficiency. The Pack had been built up from a quite small pack to the biggest one in the Scout district and had even been dubbed, 'The Leaping Wolf Factory' for the number of these high awards gained by her Cubs. Happily, there were quite a number of Assistant Cub Leaders with the Pack and, Sandra Holmes, one of these assistants took over as Akela.
As time permitted, Hilda Hillyard came back to help with events organised by the Parents' Committee.
It was about the beginning of 1966 that Sandra Holmes had to relinquish her post of Akela and Sheila Potts took over the Pack .
'The Leaping Wolf Factory'.
Happily, there were quite a number of Assistant Cub Leaders with the Pack and, Sandra Holmes, one of these assistants took over as Akela As time permitted, Hilda Hillyard came back to help with events organised by the Parents' Committee . At about the beginning of 1966, Sandra Holmes had to relinquish her post of C.M. and Sheila Potts took over the Pack.
12RP-Scouting 1965.doc
Scout Meeting Places
Since Scouting came to Kenilworth, soon after the Movement started nationally (in 1908 -the date of the Royal Charter), the Scouts of Kenilworth have met in many places. Some of these places have changed out of all recognition whilst others have been utilised for quite different purposes. A few have been demolished. It is the purpose of this 'essay' to give some of the details of these places and to show where the Scout meetings were held. The Scouts who were meeting in about 1910 probably met in a small hut or hall behind the present Parochial Hall in High Street. This small hall would most likely, have served as a Parish Hall or Meeting Room before the Parochial was constructed. (The foundation stone of the present Parochial Hall was laid in 1911.) If this hut in which the Scouts held their meetings at that time is the one I remember from my early days in the Movement, then it has had a remarkably long existence as it is still to be seen, although it is only used as a store-room for furniture these days! This hut is, no doubt, the one in which the Abbey Troop met when the Troop was started in the early 1940's but met in many places, including accommodation in what was then the Working Men's Club (now Kenilworth Sports and Social Club) before moving onto the Randall Road site in the l950's
When I joined in Scouting in 1947, the Scoutmaster of the 1st. Kenilworth Troop was John Royal. He is, in fact still very much alive at over ninety years of age. The Troop then met in what had been a World War Two Civil Defence building in the shadow of St. John's Parish Church and near to the St. John's Church Rooms. I have since heard that previously, the Troop had met in an old timber building on Kenilworth Common. This building was part of the stables for a big house nearby. In an adjacent building, Skipper Royal tells me, there was a collection of vintage cars. Before Skipper Royal's day the Troop had met in what is now the Christadelphian Hall in Warwick Road, almost opposite where the new St. Francis Catholic Church now is. (The 'Christadelphian Hall' in those days was actually the Parish Room of St. John's Church.) When I had been Skipper Royal's assistant for some time, we moved the Troop's meeting place from the ex C.D building to a room which was in a guest-house belonging to a Mr. and Mrs Duffy, a rather rambling set of premises on the St. John's Church side of where the petrol filling station now is and almost opposite to St. John's Church. As there was not a great deal of room in our new meeting place, all our tents and other camping items were stored over Skipper Royal's Shoe repair shop, almost directly opposite to the Waverley Road turning out of Warwick Road. The next meeting place for the First Kenilworth Troop was to be the Old Council House on Upper Rosemary Hill. The building still exists, even though those on either side of it have either been changed drastically or have disappeared. There is no longer a Fire-station on the Albion Street side of the Old Council House but a gap in the sequence of buildings. The cottage on the other side is still there, although it has been altered and renovated considerably. There used to be a big archway near to the Old Council House and this had led to the stables or garages when the 'Abbey Hotel' was in use on the corner of Upper Rosemary Hill and Priory Road. Nowadays the Abbey Hotel has been converted into flats or apartments, even though the exterior appearance of the building is much as it used to be. Due to the generosity of the people of Kenilworth and donations from all sorts of local funds, money was found, in the early l950's, to buy some land at the end of Barrow Road to put up a Youth Centre. It was intended that the building would serve the needs of the Youth of Kenilworth and provide a sort of Civic Centre. This building still exists as the property of British Telecom. It has been much altered to suit the needs of its present owners but in the days when First Kenilworth had the use of it for Troop Meetings it was a rather bare and tall barn of a place, full of noises, like Prospero's enchanted isle, but not giving much delight to the unfortunate people who lived at the end of Barrow Road. After a noisy time as tenants of the Youth Centre, moves began to obtain a piece of land behind the Youth Centre and to approval for a Scout and Guide H.Q. building. Our District Commissioner of the day, Major Masters was the prime moving force behind the project and a former Cub Leader, John Lawrence, an architect, drew up the plans. It was getting near to the time when the Rev. Clarke would be moving to a new appointment at another Congregational Church far away from Kenilworth but he was still in Kenilworth when the new H.Q. was opened towards the end of the l950's. The building, which has recently been demolished together with the other buildings which sprang up round it, had been worked on by several groups, or even generations of Leaders, parents and Scouts long before the buildings were all done away with so did not resemble the building we moved into in those far-off days. We had several different heating arrangements in those days, we had troubles with the floor which 'sweated' mysteriously in the winter months and there were problems with vandals for some time in the early days. But 'be it ever so humble' it was 'home'. The plaster board lining of the building got knocked about, one Scout (from First Kenilworth, no less) butted a huge dent in a board with his head, luckily not damaging his head, as far as one could be sure. Eventually, we replaced all the lower part of the plaster boards with timber match boarding. Much of the improving work and eventually 'updating' of the H.Q. building was done by the Parents of the Scouts and Guides but a substantial amount of work was done by an organisation called 'The B.P. Guild', made up of Parents, ex-Scouts and ex-Leaders. The B.P. Guild put chain-link fencing round the perimeter of the H.Q. land and provided an elegant gateway by the entrance to the site. In time there was a proliferation of huts and other buildings as new Headquarters for various units were built so that there was not much room for expansion and a further move for the organisations using the site had to be considered.
At one time the First Kenilworth Senior Unit heard that the Water Tower might become available but it turned out that the condition of the structure of building at that time was far too bad -the floors were unsound. Time had moved on in other ways too. A new group, the Third Kenilworth sprang up. Based at the Roman Catholic Church of St. Francis of Assisi, in the Warwick Road, it met in a wooden H.Q. at the side of the church building.
Due to lack of Leaders, the Group disbanded after some years of activity. Two other Church Groups which started slightly later are the Fourth Kenilworth, based at St. Nicholas Church in the Abbey Fields and the 'Waverley' Group, based at the Methodist Church in Priory Road. These Groups are currently flourishing. . The Fourth meets in the Parochial Hall in High Street, while the Waverley Group meets in the Methodist Church Rooms, adjacent to the Methodist Church. The newest addition to Scout Groups in Kenilworth is the 'Haycock' Group, based at the United Reformed Church on Abbey Hill, overlooking the Abbey Fields. Officially, the Group took over the '3rd Kenilworth' designation from the St. Francis Group but is known as 'The Haycock' Group, after Mrs. Haycock, from a well-known Scouting Family. Whilst the Kenilworth town Groups form the greater part of the Scouting population in the District, mention must be made of the Balsall Common Scout Group which meets in what amounts to a small town about seven miles out of Kenilworth. The Group is blessed with its own meeting place, The building has been built comparatively recently and the Scouts and Guides share the accommodation. The First Kenilworth and Abbey Scout Groups together with the local Guide Companies are eagerly anticipating the completion of new premises which will be part of the extended Recreation Hall now being constructed in a co-operative venture with Kenilworth.
Scout Meeting Places.doc