Published: Wednesday, 17th September, 2008 8:00am

Retro: Upholding tradition

by Bob Young

Comments (0) | Print | Email

Crinoline crazy

LAST month we published a photograph and memories about the 79th Reading Scouts.

Former Scout Bob Young has written in with some thoughts of his own:

Alan Sandall's article and photograph, published on August 7, brought back many memories. Alan, Doug Nudds and Peter Wallis all became leaders themselves later. It was 79th's great fortune to have Doc Hey as Group Scoutmaster.

He worked at the British Museum and was quite a brilliant man.

One night, he had us cycling around Long Lane and Little Heath with a message from the Lord Nozoo. When Alan Sandall was Scoutmaster, he organised the manufacture of 'Crinolines', and a small display team. Here is a photo of us performing at St Mary Magdalen Church Fete in August 1951.

In 1949, Bob Steer was Scoutmaster. He was very fit and encouraged us to exercise and swim. He had swum in the Olympics. At Highcliffe camp, he taught us how to read tracks in the sand, on the beach.

Depths of different parts of the feet, distances between them, and direction were all meaningful. We loved it. Our camping field was very hard and he arranged with the farmer for us to help ourselves to straw, to put under our groundsheets.

Mr Steer also showed us how to make a camp loom with pegs and our staves. We then wove our own mattresses with sisal and straw. Norman Brown made several and devised his own sleeping shelter. Another inspirational leader of the late 1940s and early fifties was Terry Gibbs. He came from a showbiz family and organised several gang shows, and coach trips to see Ralph Reader's shows in London. They were brilliant - but not quite as good as ours. While I write, I find myself humming 'You'll Get Along Very Well'. The 79th certainly gave us all sorts of opportunities to lead more adventurous and healthy lives. The camps must have needed much pre-planning.

We still had food rationing. Camp gear had to be pulled by trek-carts. In 1948 when we camped in the Lake District, we had to pull our trek-cart from Paddington to Euston Station.

All credit to the men who voluntarily made Scouting possible. These men set good examples for us to try to follow.