THE BOY SCOUTS

A FEW MEMORIES OF THE ELMBRIDGE SCOUTS

The scouts at Elmbridge was formed of 3 patrols "Owls, Badgers and foxes, Mr. Brown and Mr. Clark were the scout masters.

K.Booth was P.L. of the Owls, with C.Cundy Second; P. Murnane's was P.L. of the Badgers, with G. Radford as Second; C.Ford was P.L. of the Foxes with M. Gibson as Second.

Photo courtesy Barrie Freeman

With Mr.Day's permission the scouts took over the air raid shelters as scout dens. After a major clean up and some painting the dens became habitable. At the end with the hatch we made a fire place, some bunk beds were set up and some home made furniture was constructed. Eagerly we asked for and received permission to camp out overnight in the dens. Bedding, food,lanterns and fire wood was arranged and we awaited the weekend in a state of excitement. Friday night finally rolled around and the boys embarked on the first overnight camp out. Supper was cooked on the fire and coco was prepared for an evening sing song and story telling. Finally we went to bed and were eventualy asleep. Oh! suprise and shock to wake up the next morning and climb out of bed into a couple of feet of cold water? Apparently Joe Heaver of the N.C.C staff was told by someone to drain the swimming pool without knowing the scouts were sleeping in the shelters, we did not know that the water always backed up because of problems with the drains. It did not take us long to plug up the floor drains an solve the problem.

LEMONADE ANYONE?

On one of the Visiting Sundays the Owls patrol of the scout troop decided to raise some money by selling lemonade. We would set up outside the middle scout den (air raid shelter) and sell lemonade for thupence a glass. Lemonade powder ,jugs and glasses we would get from the Major Phipps of the NCC staff, we had to pay for the lemonade powder. We soon sold out and had to buy more , my mother suggested that instead of charging a set amount we gave it away free and requested a donation. Many of the boys got theirs free but the parents were very generous, sometimes donating as much as 2/6 at a time, in the end we made much more money this way. Our parents were always ready to support the school in many ways.

KNOTS, KNOTS AND MORE KNOTS

Mr. Clark one of our scout masters was in charge of teaching us our knots, we and any boys who were watching must have thought us very strange. For our test Mr. Clark would make us hang upside down and tie the knots behind our backs! To this day I remember all my knots and can still tie them behind my back. I have found rope work and knots to be very useful to me over the years. Thanks Mr. Clark

THE BOY SCOUTS OWN TITANIC

Having learned all these wonderful knots and lashings Criss and I decided to put them to good use. A raft would be just the thing. First we had to locate some steel drums ( I think we got these from the NCC ), then we found some old planks then along with some poles we cut down the raft building began. You would think that the canal was the perfect location, but not so, the raft or materials would have soon been commandeered by some other builders. The location would be the river just outside of school bounds. Well the raft was built and launched, Criss and I poled it up and down and had a good time. We then decided this might be enable us to wangle a scout badge out of this, but first we would have to approach Mr. Brown our other master. Mr. Brown was a very stern individual, when he was in the class room but when with the scouts could be a lot of fun, so we were not to scared to approach him with this out of bounds project.

The fateful day of the inspection arrived and away we went. Upon viewing our raft he was very impressed and decided he would try it out. Carefully climbing aboard, he proceeded to pole it out into the center of the river. Well that’s strange it seems to sit quite a bit lower in the water than when Criss and I were on it,oh oh! And getting lower still? The raft with Mr. Brown on it slowly disappeared under the surface, a wet scout master waded ashore and informed us that we had not plugged up the holes in drums. Mr. Brown was good natured about it and his only response was to throw Criss and I into the river.The results were two wet scouts and no badge.

SCOUT PICTURES FROM NEIL HIRD

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