MICHAEL Abutt writes from Venezia in Italy...
“In your pages you often print photographs of Boy Scouts at camp in the days when everyone seemed to be in the movement or in the Sea Scouts or the Air Cadets. The photograph shows a group of lads from the 11th Walsall St.Luke’s Scout Group on a camping trip to Devon in the beautiful summer of 1960, exactly fifty years ago. In fact our scout ‘camp’ was actually a Youth Hostel week staying in Salcombe, Strete and at one of the most famous hostels, that of Maypool.
“Our scout troop met on a Tuesday evening in St Luke’s Church Hall in the Chuckery and the scout master, or Skip as he was always called was Peter Bradbury and recently married; he had a flat in Lysways Street. He had an assistant whom we called Kim but sadly I have forgotten his name.
“There were two Patrols in our group, The Eagles and The Tigers with Clive Freeman and Robert Hawkins as Patrol Leaders although who was over which I’m afraid I have forgotten. Robert Hawkins was Patrol Leader. There were only about eleven or twelve of us altogether, but there was deep rivalry between the two patrols. I am sure that I am mangling the language of scouting but it was all fifty years ago.
“Once Robert made it to the august pages of the Daily Mirror.
There had been a high profile case of baby snatching whilst the mother was in a store shopping. Skip’s wife woke him up in the middle of the night with an idea that would raise the profile of the scouts and also bring in some much needed funds – A Scout Pram Patrol. The idea was that women who didn’t want the maul of pushing a pram around Woolworth’s should leave it in the tender care of the Scouts. We patrolled in Park Street Walsall with our arm bands and the exercise soon got into the local press and then, inevitably, a national newspaper picked up on it.
One of us was chosen, Robert, to be photographed on said Patrol smiling at a happy shopper. There was a write up in the Mirror with a reference to “Hawkeye” which was Robert’s nickname.
“When I look at the photograph, I am taken back to that time when we were in that piping spring of delicious, wayward youth. Our Meets began with the flag being raised and us pledging our loyalty to God and the Queen.
Although as I grew I embraced atheism and republicanism, the moral lessons of doing good, being of service and above all tolerant have stood me in good stead over the years. We pledged to respect those ‘of other colours and creeds’ and though the prospect of meeting someone of either or both was not in those days thought of as even a remote possibility, the respect has always remained with me.
“The best adventure that we had in the Scouts was when we went on summer camp to Devon. Skip had family near Brixham or Torquay or somewhere in that area and the idea was that he would spend the first week with the scouts and the second with his wife and family. We were to go Youth Hostelling and get about by a mixture of shanks’ pony, boat and bus. To pay for the camp we saved for it by the week and after the train fare had been paid it meant that we had 5s per day spending money. No one was allowed their own money because everything was strictly egalitarian.
Journey “We left Walsall by train for the journey down to the south coast. It was a steam train with old fashioned compartments connected by a corridor. I do not know if we had booked our seats but we had two compartments to ourselves and inevitably a little horseplay and rivalry develop between the two compartments with the result that one of the glass lampshades was broken in the process. Skip gave us an example of civic responsibility when he called the guard, pointed out the damage and asked how we could make recompense.
All, as far as I am aware was concluded amicably.
The last part of the journey was the best as the train pulled along the south coast and the cool sea looked so inviting especially as the day had now become so hot and sticky and we had been cabined, cribbed and close confined for hours.
“When we arrived we spent part of the day with Skip’s relatives and then went to our first Youth Hostel which was Salcombe. It was a large Victorian mansion although I did not realise that at the time. I have to say that the place was a little forbidding and gloomy especially the Warden who was rather fierce and I think ex-army.
“We had our first evening meal in the Hostel and then I discovered the reality of hostel life when the Warden came into the dining room and relished a display of humorous humiliation as he found jobs for everyone – cleaning, washing up and other things. I think that I escaped the first night though Clive did not, but I copped for it the next morning when I had to brush and clean down the stairs.
“We used the Hostel as a base and spent a great deal of time down at the cove in Salcombe.
We trooped down there every day and spent our time sun bathing, swimming and generally exploring.
It was on our way down to the cove one morning when the accompanying photograph was taken.
“Some of the things that we did on camp would have a modern “Risk Assessment” jobsworth in a flat spin. We went abseiling with only Skip supervising and then we bathed in the sea without supervision. How did we survive? From the cove we clambered over the rocks towards the small headland and there we discovered a cave that we were convinced was used by smugglers. It disappeared into the rocks and was crumbling with age. We took Skip to see it and he tried, not very successfully, to maintain our romantic beliefs in its origins.
“I remember Skip taking us up to a high point and looking out over the beautiful estuary of the river Dart; marvelling how magnificent it was and saying “Just think how many wars have been fought over this land.” Looking back people who had fought in the last war could still only have been in their middle thirties. Skip must surely have done National Service.
“After leaving Salcombe we left by the motor launch.
Soon we wer emarching along a country lane, whistling either Colonel Bogey or the theme from the Bridge over the River Kwai.
However Skip decided that the association of the music with certain words regarding the anatomical diversity of leading Nazis – words of which we were entirely ignorant - was not befitting a group of scouts and that he had seen some members of the public smiling when they heard us. Thus the whistling stopped! Strete “We stayed at Salcombe for three nights and at Maypool for three nights but we also spent a night at Strete Hostel.
I looked in the YHA directory and this no longer appears to be operating. I actually liked this one best of the three because it was run by two women and so I felt happier and they were much nicer than the two rather stern Wardens at the other two hostels. It was quite a small place and reminded me of a school canteen.
“Finally we arrived at the last hostel which was Maypool, probably one of the most famous hostels in the country. We arrived at five and waited for the Warden to come and open up. The first words that he said when he saw a bunch of boy scouts were “Come in England’s last hopes.” I found Maypool hostel gloomy and distance has made it into a huge place of dark balustraded mystery.
I think that one of the men’s dormitories had been used as an embalming room. When the Warden said that he had to make his arrangements a fellow Scout nudged me and said, “Who with, Count Dracula?” Seeing a picture of the hostel now I realise that it was quite simply a Victorian villa but my memory is still that of a forbidding, slightly edgy place. However it was this hostel that provided some of the most evocative memories that stay with me.
“Alas, the week was soon over. On that last day the sun shone brightly as it had all week. To end our stay we were given the choice of going to the circus or mackerel fishing. Mackerel fishing won. We set off from Brixham harbour in a small powered boat handled by a rather grizzled “Old Sea Dog”. When we began to fish for mackerel he wouldn’t let us use bait to begin but only a piece of silver paper to attract the fish. Once we had a bite we could then use that to act as bait. The catch distribution was not very even as some, like me, did not catch anything but others, like Hawkeye seemed to get one every few minutes.
“The following day it was time for us to return home.
We came back by train on our own as Skip must have put us on the train and left us whilst he continued his own holiday with his wife and family. It was a long way back and we arrived backing Walsall, hot, sticky and no doubt a little tired but it had all been an awfully big adventure.
After all these years Skip, would it be too late to say thank you?
