BOY SCOUTS WANT TO SERVE

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 September 1940, Page 8

BOY SCOUTS WANT TO SERVE

RESENT UNDER 16 EAN. LONDON, July 13. Half a million Boy Scouts in Britain are’ keen to serve their country, but the Ministry of Home Security has put a ban on the employment of anyone under 16 on A.R.P. work other than messenger service. Resenting this official attitude the Boy Scouts’ Association. is making its own plans. “Proyiding the parents’ assent in writing is obtained," said an official of the Association this week] “scouts under 16 will be employed in voluntary part-time work of all kinds in connection with national defence. Questions of insurance and risk must give way to national emergency.” .. “During a recent raid on a southeast coast town,” the official said, “a boy scout on L.D.V. duty helped in the rescue of a German pilot and the capture of the plane’s crew.” At presgnt Scouts are engaged in A.R.P. work in the A.F.S. Thames River emergency service, hospitals, and first aid, police, evacuation, agriculture and other voluntary work. A public inquiry is to be held at Ipswich into the refusal of the authorities to accept' the service of fully-trained Boy Scouts, who had volunteered for service in conjunction with the local A.R.P. organisations. ■'