WITH BOYS UNDER CANVAS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3802, 25 January 1927, Page 76

WITH BOYS UNDER CANVAS.

Y.M.C.A. ENCAMPMENT. (See Illustrated Pages in This Issue). Hid among the hills on the banks of the Silverstream at Whare Flat is Camp Tahora, the Y.M.C.A. encampment for boys. A - more ideal spot for camping it would be difficult to find. The sheltering hills, alluring bush tracks, the picturesque stream affording every opportunity for swimming, cricket and football fields, and the seclusion from the outside world, all combine to make the locality ideal for camping. The camp itself presents a scene of delight. The first thing that impresses the visitor is the cleanliness and orderliness that is everywhere evident. Every boy has a daily responsibility in maintaining this condition of affairs. To see campers whitening the boulders' that mark the paths to and from the tent lines, mowing' the grass, sweeping their tents and in a score of ways preparing-dor morning inspection is .to appreciate the maxim that cleanliness is next to godliness. In assigning duties to the boys, the director seeks to inculcate the spirit of service and help those concerned to be useful in the common tasks of everyday life. The house tents, each, fitted with a weather-fly and floored with stout motor casing, are pitched in a circular formation with a flagpole in the. centre, and the spacious marquee and kitchen in close proximity. Adjoining the office is the wireless room in which is installed a five-valve set, with leads to the campfire, flagpole, and marquee. all of this heiner tbe work or one of the campers. To see a hundred suntanned boys grouped round a blazing fire listening to a concert broadcasted from the city is to catch a glimpse both of the modern world and of Hhat in which the savage roamed. A spot to which the visitor is taken with a measure of pride is the chapel, a clearing on the river bank, carpeted with' fresh grass and encircled with flowering manuka and tossing foxgloves. The entrance is a manuka gate over which is a rustic cross, and this leads to a rough-hewn platform built up from the water’s edge with boulders and faced with a manuka rail and reading desk. Although boys are undemonstrative and loathe to give expression to their deeper feeling’s, such an environment as this seems to make a peculiar appeal to the heart of a boy. The day’s programme comprises field and athletic sports, swimming, mountain and bush traps, entertainments and campfires at night. Every morning and evening the campers encircle the flagpole and in true British fashion honour the flag of their King and country. Out in the big open spaces there is given a new meaning to flag raising and lowering, and * this silent but impressive ceremony quickens anew the spirit of patriotism. Under a camp director, assisted by carefully selecte<T*4eaders, there are 120 boys under canvas for periods varying from one to five weeks. A striking ceremony of more than usual interest was staged on New Year’s Eve, when the ancient Greek torch-race was reproduced. Twelve picked boys were stationed between Mosgiel and the camp, the first of whom started the race at 11 p.m.. The blazing torch was passed from runner to runner together with a message wrapped in manuka bark. The last boy raced into camp and with the torch blazing plunged it into the set fire round which the campers were gathered. Unfolding the message, he read a challenge from the passing generation to this oncoming generation of boys—a message written lay the Rev. Dr Rutherford Waddell: “I who stand in the sunset salute you, O Young Pioneers, whose faces front the sunrise! And what a glorious dawn it is! The world has never seen its like before, and y-ou are the heirs of the ages. Think! God has been, working through all the Past to produce YOU! Are you worth it?— worth all the toil and tears, the bravery and the bloodshed, the sufferings and the sacrifices that have conspired through the centuries to make you what you are, give you what you have. Do your remember Aytoun's great poem, ‘Edinburgh, after Flodden’? You remember he tells how Edinburgh waited breathlessly for the issue of the battle and how at last Randolf Murray arrived with the news that, all was lost, that all he brought back from the field of . battle was ‘Dunedin’s banner, riven and blood-stained, but not dishonoured, and he goes on to tell how they saved it, how no Scottish feet went backward when the Royal Lion fell, one bv one they died grimly about it with their faces to the foe, and then he gives the sacred treasure into the trembling bands of the aged Provost, saying : ‘Sirs, I charge ye, keep it holy. Keep it as a sacred thing. For the stains you see upon it Was the life blood of your King.’ Well, O Young Pioneers, into your hands is committed a greater and more sacred treasure; it. is the banner of all tho Mighty Past, encrimsoned with the blood, cf patriots and martyrs and saints. Sirs, I charge ye keep it holy and you can only pay your debt to the dead by service for the living.'’

The camp, which terminates on the 29th inst., is under the control of Mr Robin Adair, the boys’ work director of the Y.M.C.A. Boys’ division.