These Boys will Tackle any Job

Camp News, Volume 3, Issue 113, 13 March 1942, Page 3

These Boys will Tackle any Job

We. don’t hear much of Boy Scouts ror,” Harold Whittali tells of th In the days before Munich it was customary for certain English men and women returning from Germany to extol the Hitler Youth movement. The Boy Scout movement, some people argued, was too slip-shod, not enough discipline. But after two years of war our Boy Scouts have proved that the goosestepping young Nazis cannot teach them anything. Though the Ministry of Home Security decreed that boys under sixteen could not be used for Civil Defence work the younger Scouts set about fulfilling one of their principal laws: “A Scout’s duty is to be useful and to help others.” Many and varied have been their tasks. Amid the flames and falling bombs they carried on with a grin. “A Scout smiles and whistles under all difficulties.” ♦ * ♦ * Here are just a few of the wartime activities carried out by Cubs, Scouts, Rovers, and Scouters.

now, but recently, in the “Daily Mirle valuable work they are doing. bright smile and a cheery word which did help so very much. . . .” The spirit of the World Chief Scout, Lord Baden-Powell, lives on, typified in his last message to his boys before his death last January: “Go to it to win the war, and after that to bring about peace with goodwill and happiness for all.” “A Scout is a friend to all and a brother to every other Scout, no matter to what social class the other belongs.” Hitler Youths, study this wonderful Scout law!

A.R.P. work—making warden’s rattles, camouflaging buildings, escort duties to female A.R.P. staff, supplying messengers to inform deaf people of air raid warnings, guiding mothers and babies to shelters during Alerts, making children’s beds in shelters, pumping water from Anderson shelters, assisting in Dunkirk evacuation, A.A. gun crew manned by Rover Scouts, making wattle hurdles for plane traps, milking cows for men on service', shopping for the blind, collecting articles ranging from old iron to eggs. v . In the fighting Services and Civil Defence the older Scouts have done I valiant work. Many have laid down their lives for their country. Stricken animals have found sanctuary in the gentle arms of our Boy Scouts. . . . “A Scout is a friend to animals.” ♦ * * * Many Scouts act as messengers on vital jobs. They always deliver their message, come what may. No safer hands could be found for this type of work. ' “A Scout’s honour is to be trusted.” Here, given by the Boy Scouts’ Association as an example of the boys’ wonderful work, is an extract from a letter from a doctor to the Scout master "of a troop on hospital r duty in a much-bombed area. “. . . during those fateful early hours of this morning when even we pros’ were beginning to feel the stress, I was still greeted by the boys with a