Modern Scouting

I am not a scout, I have never been a scout, I have no knowledge of scouting…

… except to say that perhaps, as a girl, it’s more likely I would have been a brownie.  A division which, in fact, went some considerable way, in my youth, to bias me against both movements outright.  Why, I would rage, did the boys get to walk around in cool colours with penknives in their pockets and, in my rather giddy imagination, learn to hunt the dreaded bears of Hackney, while girls had to wear poo-coloured jumpers and, I assumed, learn to sow?

In many ways, my childhood activities were defined by my neighbours, more than my own family.  I grew up, an only child, in that odd position of being perpetually the middle child between the pairs of sisters who were my friends.  I was a year younger than Merry, and a year older than Pippin; in the same year as Frodo but a year younger than Samwise, and so on, and in this capacity, I found myself fairly quickly placed in the midst of these sisters and their social activities as something of a buffer for their rivalries.

Thus, various unexpected and not always appreciated activities were foisted on me in my new-found role as Alsace-Lorraine in early modern politics.  (For anyone concerned, that’s the only geo-political history reference I intend to make for the rest of this blog, if not, perhaps, ever.)  Youth drama club, for example, was a fixture in which the future cast of Biker Grove (as it then was) learned how to pull each other’s hair without causing permanent damage, while I, shy, gangly, gormless and about as talented in this area as a broken toilet seat, cowered by the lighting desk wondering what all the shiny buttons did and whether they’d let me push one.  (They didn’t.)  Ballet only happened once – even aged seven I knew I was never going to be a dainty little fairy, and I believe I may have cried when they told me I was going again – but thankfully the school burnt down before this threat could be carried out and I, relieved, took up the violin instead.  Donkey club was a once-monthly torture which I was sucked into in my role as a diplomatic Switzerland between two sisters.  For two hours we’d waddle round a field in Kent, picking up giant sackfuls of donkey dung in huge plastic bags, cold, wet and in my case, hayfever attack ground zero, before grooming the often foul-tempered and smelly donkeys of the refuge before being allowed five minutes each to ride the creatures.  Aged ten, I was already too tall to ride the donkeys – they’d sit between my legs while I walked along the ground with them beneath me – and so the main prize of the occasion rather passed me by.  Bitter?  Moi?  No….

All that said, I had no illusions, even as an infant, that I’d particularly enjoy scouting.  The realisation had hit me by a fairly early age that myself and camping, or indeed any kind of outdoor skills that didn’t involve being able to deduce the nearest way to the best bus stop by the alignment of an off license alone, were not going to mix.  At secondary school, I took vast amounts of ignoble pleasure in watching my colleagues suffer and curse their way through the Duke of Edinburgh awards, although again, in my role as diplomatic buffer I was occasionally left as witness to the good friendships shattered in this cause.

And then…

… a few weeks ago, we were rehearsing a play in scouting hut in Kew (it having reasonable hire rates) and, during one of the breaks, I had a look at the badges on the wall and knock me down, if your modern, twenty first century boy scout, can’t get a prize in public relations.

Public Relations?

When did this happen?  I mean, there’s more traditional badges still there – camping, running, tennis, shooting – all hardy outdoor stuff – but when did public relations, computing and, to my slight confusion, ‘aeronautics’ make it into the boy scout syllabus?  This was not the cliche I had embraced.  (The badge for ‘Our Faith’ also induced a certain consternation in me, for different reasons…)  Is it a good thing?  Is this not, in fact, a sign that the scouting movement truly is adapting to today, to create the leaders of tomorrow?  Perhaps it is.  But then again, what does it say about tomorrow, if public relations is still going to continue to be the requisite skill of the future?  In my opinion, not much good at all..