The Scouts 

The Wellington College Scout troop was started in 1926, eighteen years after the birth of the Scout movement.  

At Wellington, Scouting always took very much second place to the Corps.

At first it was decided that ‘a troop should be formed of boys in their last year at school, who were not going to the Services. They would all be boys who had already put in between three and four years in the OTC, and so they would be released from the Corps to serve as Scouts.’ The express purpose of the troop was to train boys to be future Scoutmasters, in the same way that the OTC aimed to turn out future officers. 

By the time of our study, this purpose was perhaps less emphasised, and Scouts was seen as something of a ‘filling in’ activity for boys too young to join the Corps. For this reason it was known as ‘Tweenies,’ something which happened between arrival and the Corps. The majority of our respondents remembered joining Scouts at this stage, although for differing lengths of time:  

‘In one’s first year one joined the Scouts.’

Robert Longmore (Combermere 1938-43)   

‘We had to join the CCF at 14.3, before that we could join the Scouts’.  Anonymous 

‘I had two years in the scouts and then joined the Corps.’  John Hoblyn (Hardinge 1945-50) 

‘I was a Scout for my first term.’ Nikolai Tolstoy-Miloslavsky (Stanley 1949-53) 

‘In my first year I was in the Junior Scouts.’ Christopher Stephenson (Hill 1949-54) 

However, the option to join (or rejoin) after one’s time in the Corps remained, at least for a while:  

‘Membership of the CCF was compulsory until “Cert A” which came after 2 years. After that I immediately opted for the easier route by becoming a Scout.’ Christopher Capron (Benson 1949-54) 

‘For the last year at Wellington, I decided to leave the Corps and join the Senior Scouts, which was much more enjoyable.’

Hugh Trevor (Hopetoun 1943-48) 

Scout leaders 

Arnold Potter was Scoutmaster of the Junior troop, and was remembered by our older respondents:  

‘Mr Potter was the Scoutmaster, and occasionally took parties of Scouts out in his open-top car.’ Robert Longmore (Combermere 1938-43) 

‘I had a brief time in the junior Tweenies. Arnold Potter was the Chief and used to challenge the older boys greatly!’ 

‘Bobby’ Baddeley (Picton 1948-52) 

Senior Scouts was run by ‘Bertie’ Kemp until he retired in 1953. After this, both roles were taken on by Derek Angwin, described by Richard Craven (Hill 1950-54) as ‘a young usher, recently married.’ 

How were they perceived? 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, most Wellingtonians viewed the Scouts as a poor inferior to the Corps. The nickname of ‘Tweenies’ did not help with this perception.  

‘Amongst one’s peers they were rather looked down on, not surprising as they were referred to as “Tweenies.”’ Richard Craven (Hill 1950-54) 

‘Scouts (“Tweenies”) was a joke. We merely built underground shelters and taunted the “Crow-cads.”’ John Flinn (Combermere 1944-49) 

‘I started as a “Tweeny,” a name for junior Scouts which I thought very effeminate!’

Michael Hedgecoe (Combermere 1951-54) 

‘The Scouts were not much cop compared to those at my prep school, so I gave up after the first term and cannot remember what I had to do instead for the next two terms.’ Anonymous 

Nevertheless, both Charles Wade (Lynedoch 1947-50) and Tim Shoosmith (Blucher 1953-57) put it on record that ‘I enjoyed my year in Scouts.’ 

Activities

The Scouts took part in a variety of activities, including the traditional skill of learning to tie knots:  

‘I was a Scout for my first term, as a result of which I am still able to tie a bowline.’ Nikolai Tolstoy-Miloslavsky (Stanley 1949-53) 

‘I learned all my knots, several of which I have always found useful.’

Anonymous 

Some recalled a variety of other activities:  

‘Lighting camp fires, etc.’ Hugh Trevor (Hopetoun 1943-48) 

‘We went camping; knots and lashings; learnt a bit about boating; building bridges with ropes; simple cooking.’ Stephen Goodall (Hardinge 1936-40) 

‘One memory sticks out – a supervised climb of one of the Wellingtonias on Rhododendron Avenue.’

Christopher Stephenson (Hill 1949-54) 

‘I greatly enjoyed the Scouts, though as run by Bertie Kemp, it bore little resemblance to the organisation envisaged by Baden Powell. We spent most of the Scout afternoons building “forts” from which radiated long tunnels carved out of the easily workable sandy soil. From time to time these collapsed, and why nobody was ever buried alive remains a mystery.’ Hugo White (Hardinge 1944-48) 

There were some more formal activities:  

‘In my second (and last) term of doing it, we all took part in some sort of Scouting parade in, I think, Reading – an enjoyable and unusual day out.’ Anonymous 

‘I was briefly a Scout, and did attend an international Jamboree.’

Randal Stewart (Anglesey 1953-56) 

The fullest description of the Scouts and their activities was provided by Robert Longmore (Combermere 1938-43): 

‘We did not take ourselves very seriously and we did not study for badges. I believe there was someone who had become a Second Class Scout at his prep school, but the rest of us remained Tenderfeet. Each dormitory had a Patrol. We also, as a Scout event, rode sixteen miles on bicycles over to Henley during the Regatta and back – the only time I have been to the Regatta, and the only time I have ridden a bicycle thirty-two miles in one day! 

In the summer holidays of 1939 we had a Scout camp on the Isle of Purbeck. The site was on the cliffs west of Swanage. I shared a palatial tent with Hugh Weldon; his father, a colonel in the Dorset Regiment, had used it in the Army and it had a built-in groundsheet. The week finished with a vast campfire in a quarry cave in the cliffs, facing out to sea.  

The main achievement of the Combermere Patrol in our year was to build a tree house somewhere in the woods. It was a substantial structure, seven or eight feet off the ground, triangular in shape and furnished with ladder access and some form of table and benches. To commission it, we asked the Dormitory Prefects to tea – with disastrous results! Having got some six or so seated upstairs, and will me at the top of the ladder as waiter, sausages etc were cooked on the camp fire at ground level and consumed at high level. Whether all upstairs rose together or what, I do not know, but with a creak one bearer gave way, the floor tipped downwards and all Prefects were decanted to the ground. I remained perched at the top of the ladder and was, inevitably and without reason, blamed for the collapse!’ 

Robert did not disclose the repercussions of this unfortunate event.

John de Grey (Blücher 1938-43) seems actually to have been rewarded for poor behaviour:  

‘As a Scout I was late on parade when my troop cut a neighbour’s tree house out of their tree, so I was made Troop Leader (Squirrels).’ 

But perhaps the most notable achievement was that of Nigell D’Oyly (Benson 1948-53): 

‘I was expelled from the Junior Scouts for fighting.’ 

Wellington College Fire Brigade began in the 1880s, a response to the frequent heath fires which beset the College estate and surrounding areas in the summer months.  

The Section was reorganised in the summer of 1919, following the serious fire which destroyed the Orange dormitory. Fortunately, its subsequent members never had to deal with such a large conflagration. Its presence on site during the Second World War might have been a source of comfort to some, but according to Robert Waight (Orange 1942-46) this would not have been justified:  

‘We drilled regularly, exercising our hoses and our two-wheeled wooden Victorian fire cart. It was all a great giggle, especially when the boy supposed to control the nozzle was too weak to tame the wildly-thrashing python that our hose instantly became when swollen with an inrush of water. We, any onlookers, and a number of buildings nowhere near the fire, were then routinely soaked while the squad fell about immobilised by laughter.’ 

He also described the chief perk of being a member of the Section:  

‘We were allowed to own bicycles. I was delighted that my service to Wellington and England was rewarded with a mount which allowed me to arrive punctually at the remoter of our sports fields and, after games, to get towards the front of the queue at Grubbies. It was also useful at weekends in our search for any form of food and clandestine visits to the local nudist colony.’ 

Fifteen years later, Richard May-Hill (Hopetoun 1957-61) felt much the same:  

‘The upside to these not unpleasant duties was the absolute necessity to have a bicycle in close proximity, at all times. Unlike Dormitory Prefects, we had the same privilege as College Prefects and were required to keep our transport at the foot of our dormitory stairs. Likewise, we were obliged to utilise it for reaching all games locations and we were even deprived of the walk to Grubbies! 

Our machines were identified by having the bottom few inches of the rear mudguard painted bright red; no doubt to ensure no interlopers encroached upon our rights and concessions!

I still have the bicycle, complete with adorned rear mudguard.’ 

Christopher Capron (Benson 1949-54) also appreciated this benefit, and did not take his responsibilities too seriously: 

‘I gained a place in the Fire section as it entitled me to have a bicycle, and I remember not being in the slightest ashamed that Reading’s Fire Brigade arrived to extinguish a bush fire in the grounds before we’d even unwound our hosepipe.’ 

Nor, it seems, did his contemporaries:  

‘I got beaten by Mr Kuper for laughing at his fire practice with the College fire cart, manned by his goody-goody boys. If there had been a fire anywhere in College, the fire cart would have achieved very little, although Mr Kuper did not think so.’

Ian Nason (Orange 1950-54) 

Richard May-Hill (Hopetoun 1957-61) gave a summary of his experience in the Section:  

‘At the beginning of my twelfth and final term, the worries of forthcoming “A” Levels were mitigated by a totally unexpected announcement by my tutor, Noel Catterall. He told me that he had appointed me as one of the two nominated Hopetoun Fire Pickets. Each House and Dormitory had to nominate two boys for these duties.  

They consisted of immediately, whatever one was doing or wherever one was, lessons or games, reporting to the Porters’ Lodge if the college bell was tolled, other than at the usual chapel times. We were then required to proceed as directed and on arrival act in accordance with the person in charge of the scene. This usually involved locating and then using the fire beaters, which were located in racks all around the estate. I believe that we were only called out twice during the term, with neither event being a major conflagration.’ 

The equipment available, and the system of alarms, were described by Roger Ryall (Picton 1951-56):  

‘To our immense satisfaction as teenage boys, Wellington had its own fire engine. This had clearly been acquired after the Second World War and consisted of a stout two-wheeled trailer with a Coventry Climax engine driving a pump. The trailer contained coils of four-inch fabric hoses and various nozzles and connectors. Given a generous source of water, the pump could produce a tremendous jet of water at huge power. With two boys pulling it from the front and another two pushing from behind, the pump could be hustled around the grounds at great pace.   

I have no recollection that we had any kind of protective clothing, helmets or boots.’ 

Roger also gave this wonderfully humorous account of the greatest challenge faced by the Fire Section during our period:  

‘In my year in the Fire Section, in addition to various bush fires we did have one really serious fire involving the College buildings. If you stand at Glory Gate looking inwards to the College buildings, there is a staircase on your left leading to a first-floor landing. There was a row of doors leading off this landing, and behind each door was a small flat, occupied by the younger members of staff. One of these was newly married and his wife had been given a washing machine as a wedding present. Nothing unusual about that, you might think – wrong! This was 1955 and no-one had ever seen a washing machine before. Such things were simply not available. I guess that this one had come from America.  

In this case the young lady was trying to clean something with particularly recalcitrant stains. She did something that nobody would dream of doing now: she put some petrol in the washing machine drum and turned it on.

In a moment there was an explosion and the kitchen was engulfed in flame.  

Equally quickly, the heroes of the Wellington College Fire Section were summoned and the battle commenced. At each end of the first-floor corridor was a built-in fire hydrant with a four-inch valve operated by a red wheel. Rapidly we connected a hose and nozzle to the nearest hydrant and turned it on. The effect was most satisfying. A huge jet of water at high pressure burst forth and the fire in the flat was rapidly extinguished. Flushed with success, we took the decision to play it safe and indulge in a little damping down. Unknown to us at the time, this torrent of water leaked through the floor into the flat below.

The ceiling promptly collapsed, wrecking the flat.  

Meanwhile on the first floor, another misfortune was unfolding. Another group of Fire Section enthusiasts had gathered at the other hydrant, at the opposite end of the corridor. Just to be safe, they connected another hose to this hydrant and rolled it down the corridor. In the following confusion, someone turned on the valve. Water shot down the hose at high pressure until it hit the twisted section in the middle, which burst, unleashing a torrent of water into the corridor.  

At this point, peace was shattered by the ringing of multiple bells outside. In 1955, fire engines went ‘ding-ding-ding’ rather than the sirens they have now. At least four engines arrived from Basingstoke, Reading and elsewhere. A fire at Wellington College was registered as a county emergency.  

The Chief Fire Officer for Berkshire appeared at the bottom of the staircase. In a moment his eyes took in the burned area of the kitchen and the flat, totally flooded, the fallen ceilings and the water gushing along the corridor from the ruptured hose and flowing down the stairs towards him. He also took in the triumphant faces of the saviours of Wellington. His own face was a mask of horror.

He pushed his cap back on his head. “My God!” was all he said.  

It would be insensitive of me not to tell you the fate of the young bride at the heart of this tragedy. I believe she was initially taken care of by Mrs House, the Master’s wife, and then taken to hospital for the treatment of some singed extremities. I do not believe she was badly hurt.’