The Selluraphone

In the words of Baden-Powell, from "Lessons on the 'Varsity of Life."

     I had just landed in Malta on my return there from a visit to Sicily. While in that island I had bought, as a curio, one of those high brass saddles with which the natives decorate their horses and mules.
     It was ornamented with a row of brass knobs upon a kind of spike in front, which terminated with a couple of brass flags at the top. One the sides were also rather larger and more conspicuous knobs.
     A friend, seeing me arrive with this strange implement, asked: “Is that a musical instrument?”
     “What else do you suppose it is?” I replied.
     Then he begged me, with all the earnestness at his command, to play it at a concert the following week.
     I did so.
     I arranged with the orchestra to play a high-class Nocturne in which I should take the solo part with my “Selluraphone.” Meantime I fitted the instrument with a strap so that I could hand round my neck in front of my chest and I attached a paper- covered comb opposite my mouth, and at the performance I “sang” through this comb in a high falsetto, tuning the instrument by means of its flags, playing the notes on the knobs up and down the front, and giving the loud and soft effect by tinkering with the larger knobs on the side.
     Not a soul guessed that it was not a real musical instrument.

Gagging

In the words of Baden-Powell, from "Lessons on the 'Varsity of Life."

     I was once called upon by a professional touring company to take the part of the sentry in Iolanthe, in the place of a member of the caste who had been taken ill.
     Time did not admit of a rehearsal, but the part of Private Willis, the sentry, is a particularly easy one since he merely has to sing his one song and to do sentry-go without entering into conversation with the other characters.
     I had finished my song and have given my cue for the entrance of the leading lady when, as I neared the prompt side in the course of my march, the prompter whispered: “She is not ready. Gag for a few minutes.”
     And I gagged. After looking cautiously round to make sure that no officer was in the neighbourhood I put down my rifle and taking things easy I gave in a soliloquy my opinion of “sentry-go” from the private soldier’s point of view, generally alluding to various methods by which a cunning soldier could evade his sentry-go duties in comparative comfort without detection.
     With an audience of soldiers (which indeed included H.R.H. The Duke of Connaught) my remarks went down all right; indeed so satisfactory were they considered that the Manager insisted on my taking part again the following night and repeating in full the lecture on “sentry-go.”
     In an ordinary way it would have been difficult for me on the spur of the moment to give an oration without some preliminary thought on the subject, but I have over and over again found that when one’s whole attention is concentrated on the matter in hand, as it is when one is on the Stage, apt ideas spring to mind in a surprising way.

Play-Acting

In the words of Baden-Powell, from "Lessons on the 'Varsity of Life."

     I AM convinced that the play-acting which was encouraged among us boys [at Charterhouse] by that broad-minded and far-seeing Headmaster, Dr. Haig-Brown, was of great value to us in after-life.      It was not necessarily with a view to our going on the stage, however, that the Headmaster encouraged us to act but rather as a useful bit of general education.
     For instance, it brought us boys to appreciate for the first time something of the values and beauties of poetic expression. It taught us to memorise speeches, to express ourselves without self-conscious awkwardness before an audience, to articulate clearly, to use apt phrases, so to modulate voice and gesture as to grip and hold our hearers; moreover it taught us that valuable asset of being able to gauge their responsiveness; all in fact that was helpful later on in public speaking.
     Whether it was for the pleasure of showing off I cannot now say but I certainly enjoyed acting for its own sake, and its pursuit led me to many new and interesting experiences.

Peace Scouting

In the words of Baden-Powell, from "Lessons on the 'Varsity of Life."

     Having talked of War Scouting, its hazards and its joys, I must explain that there is also such a thing as Peace Scouting equally endowed with thrills and hardships.
     Just as an Army Scout goes out ahead of his army to find the way for it, to gain information, and to open up the situation for its advance, so the Peace Scout goes out ahead into unexplored regions to gain information and to open up new countries for the advance of civilisation.
     Such Scouts are the explorers, prospectors, pioneers, missionaries, trappers, and frontier constabulary. These men have to be plucky, hardy, resourceful fellows, relying on their own ability to make their way without help from others. They must be able to stick it out when times are bad, and be ready to push on with their job the moment opportunity arises.
     They have to maintain a cheery, hopeful outlook, even when things look blackest for them, and they have to be men who can be trusted to do their job away from all supervision and applause.
In practice one finds these frontiersmen ever ready to lend a hand to others where danger or difficulty threatens.
     In every part of the world have I seen these British Peace Scouts at work, whether in their schooners among the islands of the South Seas or the icebergs of Newfoundland, or harnessing rivers in far-away Canadian backwoods to provide power for the coming population; coaxing two blades of corn to grow where none grew before in Kenya, prospecting for coal and iron for future use in Rhodesia, conquering the deserts of Australia and South Africa, or bringing peace and enlightenment to the natives of Nigeria or the Sudan.
     These Scouts are pressing forward all the time unseen, unpraised, but ever persistent.
     The attributes of War Scouts are largely essential to the Peace Scouts of the backwoods, namely energy, self-reliance, courage, reliability and cheerful self-sacrifice in service.
     But equally these qualities are desirable among our citizens in civilised parts.
     They are not, however, qualities that can be taught to a class in school; they have to be picked up and developed by the individual. You cannot take every boy and girl to the backwoods to teach them, but it is possible to bring something of the backwoods within their reach as we are doing through the medium of the Boy Scout and Girl Guide Movement.

War Scouting

In the words of Baden-Powell, from "Lessons on the 'Varsity of Life."

     For my part, although my life has been to a large extent a series of enjoyments, when I ask myself which bit of it I most enjoyed, memory, without any hesitation, flies back to blazing sunshine on a hot, parched, thorn-scrub plain in Rhodesia, where the only shade from the scorching heat was got by hanging your coat over a little bush, where one’s clothes were in rags, one’s food a small portion of horse and a double handful of flour (which for want of time we usually mixed with water and drank down), and where we were tired and worn out with constant night marching against a crafty savage foe.
     Veldt sores, roughly dressed with a fingerful of grease out of a wagon wheel, adorned our faces and hands.  Our horses were drooping bags of bones, and they were tired, very tired.
     And yet — we were fit and hard, there was new adventure, new excitement or anxiety every day, and we were good tried comrades all.  It was all a glorious care-free adventure.
     And then the nights; those clear frosty nights under the dark overhead vault, with its stars big and brilliant, twinkling humourously and watching you as you creep along in your crafty, silent stalk (with all the possibility of being yourself at the same time stalked).
     You feel your way in the bitter darkness, suspicious of every rock or bush, with all your senses on the strain, eyes, ears and nose, to catch sight, sound or scent of an enemy.
     On you creep, lying low; pausing; creeping again with deadly patience, in a blindfold game of hide and seek. You are alone, dependent wholly on your own Scoutcraft for guidance, for safety, for your life, but above all for not coming back empty-handed.
     Risks? Of course, there are risks. They are the salt that gives the savour to it all. Didn’t my heart go pit-a-pat the first time that the Matabele saw me on foot among hillside boulders.
     But when I found that I could, with my rubber-soled shoes, skip away faster than they could follow, it became a cheerier adventure, which eventually came to be indulged in on nine different occasions.
     But it gave one “an emotion,” as the French would say, when they came after one full-cry, exactly like a pack of hounds running to view.

     The ominous call of their Chiefs to the runners — “Don’t shoot him — catch him with your hands” — was a spur if spur were needed. Just one false step or a twisted ankle would have brought me the same result — a long drawn-out torture before the finishing blow brought merciful ending.
     But for such thoughts as these there was no room in the crowded excitement of the moment. All I know is that memory takes me back there still with the elated feeling that the Scout’s life is a life worth living.
     It is a MAN’S job and I loved it.

Sea Scouting

In the words of Baden-Powell, from "Lessons on the 'Varsity of Life."

       Although I had missed the guidance of a father, I, as seventh son, got a good training at the hands of my brothers during my holidays. These all had the sporting instinct strongly developed and were good comrades together, first-rate swimmers, footballers, oarsmen, etc. All were good at devising things that they could not afford to buy, even to building a boat.
       We built our own huts, made our fishing, rabbit, and bird-trapping nets, and thus caught and cooked our own food to our hearts’ and stomachs’ content.
       In all of this I, as junior, had to take my share of the work, especially that part of it which would naturally be delegated to a junior, such as gutting the fish and rabbits (a really filthy job!), some of the cooking, and very much of the washing up.
       But it was all very good for me.
       As money came in we were able to buy a collapsible boat, in which three of us, among other expeditions, made the journey from London up the Thames to practically its source, then with a portage over the hills we went down the Avon via Bristol, across the Severn, and up the Wye to our then small home in Wales. A fairly adventurous journey, especially when crossing seven miles of Severn in our cockle-shell, but at the same time a very educative one for me.
       Eventually, when our money ran to it, we brothers became owners of a ten-ton cutter, built to my brother Warrington’s design, and in her we had the time of our lives, cruising round the coasts of Scotland and England at all seasons of the year. Many a scrape — in both senses of the word — we got into and  got out of and thereby gained a lot of useful experiences.
       Some of these I will deal with later, but from the educational point of view the discipline, the endurance of hardships and the facing of danger involved in this cruising, were points of lasting value in one’s training for life.

The Copse

In the words of Baden-Powell, from "Lessons on the 'Varsity of Life."

       When I was a small boy at Charterhouse, outside the school walls was “The Copse,” a long stretch of woodland on a steep hill- side, extending for a mile or so round the playing fields.
       It was here that I used to imagine myself a backwoodsman trapper and Scout. I used to creep about warily looking for “sign” and getting “close up” observation of rabbits, squirrels, rats, and birds.
       As a trapper I set my snares, and when I caught a rabbit or hare (which wasn’t often) I learned by painful experiment to skin, clean, and cook him. But knowing that the Redskins were about, in the shape of masters looking for boys out of bounds, I used a very small non-smoky fire for fear of giving away my whereabouts.
       Incidentally, also, I gained sufficient cunning to hide up in trees when danger of this kind threatened, since experience told me that masters hunting for boys seldom looked upward. The Greeks made a bloomer when they styled man “anthropos,” or “he who looks up,” since in practice he generally fails to look above his own level.
       Thus, without knowing it I was gaining an education that was to be of infinite value to me later.
       It proved not only a help to me in the hunting of big game and also in the conduct of Scouting, but incidentally it started in me the habit of noticing small details or “sign” and of putting this and that together and so reading a meaning from them — in other words the invaluable habit of Observation and Deduction.