Happy days before health and safety
FOLLOWING the wonderful Scouting pictures in the Mail, here is a photo of 6th Monkseaton Guides leaving for camp in Northumberland in 1955. We are piled on top of our kit bags, tents and camping gear in a builder’s lorry — with bald tyres! Waving us off are our families, including my mother carrying my brother on her shoulder. No health and safety in those days!
MY FIRST camping trip was with 1st Hertford Scouts on the cliffs near Herne Bay, Kent, in 1957. We put up the tents in the driving rain and, as we didn’t have the luxury of sewn-in ground sheets, we had to avoid rivulets of rainwater creeping into the tents. Latrines needed to be dug and surrounded by hessian sheets, with tufts of grass tied on a string to signal to others that the toilet was engaged. In those days, verbal discipline and clear guidance from our leaders was all that was needed to maintain safety in the camp. The freedom we thrived on would not be permitted today — and more’s the pity. Sitting on wet grass (Mail) was the least of our worries. ROBERT LOGAN, Stevenage, Herts.