They were prepared ... and saw off threat
Campaigners ‘save’ statue to Scouts founder
Many thought the rumours were a silly hoax – until they heard it on the news. Others had already made a beeline for the waterfront just in case. By the time council contractors arrived at Poole Quay yesterday to explore the removal of one of the town’s best-known landmarks, a posse of residents was already making one thing clear: Robert Baden-Powell would not be going anywhere, least of all into the harbour in front of him.
The founder of the Scouting movement – currently inspiring 28 million young people worldwide to better things – has found himself on the hit-list of famous dead men whose statues must be expunged from our streets in the name of anti-racism. So say ‘Topple The Racists’, the self-appointed commissars who have enjoyed remarkable success in reconfiguring public spaces and public discourse following the toppling of Bristol slaver, Edward Colston, in to the River avon last weekend.
nervous local authorities across Britain have now pledged to vet their streetscapes for inappropriate vestiges of imperialism.
However, the movement suffered its first reverse here in Dorset yesterday. Having initially announced it was removing Lord Baden-Powell’s statue from Poole Quay, ostensibly for its own safety, the local council then caved in to vehement local opposition.
‘as soon as I heard what they were planning to do, I thought: “I’m going straight down” and I was here within the hour,’ said Viv Endecott, pointedly taking a seat alongside ‘B-P’ (as the original Scoutmaster called himself). ‘I find it hard to think of anyone who has done more good for young people than Baden-Powell.’
a bold claim, perhaps, but Viv insisted that she was speaking from personal experience. ‘I can still tell you the day I made my Guide’s promise – august 2nd 1972 – and it made a huge difference to me. I was the first non-white girl in my village and it gave me huge confidence.’ an active Ranger Guide Leader well in to her twenties, she has since drawn on her British-Indian heritage to write a book called ‘Exploring Englishness’. and she was taking no lessons in anti-racism from an outfit like ‘Topple The Racists’: ‘If you’re looking to put up a statue to someone without sin, then you’re going to be waiting a long time.’
EVEN Baden-Powell’s harshest detractors –who have accused him of homophobia, racist conduct during the Boer War and, latterly, an admiration for the Hitler youth – could hardly describe this as a triumphalist sculpture. It depicts him in old age leaning on his stick and looking across to Brownsea Island, the birthplace of the scouting movement and still a woodland utopia, full of red squirrels, which feels like something out of the Famous Five.
The statue was erected with two upturned bronze logs on either side, encouraging passers-by to sit next to the man himself. It’s an interactive piece, not an exercise in glorification, one which serves more as a monument to scouting than to its founder. you have to look hard and crouch down to read the plaque explaining that the figure is the ‘Founder of the Scout Movement’.
Paid for by well-wishers, Tesco and the freemasons among others, it was unveiled in 2008 to mark the centenary of the publication of BadenPowell’s Scouting for Boys, following that first camp on Brownsea. To this day, scouts from all over the world make a pilgrimage to the island. The ferries leave from this spot, hence the location of the statue.
all those to whom I talked yesterday acknowledged that BadenPowell had his flaws and that some of his views would have no place in modern society. ‘ But you can’t choose your history. Just look at all the good things that man did,’ said retired builder Len Banister, 79, theatrically brandishing his two walking poles like swords in front of the statue. Len still remembers the jamboree in 1957 to mark the 50th anniversary of that first Brownsea camp. ‘It’s thanks to him that I’m still hiking and still mobile. and if they try to take that statue away, then I’ll chain myself to it!’
There was no sign of anyone arguing for Baden-Powell’s permanent removal, to the thinly-veiled disappointment of one or two well-built middle-aged men who were clearly ready for a spot of confrontation.
One man draped ‘B-P’ in an England football flag and warned that he would be heading to London this weekend with some fellow supporters of Bournemouth FC to ‘defend’ Churchill’s Westminster statue from any further graffiti.
What was striking were the number of people who wanted to express their concern at the possible removal of an important local fixture while being terrified that their actions might somehow be construed as ‘racist’. Many simply felt that it was time for a line to be drawn but did not feel comfortable giving their names. One who reluctantly agreed was teacher Jane Wilson.
‘We can’t stand by and watch culture just being erased,’ she told me, holding up a banner saying ‘British History Matters’. ‘you cannot possibly argue with “Black Lives Matter” but you can’t argue with the fact that history matters, too.’
APPLAUSE broke out at the arrival of two Rover Scout Leaders, in immaculate uniforms. Chris arthur, 54, and Matt Trott, 28, had driven from Cwmbran, south Wales. as the reopened kiosks did a slow trade in ice-creams and fish and chips, a delegation appeared from the council (a jumbo authority incorporating Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and run by an anti-Tory/independent coalition). Deputy leader, Mark Howell admitted that, despite being the cabinet member for culture, he had not thus far been consulted on the matter and it had not been handled well. However, he defended his leader’s decision that the statue should be taken away – temporarily – following a police warning that it had been listed on a protest website. So why not protect the statue in situ rather than give in to a possible protest?
‘We could declare that we are not going to be bullied but then you might see a vulnerable work of art get damaged and we’d be blamed for that,’ he told me. ‘The alternative is to take protective action which is what we plan to do. and then we can put the statue back when this thing has died down. We want to see it remain there for many years to come, not to see it have its head chopped off and thrown in the sea.’
Mr Howell said the initial removal plans had been curtailed by a huge media presence – including a Russian film crew – and the number of locals. ‘you can’t start building work with so many gathered around,’ he said, adding that the statue would be dug up later quickly and quietly when no one was looking.
a few hours later, the council revised its position, saying the statue was a little sturdier than anyone thought. It will now be given 24-hour protection, pending uprooting at a later date. Or maybe not. The statement said: ‘although we cannot say when any temporary removal may take place, we will be providing 24-hour security until it is either removed or the threat diminishes. Should the statue be removed temporarily, we will return it to the Quay as soon as the threat level subsides.’
So, for now, Baden-Powell still looks across to his old encampment. Having survived the 217-day Siege of Mafeking – which made him a hero of Victorian Britain – he has endured worse. If the monument police do come calling, they will find that the locals have not forgotten Baden-Powell’s first law of scouting: ‘Be prepared’.
ROBERT Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts Association, was a Boer War veteran who believed in Empire, God and the King.
He saw Britain as the world’s pre-eminent nation, prized personal honour above all things, and thought homosexuality a sin.
Today, all of those beliefs could be attacked or sneered at – some with good reason. But in the 1920s and 30s, they were held by the majority of the population.
One thing Baden-Powell was not, however, was an apologist for Nazism – unlike most of the British Left, who shamelessly condoned Stalin’s 1939 non-aggression pact with Hitler.
Indeed, Baden-Powell was in Hitler’s ‘Black Book’ of prominent figures to be imprisoned after the conquest of Britain.
Tragically, he’s now on another hit list. Left-wing agitators want to tear down his statue in Poole Harbour on the grounds he was homophobic, racist and a fascist sympathiser. The local council is now considering removing it.
This would be a craven act of surrender to cultural vandals whose ignorance matches their arrogance. We are in the midst of a Maoist-style culture war in which the Left hopes to obliterate swathes of history. They should be challenged, not appeased.
Baden-Powell may have had flaws, but so did Gandhi and Mandela. His true legacy was a great movement which spread the gospel of healthy exercise, consideration, discipline and fellowship to generations of young people across the world.
Unlike Poole council, they would all have been taught that you should never kowtow to a bully. If you do, they’ll just keep coming back for more.