Marching into Preston history with Scout House Band

Preston Scout House Band. Four words that proudly took the town’s name across the country. Last week, Flash from the Past looked at the middle two: Scout House. Today, as we focus on the final word, that earlier column provides the backdrop.

Opening point of fact: there was not just one Scout House Band. Parsing the history, we detect four.

Band 1: Wilf Blum, the founder of 1st Preston Scout Troop in 1936 felt marching band music would be an important addition to the usual scouting activities. As owner of 1st Preston’s charter, he could make such decisions. The national Boy Scout organization reluctantly agreed if boys from other Preston troops could join.

Before long there were 24 buglers, four side drummers, a bass drummer, drum major and a four-man colour guard. Beginning in 1942, the band came to prominence as part of Preston’s war effort. On more than 140 Sundays, it paraded the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service — WRENS — from HMCS Conestoga training centre (the old Grandview School for Girls) to their church services. Through the 1940s, the band’s fame grew as its unique look and style captured audience favour wherever it played.

Band 2: Blum was a hard taskmaster, demanding complete commitment from the members while ignoring other aspects of scouting. This did not sit well with the Boy Scouts of Canada and, following Blum’s arbitrary 1953 uniform change, the band and the Scouts severed relations. Out went traditional Scout uniforms; in came feathered Aussie-style hats, red shirts and socks plus the eyecatching shorter and tighter black shorts. Since the Scout House itself was in Blum’s name, it remained the band’s home.

One of Preston’s most famous figures — dressed entirely in white — was soon leading the band. Paul Bauer’s fast-striding flamboyance came to symbolize the band from 1953 to 1961 as he redefined the role of drum major. The band’s ostentatious flashiness, as much as its music, won Preston Scout House Band many honours in the 1950s while participating in competitions, tattoos, festivals and show band concerts. Controversy within the organization in the mid-1960s, plus technical changes in official drum corps rules, caused the band’s demise in April 1967.

Band 3: We can lump together several “revival” incarnations of the Scout House Band in the 1970s through 1990s. New organizers found it impossible to bottle the Scout House magic although a 1976 to 1983 version was briefly successful.

Band 4: Wilf Blum died in December 1992, four years after a grand reunion of Scout House Band’s members honoured him. A number of alumnae formed a support group with a colour guard in 1993 followed by a drill team plus drum and horn lines. This resulted in the Scout House Alumni Band (SHAB) recreating some of the thrills of the earlier years. Out of that initial late-90s resuscitation, came the present-day band. Today’s members, male and female, teens and adults, have no connection with Boy Scouts of Canada. The more than 200 members (musicians, executive and associate support volunteers) have experience in 70-plus marching music organizations. In two-decades-plus, SHAB, operating under the umbrella legal name of Preston Scout House Band Inc, has played more than 500 shows, parades and concerts throughout Ontario, Quebec and many U.S. states.

Eight decades-plus of Scout House music continues: the Scout House does not! In the 1970s, the building was given to the City of Cambridge although scouting activities continued inside. Then in 1987, Scouts Canada took over ownership, and numerous community organizations — Scout-oriented or not — used the facility.

A deal between Cambridge and Scouts Canada in mid-2019 saw the deed returned to the city. Various Scout House alumni groups and other community organizations had to scramble for new practice space. The deal stipulated no public use for six months by anyone.

It is now over two years and the Scout House is still usually closed up tight and in one nearby resident’s words, “Deteriorating rapidly.”

Preston’s Greg Pautler has supplied an original of the 1947 Montreal Standard article featuring the Scout House. Send me an email if you would like a PDF copy.

GREG PAUTLER PHOTOS Shortly after splitting from the Boy Scouts of Canada in 1954, the Scout House Band shows off its controversial new red, black and white, non-Scout uniforms. Led here by drum major Paul Bauer, the band marches along King Street East in Preston.

When the Montreal Standard featured the Preston Scout House and its associated Boy Scout organizations in 1947, they received nationwide fame. Here, inside the Scout House, Eagle Patrol is examined by assistant Scout master Gilles Bourque.

With Gordon Pass Furniture and the K-W Record office behind him, Paul Bauer is seen in his prime as Preston Scout House Band drum major in the 1950s. Paul has been an honoured guest in several Scout House Band events over the past decade.