The Beginning

I was in the checkout at Tesco with a mountain of food and I began to wonder just what was I doing and why was I there.
This wasn't your everyday weekly shopping trip, this was epic. 8 huge boxes of cereal, 8 cartons of custard, 10 cakes, bags and bags of crisps, hundreds of marshmallows, kilos of cheese, 24 pints of milk, boxes and boxes of fruit and veg, enough food to feed an army. In fact, enough food to feed over 30 hungry Scouts and their leaders.
I had been given the task of planning the camp.
The woman at the checkout asked me "Stocking up are you?"
"Long story." I said.
Here is that story.

I started my scouting career in Beavers when I was about 6, I don't remember a lot from back then. Of course, I was young, Beavers don't do much compared with Cubs and Scouts and you're only in Beavers for two years anyway so it's not much of a mystery.

I have more memories from my time in Cubs, the first specific memory I have is during a sleepover at the scout hall where one of the things we did was an environmental survey of a local river. We would take water samples at various places along the river and measure the acidity to see what effect the local power station and other industry had on the water.

Another set of memories comes from another sleepover, this time in Lymington. My parents came along to help out and we slept in our Sixes, in little rooms alongside the main hall. We had a trip to Brownsea Island and I remember having a walk along the harbour looking at the boats.

I also remember the terrible old minibus we used to have, it was a yellow ford transit with bench seats along the sides, no seat belts or anything. It was always breaking down and we would always muck about in the back, pushing each other along the benches.