World War I tunes of glory (From Surrey Comet)

World War I tunes of glory

4:40pm Tuesday 27th March 2007

• Print
• Email
• Share

With so many scout groups in the Royal Borough of Kingston claiming to be founded in 1908 and registered in April 1909, it is difficult to say without doubt which is the oldest.

1st Malden Scout Group is one of five or six vying for the title and it has good reason to do so. It is certainly one of the only groups in Kingston to have never closed or amalgamated with another in its 100-year history and kept going through two world wars.

"When I was 18, I joined the Royal Navy, and when we used to dock the ship into ports around the world, the first thing we did was look up local scout groups and we always got a tremendous welcome. Scouting just becomes a way of life, a way of making friends.”

Harry Ward

Based in Tadworth Avenue, the group consists of a beaver colony, two cub packs and a scout group.

History

The 1st Malden Scout group was founded in the summer of 1908 and formally registered at Imperial Headquarters on April 8, 1909. Their first scoutmaster was Mr W Odom and, when the cub pack was registered on February 4 1914, his sister became the first cub mistress.

Their original group headquarters was a wooden shed in Acacia Grove in New Malden and in 1910, the group moved to a timber pavilion on a disused rifle range at the top of Alric Avenue which had been provided for them by Paul Typke, the president of the rifle club.

When the rifle club closed in 1913, Mr Typke had the pavilion moved to the garden of his home in Sycamore Grove where the scout group continued to meet.

When World War I broke out in August 1914, the scout troop was camping on the Isle of Wight where it immediately volunteered help and was given the duty of guarding the local water works. The then scout band attached to the group also had the task of riding around Old Malden on their bicycles sounding the "all clear" on bugles after the Zeppelin raids.

When Mr Typke died in 1931, he left the group a sum of money to start a building fund and it was eventually agreed in July 1933 to purchase a plot of land, one-third of an acre, in Tadworth Avenue.

The timber headquarters was moved for the second time to the new plot and used temporarily until a new brick building was erected the following year. Most of the internal work in the new headquarters, such as lighting, plumbing and decorating, was actually carried out by the scouts themselves.

Unfortunately, in August 1975, a fire on the stage at one end of the building caused extensive damage to the headquarters, and many of the group records and photos from the past six decades were lost.

In the late 1970s, the group expanded to include two cub packs (Scott and Shackleton packs) but as the number of extra-curricular activities at local schools grew in the 1980s, scout numbers fell and Scott pack closed.

In 1989, the beaver colony was founded, creating a steady stream of boys from the colony to the cub packs and into the scout troop. At one stage in the 1990s, the group looked set to close when numbers dropped to single figures but the decision in 1996 to allow girls to join 1st Malden saved the troop once again and numbers began to rise. In 2005, a second cub pack was once again reopened and named Cambridge.

Memories

In memoirs written in 1975 about his time as a scout with 1st Malden, former group scout leader Mr J R Turk, said: "A gentleman and a great personality, Mr Typke was a pleasure to know. He supported us in every way and, being a Commissioner for the Kingston District, proudly wore his uniform when he visited us at our camps. He was over 70 years old at the time and always caused quite a sensation in his shorts among the guests of the very posh hotels at which we stopped near our camp sites.

"One thing for which we were indebted to Mr Typke in the 1920s was the loan of his firm's Foden steam waggons to transport up to 100 boys and their kit to and from summer camps which, after the first world war, were held for many years in the Bognor area. Being coal fired and powered by steam, they were very slow by today's standards, with a maximum speed of about 8mph.

"However, the great hazard was the real risk of running out of water and therefore steam. So a sharp look-out had to be kept for any likely stream alongside the road into which, usually without permission, we could fip the long length of hose so that the pump could suck up enough water to fill the boiler.

"A further disadvantage of this form of transport was that steam, mixed with the smoke and soot from the funnel, ruined our uniforms and made us all look like a lot of black minstrels after a few miles on the journey."

Harry Ward, 70 from Kingston, first joined 1st Malden in 1946 and has many fond memories of his time on camp.

In 1965, he became 1st Malden's group scout leader. He said: "It was great because there were nearly 90 boys in the troop at the time and a lot of them were good school friends of mine. We often went on camp down to the New Forest or locally around Cobham and in those days, the only holidays that we could really go on were scout camps.

"On camp, we mostly did pioneering, which is like building bridges with ropes and planks, and in the winter, once a month, we carried out maintenance of Polyapes.

"When I was 18, I joined the Royal Navy, and when we used to dock the ship into ports around the world, the first thing we did was look up local scout groups and we always got a tremendous welcome. Scouting just becomes a way of life, a way of making friends."

• Next week's Surrey Comet will look at the history of 2nd Malden scout group.

• To view more pics of today's 1st Malden Scouts click here

• Print
• Email
• Share