10:50am Tuesday 3rd April 2007
By Hollye Blades
As with many scout groups in the Royal borough, there is an official record of a 2nd Malden scout troop in 1910, when there was a mass registration of the groups that had opened in the initial rush of enthusiasm two years earlier.
The group then, however, disappears from all records and is it not known where it met or how many scouts were members.
There have been suggestions that many groups closed during World War One because their leaders were called up by the services. The lack of records at this time suggests this fate also befell 2nd Malden.
The group resurfaces in 1931 at New Malden Methodist Church, where it remained for more than seven decades, until moving in 2003 to its current headquarters in St Joseph's Catholic Church.
In 1999, the group once again struggled to find leaders and saw both the beaver colony and the scout troop close, leaving just a small cub pack.
It was only thanks to Father Peter Edwards, parish priest of St Joseph's and himself a former 5th Kingston scout, that the group remained open at all.
In 2003, he carried out a church census which revealed that 12 adults and 60 children would be interested in forming a scout group.
As a result, 2nd Malden was relaunched, and now has more than 75 members.
'Scouting helped us get through the war'
A 2nd Malden scout between 1941 and 1956, former group president Ken Hawkins died at Christmas last year.
Earlier that year, he wrote down some memories of being a scout in New Malden during the war years.
He wrote: "Beverley School, at which I was a pupil, was a hotbed of scouting in the early 1940s, in as much that if you were not already recruited to a troop, you were very soon recruited into one. So I joined 2nd Malden, for no other reason than a large percentage of my pals were already members.
"Our meetings were weekly, air raids permitting, and there were regular church parades as well, when we would meet at the Fountain, behind the trolley-bus stop, and march down the High Street to the church.
"We had our own trek-cart (with inflatable tyres, an innovation in those days) and I can recall helping to pull that cart from Malden to Polyapes, out in Surrey, for a few days camping.
"As the war progressed, meetings were often cancelled, especially when The Blitz became severe and also because many of the boys were evacuated to various parts of the UK.
"I was taken by my mother to a place near Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset.
"It was wonderful, practically no school for many months, so we were able to involve ourselves in beachcombing and cycling.
"But in order to fulfil the void in our scouting lives, we joined up with the 3rd Burnham troop. We were warmly accepted into the group, whose HQ was the former lifeboat house on the seafront at Burnham. It was sad to leave, but I made a promise I would return with the 2nd Malden troop to Somerset for a summer camp as soon as the hostilities were over.
"This, I am pleased to relate, was a promise that I was able to keep.
"It was in the latter months of 1944 that 2nd Malden got back to something like a normal routine. Uniforms and camping equipment caused a major headache, with both often being in short supply.
"Our main source of purchase for equipment was Bob Simister's Scout Shop in Kingston, known to all in the movement locally as Bob's.
"Food was a problem, because there were still shortages and rationing of various foods was still in force until the late 1940s.
"Malden scout groups at this time had a very good football team, organised by 2nd Malden. All our home matches were played on the Beverley School pitch and our main rivals were undoubtedly the Barnardo Boys from Kingston. They would turn out in immaculate kit supplied by Arsenal FC while we all managed to scrounge white shirts and black shorts.
"New Malden, being a suburb approximately 12 miles from London, faced the German daytime and night-time bombing raids. This brought a new aspect into the scouting programme - aircraft recognition. We all became most proficient at recognising various aircraft, not only by sight but also by sound."
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