Tunes of glory (From Surrey Comet)

Tunes of glory

4:35pm Wednesday 14th March 2007 in

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The young, fit, patriotic men who comprised Kingston and District's 37 scoutmasters and assistant scoutmasters in 1914 were among the first to volunteer for active service.

So were many of their 500 young charges, many of whom added a year or two to their ages to enlist.

They paid a high price. Of the 150,000 scouters who volunteered for the Front, 10,000 were killed in action and many more seriously wounded.

And no fewer than 11 scouters won the highest award for valour, the Victoria Cross.

Seventy of the war dead had been scouts with Kingston and District, who decided on a unique memorial to their altruism.

After years of saving (every scout regularly contributed one penny), aided by donations from Surrey Playing Fields Association and the association's president, Paul Typke, they bought an eight-acre camping field at Stoke d'Abernon, and on it erected a war memorial designed by sculptor Ward Willis, and cast at Burton's famous foundry in Thames Ditton.

It's a bronze figure of a boy scout, mounted on granite. He grasps the stave carried by all scouts at that time and, leaning slightly forwards, looks out towards the North Downs.

The sculptor's purpose was "to convey the expectancy and the courage to go forward into the uncertainties of the future after surviving the difficulties of the past".

The model for the statue was Philip Radford, a scout with the 1st Molesey Troop, who was tragically killed in a road accident soon afterwards.

Fronting the plinth is a bronze panel bearing the names of the 70 dead and the inscription: "To the glory of God and in memory of the Boy Scouts of the Kingston and District Association who have gone home in the course of duty 1914-18".

The scout sign for "gone home" is placed between the dates, and surrounding the monument are 13 stone boulders representing the troops from which the fallen scouters belonged.

Two thousand scouts and their families gathered for its unveiling in 1929, and heard the district commissioner, FR Steadman say the memorial was intended to be "a continual inspiration to all boys to carry out their duty as scouts in whatever form it might present itself".

No one could have guessed that World War II would again put local scouts to the test, and that another 58 names would be added to the memorial.

• Another 16.5 acres was added to the memorial ground in 1938, which today is known to thousands of scouts as the gloriously scenic camp site, Polyapes (which means many bees).