Sad News from the Sea Cadets

On the subject of British sea cadets, the following is from The Times.

Sir, Martin Samuel’s article (“Heroin is hard work. You don’t drift into it”, Sept 26) is skilfully written but seeks ultimately to equate the dangers of taking heroin with that of joining the Sea Cadets.

Christopher Preece was no longer a cadet at the time of this death. While he was a cadet his behaviour was exemplary and we offer our sincerest condolences to his family.

The Sea Cadets provide opportunities to more than 14,000 young people across the country to participate positively with other young people engaging in a multitude of activities such as drill, sailing, canoeing and catering. They get to meet other young people nationally and internationally at a huge number of courses, events and competitions. These activities provide life skills, citizenship and leadership development. The activities also seek to relieve the boredom of the teenage years that Mr Samuel’s article highlights correctly as being one of the principal causes of drug use.

Only a small fraction of the 14,000 join the Royal Navy, although those who do join ultimately turn out to be the ones the Navy retains the longest. The Royal Navy needs this to carry on the fight against the many dangers we face, one of which, of course, is preventing the traffic of drugs into this country.

More than 9,500 volunteers give up a huge amount of their spare time changing the lives of young people and their communities for the better. Average uniformed volunteers will give 16.6 hours a week supporting their local unit, a substantial amount of which is involved in fundraising to keep the self-financing units running.

An indication of the challenge and the rewards that face our volunteers is that 40 per cent of cadets come from single-parent backgrounds and from areas that the Government describes as being of multiple deprivation.

It is for these reasons Mr Samuel’s conclusion causes immense offence.

Mike Cornish
Chief Executive
Marine Society and Sea Cadets

Russian Sailors

As it happens I can't be sure whether they're actual young sailors or just sea cadets.

A Relaxing Foot Massage

After a long hike, it's just what you need. (OK, I've never had one, but just watching is fairly soothing.)

The HJs Again!

Because I don't actually speak German, I have a certain difficulty telling whether this video is really pro- or anti-.

Jolly Handsome

Handsome and jolly young Brazilian lad here!

Vlaams Nationaal Jeugdverbond (VNJ)

There's a lovely article on the Historical Boys' Uniform site here about the Vlaams Nationaal Jeugdverbond (VNJ). Basically they're a Flemish nationalist youth movement and they where a Scout-type uniform, with nice short leather shorts and also scarves.

Still no sign of anything like that emerging in this country, but then considering that the VNJ are very nationalistic that's probably a Good Thing.

The Future

There's something horrific about computers. But there's something positively demonic about computer-games. The sheer lack of life and freshness about them, the utter emptiness of sociability they inculcate, the deadening mindlessness of their subject matter! What boys need are real things, outside, in the Real World. What they're given, more often than not, is electronic nonsense, inside, where the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow.

Is this the future their grandparents would have wanted for them?

Eric

Brazilian Scouts

Summer Camp 1944

The "original" (as in, from 1944), on the other hand, is just here.

Summer Camp

Here's a delightful little video I just found on YouTube. It's actually a clip from the 1996 film Der Unhold, (The Ogre) which stars John Malkovich as a Frenchman convicted of kiddie fiddling who ends up working for Goering by recruiting handsome young lads to join the HJs.

Haven't seen it, but it sounds interesting!

Early one morning, in the quiet of the world...

War

It's worth remembering that although what we think of as "Scouting" today, according to the Baden-Powell method, is in fact Peace Scouting, nonetheless it really has its origins in the military. Boy Scouts specifically have always been used, especially under conditions of near "total war", such as in civil and colonial wars.

I'm not sure which war this is from - or even if these boys are French, for that matter!

Der morgige Tag ist mein

Obviously Cabaret is one of the gayest films ever made. (Lisa Minnelli, for crying out loud!) And this particular scene works much better on the stage. The song 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me' is actually a chilling/thrilling pastiche of the sort of volkische stuff the Hitler Jugend actually used to sing - so much so that when the play first came out in Germany there were former HJs who protested that it brought back bad memories for them of their having been made to sing those very same words as children. More to the point, and especially if you ignore the incongruous way it's sung in this clip (by a dyed-blonde boy with too-even teeth and beauty-spots), it's also hugely charming little lied. In the stage-version its a song that's reprised several times in the first act in between scenes, normally by stage-hands as they move furniture around. It's only at the end of Act I, with the "Fatherland, Fatherland"-verse and the salute, that it becomes clear what the song's really about. Unlike in the film-version, which features the two fey male characters slipping smugly away, on stage it actually makes for an engaging climax to the first half of the play (the second half of which, like the Third Reich itself, sadly doesn't even nearly live up to the promise of its beginning).

The German version is on line here.

The Original Scout Salute

Strange but true!

Actually I think this picture was taken in America, where the salute was virtually the same as the salute ("raised hand", at any rate) for making the Pledge of Allegiance. This old way of doing things I believe pertained in America up until the 1930s, when it suddenly became politically incorrect - for some reason.

Hitler Youth

I've mentioned the Hitler Youth a couple of times with relevance to Scouting here and here. These pics are just a few that I've found on the 'Net. [H/T: Here]

Templar Knights

There's a picture of the controversial German artist Otto Lohmüller with his "Templar Knights" Scout troop here. They look fairly traditional, although if I were being bitchy cynical I might suggest that this could be for aesthetic reasons rather than to do with actual traditional Scouting.

Lohmüller has also written - not to mention illustrated - a number Scouting novels, similar apparently to the French children's books illustrated by Pierre Joubert. One is actually listed on the Riaumont website here. On the cover of one of them, interestingly, he actually uses a cross very similar to the Scouts of Europe cross (a not, despite their name, the Cross of Jerusalem ☩ normally used by the Riaumont and Doran Scouts in France other Catholic Scouts in the same tradition).

Lemonade

Well, I've been in a fairly grim mood recently, and this was too good to use just once. It fits the rubric of this blog just about, and although I don't know whether either of these boys actually is a Scout it is the sort of things that Scouts used to do.

Anon

I found this boy on the 'Net here. I'm guessing either Riaumont or Doran.

The Historical Boys Uniforms site mentions lederhosen.

The HBU site is a good resource clearly, but a lot of the pictures are only accessible to subscribers.

Swiss Scouts

From the PowerBoys blog! (Whatever the rubric at the top of the blog may say, they're definitely not all over 18.) The same blogger I think has more pics from these Scouts' summer camp this year here and here.