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New start: 1st Hampstead Heath leader William Nawrocki with Tobias Costa, 7, Anna Nawrocki, 7 and friends at Gospel Oak Primary School yesterday (Wednesday) |
Scouts’ new-found appeal is so ‘cool’
First meeting in a decade for 1st Hampstead
DIG out the shorts, sound the kudu horn and “be prepared” – the scouts are back in Hampstead, and this time they’re cool.
For the past 10 years not so much as a friendship knot has been seen between Highgate and West Hampstead.
But the 1st Hampstead Heath Scout Group, which came together for its first meeting in a decade last night (Wednesday), promises to change all that and “dyb dyb dyb” – that’s do their best to you and me.
They take up the mantle of one of the oldest groups in the world, the Hampstead troop, formed in 1908, just one year after Robert Baden-Powell trialled the idea with two groups of boys on Brownsea Island.
William Nawrocki, group leader, insists people should not get their woggles twisted between the new scouts and the old.
He said: “The scouts have been completely reformed. It’s not just a litany of what kids were doing 100 years ago or about sitting in scout halls and saluting the flags. There’s no dictator scout masters any more – if that does happen the kids vote with their feet.”
The scouts have undergone a radical facelift in the past decade.
Gone are the starched, “olive-drab” uniforms and military tone; now members can wear what they like and earn badges in Street Sports or IT. And it is no longer a boys’ club – girls are welcome, as are parents.
Magda Weekes, 13, said: “In the old days if you went to scouts people would say ‘oh you freak’. Now it’s a way of making you look cool. I cycled 50 miles last weekend, and when I was 10 I abseiled an 80-metre rock.”
Mr Nawrocki, whose scout name is Chil after the Jungle Book bird who rescues Mowgli, added: “It’s getting away from your parents in a safe environment. We have discos and climbing. Too many kids sit in front of the TV from the moment they get home from school until they go to bed. The message is: don’t stay in watching TV, come out with us.”
The Camden, City and Islington Scout District has 18 groups, with 800 youth members and counting.
The scouts are now active in more than 200 countries, with 28 million members worldwide.
The handbook Scouting for Boys is the fourth most popular book of all time.
Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, who praised the continuing importance of the scouts in a BBC centenary documentary last year, hailed the 1st Hampstead’s return as “good news” and added: “I wish them all the best.”
The 1st Hampstead Heath will now be meeting every Wednesday at Gospel Oak Primary School, Mansfield Road. Beavers (6-8years) meet from 6pm-7pm, cubs (8-11) and scouts (11-15) from 7pm-8.30pm. |
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