Custer muster for Chief Scout’s visit (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Custer muster for Chief Scout’s visit

6:05pm Friday 5th June 2009 in

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IN May 1960, it was scouts, cubs, guides and brownies flooding through the turnstiles at Accrington Stanley’s football ground.

For they were taking part in a scouting rally, and the chief guest was Chief Scout Sir Charles MacLean, who arrived in his tartan kilt.

He was welcomed by the Mayor of Accrington, Coun N Bentley, and then went on to inspect a number of Queen’s Scouts and Guides, as seen in our photograph.

Youngsters had arrived at the rally by train and coach from all over the area, while the Accrington contingent had marched in parade from the town centre.

Hundreds of cubs combined in colourful displays, dressing up as red Indians, monkeys, sailors, and clowns.

Triumphant in the display were Blackburn cubs, with 200 staging Custer’s last stand, while troops from Accrington got together to enact a sea fight, with two realistic-looking destroyers, with rockets and thunder flashes.

Others showed off their prowess at putting up tents, starting fires and physical training.

Later in the day, Sir Charles addressed 150 scout masters at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Blackburn, before scouts from its own troop staged a special stunt.

Kidnapped and put under a spell by five ‘witches’ – Michael Howard, Trevor Barton, Michael Stirrup, Paul ‘Fred’ Haslam, and Chris Mercer, he was rescued by a ‘fairy with beefy-looking legs’ in the shape of Ernie Matthews, who swooped down from the night sky on a rope to release him.

l Have you any pictures, or stories, from your young days in the scout, or guide, movement?