The 1st Mumbles Scouts by Derek Robinson

Photo: The 1948 1st Mumbles Scout Camp Crickhowell

The 1st Mumbles Scouts
by Derek Robinson

My Dad, Derek was involved 1944-52 and these are some of the memories he wrote down especially camping on Gower with their trek cart. The troop met on a Friday night in the large corrugated iron roofed wooden shed in a lane just off upper Queen’s Rd. We shared the Scout shed with 3rd Mumbles but they met on a different night and we rarely met or spoke as scouts. They were a Sea Scout troop (‘Wet Bobs’), you see, and we were land scouts (‘Brown Jobs’). Early in 1944 the Scout Master (SM), ‘Skip’ we called him, was Len Evans who ran The Bon Bon shop in Newton Road. When he left (in 1946) members of the Rover Crew filled the gap. They were an enthusiastic bunch, full of ideas and energy, and formed an excellent leadership team. This stop-gap arrangement became fairly permanent. John (‘‘Chops’’) Williams was nominally in charge ably assisted by Paul (Polly) Le Bars, Ron Williams, Brian (Duckie) Tucker, and Reg Hopkins. When ‘‘Chops’’ moved away from Mumbles (around 1950) Ron Williams took over the SM role. Then, when Ron was called to his National Service, first Brian (Ben) Evans and later Ken Barrington became SM. We played some fairly rough games in the shed, ‘British Bulldogs’, and ‘Strong Horses/Weak Donkeys’ were particular favourites. We also held mock camp-fires from time to time. The land on the seaward side of Overland Road had yet to be developed and on troop nights in summer months we would play ‘wide games’ on Rotherslade cliffs where the bracken and other vegetation provided excellent cover for hides, stalking, mock ambushes, and the like. One way and another, as Mike Timothy says, ‘The evenings always shot by’. Raw materials of all kinds were in short supply during and immediately after the War. There was a ready market for such things as old 78 rpm records, bottles, paper. Using the trek cart, we did quite a lot of collecting for troop funds usually on Saturday mornings and held fairly regular Jumble Sales with our hard-gotten gains. The troop’s trek cart was very serviceable. It had a shallow flat deck, with removable sides and large iron-shod wheels, and was pulled by a pair of scouts, one each side of a single bar, while others pulled forward or hauled back using side ropes. None of our parents had cars or other means to transport us to camps and so we would pile tents, food, and equipment for a patrol of 6 lads for a weekend on the trek cart and pull it by hand to the chosen site somewhere in the Gower. It had the advantage that it could be broken down to its constituent parts (like the field guns at the Royal Tournament), taken across a river by ropeway, and re-assembled on the other side. We often practiced this manoeuvre which was also of practical use in that we could readily take the trek cart by rail or coach to distant camps and use it there. ‘A favourite tradition for the Norton lads was to buy a 6d packet of chips at Johnny's in Chapel St afterwards. The special sensation of trudging home past the castle walls and ‘across the Limekilns’ on dark and frosty nights with scalding hot chips in mouth and steam rising from our packets remains fresh with us 65 years later.’We undertook fairly frequent patrol camps. Parc le Breos (Parkmill) was a popular venue. To get there a patrol of six would drag the fully laden trek cart up Newton Hill; through the narrow lanes to Murton; and ease it down Manselfield, making sure it didn’t run away on us. Once below Bishopston church we would let the cart go so as to develop enough momentum to carry us as far as possible up Barlands Hill. At times the cart was moving as fast as our legs would carry us and maintaining control became problematic. Next came the long up-hill drag to Kittle hamlet and thence through the lane past Pennard Church and Kilvrough manor and down the narrow winding, wall-lined, main road to Parkmill. The risks were significant and few parents or leaders would dream of allowing such a journey nowadays. But we did many such trips, unsupervised, and never gave a thought to the dangers. Other patrol camps were held at Summerlands, Newton, in the Caswell and Bishopston valleys, at Pwll Du, and at Ilston. For obvious reasons annual Troop camps were not very practicable during the War years. Then, in 1946 1st Mumbles recommenced the pattern with a camp at Summerlands, Caswell (a home ground, so to speak). The 1947 annual camp was at Manordeilo some 5 miles up the Towy Valley from Llandeilo. We travelled by LMS train from Victoria station, Swansea to Llandeilo and then changed to another train which we had arranged to stop at Manordeilo Halt (not a proper station and seemingly in the middle of nowhere). From there we ferried our gear about a mile by trek cart to Glanrhyd Isaf farm where we camped.

The 1948 1st Mumbles Scout Camp Crickhowell. Photo: Derek Robinson

The 1948 annual camp was held in August on a private estate at Glangrwynyg near Crickhowell in the Usk valley. Our campsite was in a well-wooded, secluded and wholly charming little tributary valley with both trout and salmon in the nearby stream (not that they were 'available' to us). The whole set-up was just about perfect. We did everything, including cooking, on a patrol basis and ‘Chops’ Williams ran a continual competition throughout the camp and even provided a winner’s trophy. Traditionally, we had a massive campfire on the last night of every annual camp. Everyone was expected to join in, the more experienced folk supplied solo items and there were also some hardy perennials - traditional items - such as Ron Williams’ rendering of "Abdul Abulbul Amir". In the first week of August 1950 1st Mumbles went by Campbell's paddle steamer from the Mumbles pier to Ilfracombe and then by bus to our annual camp site just outside Appledore. The camp was enjoyable though the weather was iffy. One event lives on in memory: A small group of Rovers and Senior Scouts ventured out to a local pub. There, a group of ancient worthies was playing cribbage in the inglenook. They looked as if they had been there since the pub was built and would continue indefinitely. Returning from a visit to the toilet one of them found that someone had drunk his glass of cider. He glared round the table and declared emphatically, in broadest North Devon burr, "Thur be three koinds av rabin: Rabin 'ood: Rabin Redbreast: And thee, tha' rabin' barstard!" The 1951 camp was at Laugharne (home of Dylan Thomas); and that in 1953 at Kentchurch, near Pontrilas, Herefordshire. In 1954 the troop was back at Manordeilo (with Ron Williams and Burnie Davies in charge) and in 1955 1st and 3rd Mumbles shared their annual camp at Newbridge-on-Wye, Radnor.

Acknowledgment:

Thanks to Paul Robinson for sharing his father’s memories