Whalley Abbey

 

Whalley Abbey, North Lancashire, the grounds of ayet another dissolved Abbey during the mid to late 1530's in what was and remains still the second biggest Roman Catholic area in the U.K, holding out against the protestant reformation and Cromwell in the 1650's

Jenny Brown's Point

 One of my favourt trails is Jenny Brown's Point,Silverdale just on the Lancashire/Westmorland Border circling the coast.

This is lovely trail from Hollins Lane, along the side of Leighton Moss, then onto the shore, it can be muddy, so you really need your boots on. 

This walk starts in woodland and then there is some pleasant estuary walking, some road and beach. If you venture further, you can go through the Jack Scout nature reserve which is a cliff that provides some excellent seascape views. 

Westmorland Hills

 Westmorland Hills.

Westmorland is an historic county of northwestern England, bounded on the north and west by Cumberland, on the southwest and southeast by Lancashire, on the east by Yorkshire, and on the northeast by Durham. 

I find those hills keep calling me back.

Coming soon but going back...

 (Pix credit 53A Models of Hull Collection)

Arrangements are in place to be away next week so we might was well start with something more historic that ties in, nay the historic, small railway station at Arnside, Westmorland not far from what will be our home base.

That I believe is a diesel local train passing around 1970 when I remember seeing and hearing a lot of that sort of train.

In the background is Morecambe Sands while in the town, you can see from the main street the viaduct over it.

I rather like it.

Something else to remember...

 

Sleeping bags come in a variety of shapes, thickness and sizes from "as snug as a bug in a rug" to something much more roomier and for me I tend to favour snug,

Ease of rolling up, ready to take further along is another relevant thing to be thought of in selecting one, many today easily compress with straps and draw strings to make life easier.

Over the years various national scouting associations have endorsed certain brands and this advertisment is a good example of just that.

Close to the edge

 

Exploring streams was and is something I like to do athough you do need to be careful around these parts due to subsidence affecting the land, looking for life within it and any signs of pollution which was an issue severals ago from a nearby paint factory.

It's also something you may encounter while away which I will be at the end of the month in Westmorland for a few days while on a hike across the fields.

Facing our challenges

 Today which just happens to be the 1,050th post as I'm working through the final things to be done before I'm away we'll take a look at some of the challenges we face.

There was a period during the 1990's where membership in Scouts and GirlGuiding was falling, not super dramatically as much as sometimes the popular press reports things around us is prone to do.

Sometimes you'd swear because we've been around for over hundred years, are seen as part of "The Establishment" with friends in high places, some take a certain pleasure in trying to knock us down.

Some of that was due to competition from the growth of youth outdoor challenges sector with people like PGL and some schools doing similar things to us, some because we're not uber cool rebranding ourselves frequently and at times we're guilty of not blowing our own trumpets.

One of the good things is the odd incident aside and with a lot of attention to safeguarding, we in Scouting are seen trustworthy, having value in a world that certainly has changed from I was a young lad, because the values and lessons Baden-Powell learned and promoted are universal and time honoured.

I can't say it enough, Covid and the Pandemic brought us as society a lot of issues beyond the deaths and damage to individuals medically.

It disrupted everyday socialization, language development and raised instances of anxiety especially with children and young adults,educators, welfare services and ourselves are dealing with but one of things we know is our programs, delivered with care, are helping.

Learning about things, learning to care for one another, learning facing setbacks to dust yourself off and get back upon your own two feet are all things valued and of help.

And parents and guardians know this so they are getting their children into our membership so it's not that surprising we are going through one of those periods where "The Waiting List" across the U.K in Scouts is around 107,000.

What is going on is simplifying the systems to transmit the neccessary training, reduce where we can unecessary paperwork and "red tape" that slows things down and puts off would be volunteers.

The way we atract volunteers is being reviewed and systems for interviews coupled with final selection so we'll be able to reduce that wait although across the voluntary and community sector we feel goverments could do more to help with volunteering in general.

We'll get there.

The past survives

 

One distinct advantage of this area is you don't have to travel huge distances to see and experience the past and indeed there is a lot of "past" in that picture.

The two main objects you can see are the Sandbach Crosses comprising of two 9th-century stone Anglo-Saxon crosses now erected in the market place in the town of Sandbach, Cheshire, England.

They are unusually large and elaborate examples of the type and are recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building and an scheduled monument.

 Either after the Reformation or during the Civil War they were thrown down by the Puritans and their parts were scattered over a wide area.

Larger pieces of the crosses were found as far away as Oulton and Tarporley while smaller pieces were found on various sites in Sandbach. 

In the early 19th century they were collected together and in 1816 were reassembled and erected under the direction of George Ormerod, the Cheshire historian.

Their survival is a chilling reminder of the dangers of religious extremism and of the will of the people over time to see to it that their heritage be restored

Sometimes the attempt to link places to areas formed centuries later for other reasons fails and that is the case here too as this was a part of the Kingdom Of Mercia, centred on Lichfield, Staffordshire and indeed walking about the town today reminds one of more Whitchurch or Stone than anywhere in the North.

An adventure for the pack

 

"Is everybody here?"

You can easily imagine yourself in with this cub pack all together for a super day's worth of adventures and action packed fun with your leader on a bright summers day.

You'd follow him anywhere at that age cos he really understood just the right balence balence between learning something new, letting you let your boyish funny side out and being in control so you are and feel safe. 

1997 and all that

 

Have a guess what it's doing outside this morning?

Yes, that's right, raining hard and very dull so I raided the shelf and in among the annuals I found one from 1997.

Well most of mine are from the 70's, the period cubbery ought to had been on the horizon through the 1980's which were only marginally different.

1996 was at the tail end of interest in British popular culture, music and the arts plus for some of us at least Euro 1996 footy but things were starting to change a little within scouting as while Scouts and above had mainly gone to long often mushroom coloured trousers, cubs was mainly short trousers still and not co-ed like today.

What did come in was the "activity" trouser a kind of trouser with pockets down the legs rather like combat styled shorts and the old cap was being replaced.

The mainstays of the actual program remained the same - cubs always was a juvenile programe for juveniles - but it was an era where health and safety and being seen to had anticipated and planned for risks was coming in, not that in principal it was bad thing at all.

Plus Beavers had settled in creating a great path for younger children to get stuck in with the scouting family and transfer to cubs.

The move to allow not just the oldest guides to join Venture Scouts  but beavers, cubs and scouts was to come soon with all of its controversies.

The 80's

 We're going back today

The mid 1980's was an odd time as by this point I encountered cubs around the other adult settings I was moving in such as being involved in community projects and organizations, sometimes working with them.

Being an adult having to ask the scoutmaster for prompts and assistance was something else although it might be said grounded me a bit.

Structurally things were very similar to that of the seventies, in terms of uniform little happened and boys often wore shorts which of course post '67 went as they moved up to scouts so things were quite recognizable to me.

It is interesting that an actual Wolf Cub is on that annual cover with more of a conservation animal welfare feel, showing how cubs could make a difference while making a play on the pre '67 name of this group within scouting.

As ever badges and awards are reviewed so badges  for information technology came on as many boys learned the rudiments of programming.

The meadow and a threat

 Wednesday was a very much back to the rain kind of day around these parts.

That rain has been good for the meadowland here even if something of a problem for crop growth according to our local farmers who have sustained major losses which show up in shops with reduced available and noticably higher prices.

The bees have had a good time of it though, not withstanding the concern around invasive species like the Asian Hornet who if they get a foothold can decimate whole groups of hives as they not only kill the bees off by either spreading deceases or biting them, but who then use the hives to multiply before starting the next attacking wave.

More Canada!

 

Preston Scout House Band Ottawa,Ontario, Canada, 1960s.

THE BAND of the 1st Preston Boy ScoutTroop started activities in the late 1930s,grew to become one of North America’s most popular drum and bugle corps by the mid1950s, disbanded in 1967, then returned in 1999and again became one of the most popular unitsin North America, this time as an alumni bandincluding members who originally marched in thelate 1940s and through the ‘50s and ’60s.

Canada Day edition

 

Today marks the official birthday of Canada, the establishment of the Dominion in 1867 to which it gave the original title "Dominion Day" which is marked by lots of activities across the country.

Here we have a pair of Beavers from the First Port Alberni Beavers, Cubs and Scout, British Columbia,  enjoying the Canada Day parade