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.