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May 2020 May 2020
EARLY DAYS OF SCOUTING IN BERE REGIS

Despite being in lockdown, some of our 80 or so youngsters have managed to do
some Scouting activities at home, many of them counting towards their badges
which form the framework of the Scout training programme. Our Chief Scout,
Bear Grylls, has produced a list of 100 activities that Scouts of all ages could try
out at home.

A few intrepid souls, including our Group Scout Leader,Neal, took part in a virtual,
lockdown camp over the Easter weekend. Some bivouacked in their gardens
and cooked breakfast outdoors, some of the younger Beavers ‘camped’ in
conservatories, etc. Hopefully we will get back to ‘normal’ scouting before very
long.
As a result we have very little Section news so we thought readers might be
interested in an article based on a talk that was delivered in 2014 during the
church service at Bere Regis to commemorate the Centenary of the founding of
the Bere Regis Scout Group.
Scouting, of course, had its beginnings in Dorset, when General Baden Powell
held an experimental camp on Brownsea in August 1907 for 20 young boys from
different social backgrounds. From that camp grew what is now the largest youth
organisation in the world with an estimated 58 million members in all but 6
countries of the world and 639,000 members in the UK.

Bere Regis Scout Group is amongst the earliest of the Scout Troops formed after
Baden Powell’s first camp . The Parish Magazine in January 1914 recorded that a
Boy Scout Troop (Scouting was for boys only in those early days) had been
formed thanks to the generosity and hard work of Mr and Mrs L E Gaunt who
partly financed the start-up of the Troop. It is likely that many of the village families
couldn’t afford the uniforms and they were provided for the boys (and withdrawn
for poor attendance). Many of the early Troops at that time had to be similarly
subsidised.

Mr H (Bertie) Jesty was the first Scoutmaster (as they were known at that time)
with Mrs Bere, the wife of the Vicar, the Reverend Montague Bere, as the assistant
Scoutmistress. Bertie was a farming member of the Jesty family living at Roke
Farm.
The first recorded event was on Sunday 11 January when the Troop paraded from
the Drax Hall to Shitterton and back carrying a large banner proclaiming who
they were. They were entertained to tea and cakes in the Vicarage before
attending evensong. On 12 February 1914 the Troop attended the christening of
Sir Robert and Lady Baden-Powell’s son, Peter, at Parkstone Parish Church. Bere
Regis was one of some 17 Troops which attended the christening and together
formed a Guard-of-Honour of some 300 scouts from Dorset. A photograph of the

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