I started my scout journey with the 3rd Pen Park, Bristol as a Cub Scout. This was situated just around the next road from our house. I remember the adults building the HQ. My Dad was the Quartermaster.
I don’t remember why, but we changed to the 204th St Gregory’s, which was assigned to the church, maybe because all my family were part of the congregation. My Dad became the Scout Master, as they were called in those days. He was also renowned for forming the first pipe band in Bristol.
Our camps were always on a greenfield site generally in South Wales, like Ross on Wye or in Dorset, like Lulworth Cove.
We packed all our equipment in the back of a furniture wagon. We then sang and chanted all the way to the camp site, waving to the motorists following the van. This will not be allowed nowadays.
The campsites were generally next to a river, where we washed and cleaned our teeth!! The toilet was a hole in the ground.
Scouting has changed dramatically since then.
I resumed my scouting in 1991, when my son joined 1st Necton Beavers and I became the Secretary. In 1994 I was asked to help out with the catering for NORJAM, the Norfolk Jamboree, as they knew I had a catering background. I was then asked if I would help out with the Scout Troop and then I became the Scout Leader. I have now attended every NORJAM since then which totals 7 which is held every four years.
I was the leader at 1st Necton Scouts for the next 12 years.
Following my move to Suffolk, I joined 1st Mendlesham in 2017 as the Scout Leader. I started with about 7 Scouts and the numbers have gone up and down since then.
One of my greatest results is that I have been able to get 14 Scouts to be awarded the Chief Scout Gold Award.
In 2011, I was awarded the ‘Order for Merit’ which I am extremely proud. In fact my Dad was awarded the same in 1972. I have his certificate and I have just found out that my brother has his medal, which will be given to me shortly.
I have now been involved since then and I supported Peter Freeman, the Group Scout Leader, as the Assistant GSL for two years and from January 2020 I became the GSL following Peters retirement from the role.
My career has been a bit varied. I have been involved with catering for all of my working life. It all started when I took the Scout Master Cooks badge. For six weeks I attended a cafe/restaurant in the centre of Bristol and over these weeks, I was taught how to make soups, mains, pancakes (which I managed to get one stuck on the cellar kitchen ceiling) and desserts. The final session was to cook a three course meal for invited guests, one of which was my Dad. I gained the badge and this gave me the itch to be a chef.
I attended Bristol Technical College and gained all the City & Guild exams to allow me to enter the catering trade. I had then changed my journey by starting a trainee hotel management course. This then progressed to management in Industrial Catering and then as a Catering Manager in hospital catering. In fact, I started by moving to Suffolk at Blythburgh Hospital as an assistant in 1972. I then was married. I then progressed to the Luton & Dunstable Hospital as a deputy and finally at Barnet General as the Catering Manager. Whilst at Barnet General, I also helped in the Hospital Radio Station for two years as a presenter.
A change of direction lead my wife and I to become pub managers with a large pub group. We ran the Crown Pub and Crofts Wine Bar on the Edgeware Rd, London and the Brickmakers Inn, Wheelers End, nr High Wycombe. Unfortunately, both pubs are no longer open, one is a Building Society and the other a private house, how sad.
With the news that my wife was expecting, I became an Area Manager for a food and drinks vending company, which in the end lead me to move back to East Anglia. After 6 years, I was made redundant and purchased a coffee franchise. I did this for 4 years and then joined a national food distributor and worked as a Sales Manager and finally as a Field Sales Manager managing 7 Business Managers and the Telesales department before I took early retirement after nearly 20 years. After a few months, I decided to go back to work, so I joined for a local fresh fish company until I then fully retired after 3 years which was in 2018.
In 2006, I left Norfolk and moved to Suffolk. This was due to me finding a new partner and now my wife. Her son has moved through Scouting and as an Explorer, was privileged to be chosen as a participant to go to South Africa in 2018, an experience he will never forget. In comparison, my son has now been involved in catering as a Head Chef and now operates his own specialist food business in London with his fiancée.
My time is now filled with loads of Scouting. I am also the Gislingham Footpath Warden. My wife and I took on an allotment during the first lock-down and have managed to grow loads of produce, which we are still using from the freezer. We are looking forward to more variation next season.
My interests are of course cooking and now baking. We do a lot of walking and not so much now, but we love doing Ballroom and Latin dancing.
My claim to fame is being on a BBC 1 programme back in 1965, when with other teenagers and the local church, we raised funds to buy a house for discharged prisoners from the local Horfield Prison. We decorated it ready for their moving in. The theme music for the programme was ‘Keep on Running’ by the Spenser Davis Band. My second cousin was David Bryant, the World Bowls Champion and David Prowse (the Green Cross Code man and the body of Darth Vader) lived two doors from my family in Bristol. All of wish have passed during 2020.
