Cambridge District Scout Archive
A Scout and Guide Troop or Unit was formed ahead of the Advanced Party Report. We have very few details of this initiative and do not know for certain how long it lasted, how large it became and when it ended.
In 1963, seemingly ahead of the Scout and Guide Troop/ Unit a Scout and Guide Club had been ‘restarted’. The link between the Club and the later Troop/Unit is unclear. It is likely to have been a precursor which paved the way to a formal mixed Troop following the initiative in Nottingham in 1964.
Permission
The Scout and Guide Troop/ Unit was understood to be an unofficial group, but this designation was in the 7th Cambridge magazine and may not quite represent the actual status. Between 1964 and 1967 another ‘unofficial’ group, District Senior Scouts, was also started in the Cambridge. If such troops were not described in POR they were not outlaw organizations both gaining permissions to meet in District buildings and the Senior Scout troop being given a District number, 20th. The 20th was listed on the annual census but did not return census numbers, which suggests that members were also members of existing troops attached to groups.
Both these units and possibly the permission given to the 60th to step away from using a patrol system by an unnamed member of the County team, occurred under Oswald Bell DC and later CC. Oswald was ‘an expert educationalist’, HQ Commissioner for Universities and Colleges for 20 years and chair of the HQ Education Advisory Board. He was chair of the European Commission of Cooperation and Co-Education of the World Bureau of Scouts and Guides.
It is but a hypothesis, but the two units were not hidden from District or County and HQ were certainly aware of the District Senior Scouts. Oswald is a likely candidate to have been given permission to experiment with these new approaches. He had written and talked about the relevance of Scouting in the changing society of the 1960’s. Oswald was not part of the Advance Party committee but his colleague and co-educationalist Harry Mainwaring (DC and CC) was. Several of these initiatives are reflected in the Advance Party recommendations; a mixed unit was not.
The Scout and Guide Troop/ Unit
Nottingham
This short-lived initiative was started by Don Varley and Phyllis Ramsell in Nottingham in 1964. A snippet online from a member recalls the first camp in 1963 in Nottingham shortly after the ruling that Scouts and Guides were forbidden to camp within 400 yards of each other was revoked. It was remembered as being a one-off experimental camp at Elton but the troop refused to disband.
The actual link between Nottingham and Cambridge is unclear. Don was an Assistant Commissioner: Senior Scouts and University Lecturer and he had been a member of the 7th Cambridge and took a warrant with the troop before moving from Cambridge. Around this time he had overseen the opening of a mixed hall of residence at the university.
Cambridge
Only two Troops or Units (both terms have been used) are known, the first in Nottingham in 1964 and the second in Cambridge starting in February 1965. The Cambridge Troop met monthly at the neighbouring Scout and Guide Head Quarters on Perne Road and organised their first camp at Whitsun 1965. Patrols comprised three Guides and three Scouts and on camp they pitched their three person tents side by side. Members (Senior Scouts) remained attached to their original troops. Members of the 5th (Perse), 7th (County School) are known to have participated and others, from Chesterton school and Pye apprentices, who were presumably from the 12th. We know of three camps, one in the summer with the Nottingham Troop. Twenty-four camped at the Summer Camp and the one (copyrighted) photo has the details ‘Youngsters aged 15 to 18, members of Britain’s first mixed Scout and Guide troop, and numbering 24 are spending a week in camp together. In patrols of three boys and three girls, they are camping at Sennowe Park, Guist, Norfolk. Their tents are side by side and they share all the chores, but more important, they are doing all their scouting together- building bridges, canoeing, hiking and map reading.’
By 1966 it is described as ‘very successful’. A film had been made and the first camps completed. It was described as a ‘joint camp’. A review in the 7th magazine of July 1966 ended with the observation that the Advanced Party Report ‘has disapproved of setting up New combined units. All members of the combined Cambridge Scout and Guide Troop will feel this is a great pity’.
A local summary reviewing the Advance Party report and the move from Senior Scouts and Rovers to Venture Scouts was compiled by Dr. K J H Mackay. Dated 30th March 1967 he considered that the mixed training ‘experiment’ ‘having shown its value’ and the next step was to ‘extend the social benefits gained‘ by mixed training at Group level. This proposal did not happen.
RA-VEN (Ranger Venture) activities did continue at District level and a Combined Development Unit for Ranger Guides and Venture Scouts was in the proposal for V S Units in Cambridge, open to all and additional to the individual Group and District units.
A Combined VS and Ranger guide unit with 30 members is recorded in 1970 with a start date of 1965. This appears to be the same unit but it is not clear what changes had to be made. It was following the division of the District in 1973 that the Guides felt it necessary to withdraw their support from the Combined Scout and Guide Unit, ‘which has served a very useful purpose over several years’. The reasons for this are not explained in the records. Venture Scouts was opened to girls in 1976.
JWR Archivist March 2024
Cambridge District Scout Archive 