Thrift

Cambridge District Scouts Archive

1908    The First Class Test required Scouts to:                                                                                  10) Have at least sixpence in the savings bank.

1938    By 1938 the financial requirement had been dropped.  The Scout Law,                               9) A Scout is thrifty, remained.

The Wolf Cub Second Star required the C.M. to satisfy himself that the Cub                                   4) Understand the meaning of thrift in all things and be carrying it out in practice.

1967    The Advance report advised in Scout Law                                                                              7) A Scout makes good use of time and is careful of possessions and property and commented that ‘The new Law 7 is more easily understood, we feel, than the old ninth law’

2018    6) A Scout makes good use of time and is careful of possessions and property

Thrift in Cambridge

Cambridge is currently a centre of significant wealth creation.  This has not always been the case; the University has long had pockets of relative wealth; some colleges were bequeathed large sums whilst others were and remain cash strapped.  This money did not filter down evenly to the ‘town’, and the town had no major industry to develop other streams of wealth.  The town has always had its poor and did not escape the Great Strike, the depression of 1930’s or the austerity of the 1950’s.

Ken North observes that the wages locally were largely pegged to agriculture and the higher wages available in industrial areas passed Cambridge by.

The collection of salvage during and after the war indicates the small industrial base of Cambridge.  The District was very good at collecting wastepaper, in part, was because there was little other industrial waste produced.  The Scout supported emigration service was advertised in Cambridge district as elsewhere.  To justify the printing costs someone, surely, identified a local demand for farming jobs abroad.

Thrift was as important within the district as most other places in Britain.

Cambridge Archives

1954    5^th Cambridge             ‘Some corners have long remained at a standstill, and the care and storing of gear in some lockers is still the opposite of thrifty.’

1975                                        List of items advertised as lost after event: a Ball point pen

1978                                        ‘Recent gales have played havoc with the trees’ (at Abington)   ‘try to exercise thrift’ so others can cookover a traditional fire

2018    28^th Cambridge           The camp cooking competition produced two excellent meals, the more difficult of the two losing on timing and cost, being marginally over budget and four times the cost per head.