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At the beginning of the Edwardian
era, boys of Britain were in danger.

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Unhealthy, unmotivated
and under bad influences.

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They were in trouble
and needed help.

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Many feared that if they didn't get
it, the nation's morality
would be fatally undermined

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and the Empire
would rapidly decline and fall.

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Salvation came
in the unlikely shape of a book.

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It was written by a war hero
but was a manual for peace.

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It aimed to mould men
but celebrated being a boy.

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It influenced the lives of millions,
and it introduced a code of
common values around the globe.

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Its name was Scouting For Boys.

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The Scouts
are a British institution,

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so much part of the national
consciousness that we imagine
they've been going forever.

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But actually,
scouting didn't win over the
nation's affections gradually.

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It was an overnight sensation.

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It all began in 1908
with a best-selling handbook.

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In the 20th century,
only the Bible, the Koran

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and the thoughts of Chairman Mao
sold more copies
than Scouting for Boys.

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How to make buttons out of bootlaces.

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How to fly Britain's flag.

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The boy who apes the man by smoking
will never be much good.

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The book is definitely not the
expression of a systematic ideology.

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Instead,
it is a ragbag of disparate ideas

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held together only by the
personality and experiences
of one man,

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scouting's maverick founder and
Boar War hero, Robert Baden-Powell.

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He is pro British Empire
but anti men with waxed moustaches.

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And he's completely obsessed
by boots.

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It's surprising how much meaning
you can read from the boot.

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To wear your heels down on the
outside means that you're a man of
imagination and lover of adventure.

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But heels worn down on the inside
signify weakness
and indecision of character.

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He may have had some peculiar
ideas, but Baden-Powell
was also very charismatic.

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Hello, you boy in the corner there,
you ought to be a boy scout.

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You're a fine looking fellow
and I know you'd make a jolly good
backwoodsman, by the look of you.

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You're ugly enough, anyway.

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Actually, I was never
in the Boy Scouts.

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I think at that age I was probably
too busy making jokes about Baden
Powell's Scouting for Boys...is he?

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Naughty old Baden-Powell!
Not realising that wasn't
a very new joke,

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and that it's always been easy
to laugh at Baden-Powell
and at the Scouts,

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and it's become something
of a national tradition
to do exactly that.

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But I found re-reading Scouting For
Boys, it is an extraordinary book.

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It's very radical and it addresses
all sorts of issues that we think

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of as modern - citizenship,
what to do with disaffected youth,
social responsibility.

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But it's very eccentric,
very Edwardian and very English,

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and that's what appealed then,
and that's what appeals to me now.

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To try and get the measure of the
man behind the movement, I'm off to
see the current Lord Baden-Powell.

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Hello. Hello, how nice to see you.

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Do come in.

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Here it comes.
Very old fashioned, isn't it?

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What's he doing?

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He's doing his daily exercises.

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I mean, there's no question
he was quite a nutcase, really
in some ways!

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Throughout his life he'd always got

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this thing he'd got to keep himself
up to scratch, as he called it.

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And he was quite preoccupied
by personal health all the time.

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And you knew him?

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Well, yes. I was a very little boy.

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Is that you?
That's me at the age of four.

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When my mother was having her second
child I was shovelled off to Kenya
and I spend three months with them.

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All I remember is,
like a lot of children,

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I was like a rattling cage,
I was always asking questions and it
was "shut up, shut up, go and play."

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But for the first time in my life
somebody said, "Oh yes,
I'll explain that to you"

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and I do remember this incredible
interest in little boys,

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and I mean that
in the nicest way.

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Yes, well, it's almost impossible
to say it now. Absolutely.

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He could mentally bring himself down
to their level and explain things to
them in words of one syllable.

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Simple as that, really.

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The first step towards success
in training your boy is to know
something about boys in general.

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It is well to recall so far as
possible what your ideas were
when a boy yourself.

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Robert Baden-Powell
was born in 1857,

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the son of a professor of geometry
at Oxford University and the eighth
in a family of 10 children.

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The kind of person who was going to
invent the Boy Scout which was a very
odd institution, I think

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is the sort of boy who would have
been thrown on his own resources

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in a way at an early age.

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Baden-Powell, when he was only three,
lost his father.

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And he became obsessed with the idea
of what was said that fathers say to
boys that makes them manly later on.

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His widowed mother was, however,
pushy enough to get him the best
available training as a man.

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He was accepted on a scholarship
to one of England's leading
public schools, Charterhouse.

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Life here offered Baden-Powell
a wealth of new experiences.

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Most of them, however,
well away from the classroom.

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Outside the school walls
was the copse.

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It was here I used to imagine myself
a backwoodsman trapper and scout.

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I used to creep about warily
looking for signs

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and getting close-up observation of
rabbits, squirrels, rats and birds.

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At Charterhouse, Baden-Powell also
witnessed a well-established scheme

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for turning feckless
boys into responsible men.

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Baden-Powell was influenced by
the prefect system here, but
it's not called prefects, is it?

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It's a monitorial system.
A monitorial system, right.

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So tell me, what is your role?
What do you do?

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It is our duty to almost act
as quasi teachers

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when teachers are not there.

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So it's our job to look after
children

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and make sure that they are feeling
comfortable within the school.

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We don't look at ourselves
as policemen, we look
at ourselves as carers.

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Oh right, that sounds a very
thought-through line.
Have you said it before?

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I've never said that before, no.

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In the Scouts, Baden-Powell
would transform prefects
into patrol leaders.

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Give full responsibility

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and show full confidence
in your patrol leaders.

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Expect a great deal from them,
and you'll get it.

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The whole ulterior object
of the scheme is to form
character in the boys.

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To make them manly,

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good citizens.

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Baden-Powell would devise other ways
to introduce the public school ethos
into the Scouts.

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England's young gentlemen had long
been taught that good sportsmanship
was not just for the playing field.

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It was an attitude
for the whole of life.

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This sentiment was expressed in a
popular poem, Vitae Lampada
by Henry Newbolt.

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Scouting for Boys gives instructions
for acting it out in a show.

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The sand of the
desert is sodden red.

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Red with the wreck
of the square that's broke.

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The gatling's jammed and the
Colonel dead, and the regiment
blind with dust and smoke.

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The river of death has brimmed
its banks and England's fire
and honour remain.

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The voice of a schoolboy
rallies the ranks.

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Play up, play up, and play the game!

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It's the ultimate Victorian public
school poem - the equation of
playing field and battlefield.

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The Empire as a great game.

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All wrapped up in as
sentimental hymn to decent,
understated patriotism.

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It is ridiculous, of course.

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But hugely effective.

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Baden-Powell wanted to use it
to inspire boys of every class.

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Many Edwardians assumed
public school values were the
privilege of public schoolboys.

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But Baden-Powell was more ambitious.

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Baden-Powell wanted scouting to
cross the traditional class divides,

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which he called artificial, anyway.

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His vision was not just
for boys from the cloister,
but boys from the inner-cities.

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The fourth Scout law states that
"a scout is a friend to all"

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and underneath that
it says, in big letters,
"a scout must never be a snob".

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For a man of his class, Baden-
Powell's insistence that all scouts

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were equal may have been surprising,
but it was genuine.

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At this time, cricketers at Lords
went in through different entrances -

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players and gentlemen.

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And "It's not cricket" is a phrase
that denotes everything

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that we like to think of as British
fairness but, society in Edwardian
England was anything but fair.

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And he had a pretty good
gut feeling that that was so.

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At the same time he was
frightened by the Labour Party.

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So he had these two
sort of almost schizophrenic,
opposite ideas to motivate him.

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We are all socialists, in that we
want to see the abolition of the
existing brutal anachronism of war

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and of extreme poverty and misery
shivering alongside superabundant
wealth, and so on,

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but we do not quite agree as to
how it is to be brought about.

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Baden-Powell was very
worried by what he called

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professional agitators,
going round, stirring up trouble.

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He writes, "there are a lot of men
howling about their rights,

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who have never done
anything to earn their rights.

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Do your duty first, and you
will get your rights afterwards.

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I was once accused of mistrusting
men with waxed moustaches.

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Well, so, to a certain extent, I do.

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It often means vanity,
and sometimes drink.

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But why should anyone listen
to the thoughts of Baden-Powell?

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Well, because he was the
most famous man in Britain.

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This is just the tip of the iceberg
of all the merchandise devoted
to celebrating Baden-Powell.

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It is all here - there is the
Baden-Powell alarm clock,
Baden-Powell shaving mirror,

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Baden-Powell spoons ,

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Baden-Powell egg cup.

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There is an ostrich egg,

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painted
with the face of Baden-Powell.

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The Baden-Powell cigars.

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He would have hated that,
because he hated smoking.

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And it wasn't just artefacts -
there was music to accompany them.

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Here we have the
Baden-Powell March -
"a patriotic song for Our Hero, BP."

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Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah,
whizz-bang, whizz-bang.

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Lots of rhyming of the word "fought"
with "jolly good sort".

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Why was he so ridiculously famous?

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Well, he was the heroic
defender of Mafeking,

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a small town in South Africa.

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# Hurrah, oh be free
for who they have fought

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# Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah

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# He's just the right sort

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# Our hero, BP

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# Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! #

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Baden-Powell was the surprised
recipient of national
fame and military glory.

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After school, he joined the
Army and for over 20 years served
diligently, right across the empire.

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He was never a
standard-issue military man.

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Instead he was fascinated
by a form of reconnaissance work,
known as scouting.

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The covert scrutiny of an area,
to gather information.

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It needed initiative, observation
skills, and self-reliance,

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and Baden-Powell
excelled at all of them.

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He gained a reputation
as a bit of a maverick.

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But became one of the
army's youngest colonels.

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In 1899, the Boer war broke out.

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Baden-Powell
was sent to South Africa,

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under orders to engage the
enemy in the north of the region,
with the help of local recruits.

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It soon became clear
that the advancing Boers
had superior manpower,

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so Baden-Powell decided
to hold out in the town of Mafeking.

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Even 70 years later,
Baden-Powell's exploits at
Mafeking can inspire small boys.

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Including me - I wrote a project
about the Boer War when I was 11.

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I wrote, "Baden-Powell, though
remembered for the Boy Scouts,

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"is hardly ever given credit
for his defence of Mafeking."

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Not strictly true.

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But controversial openings
are very important in histories.

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"He got the men to obey him to
the letter, and they succeeded,
doing as they were told.

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"He baffled the enemy with bluff
and tactics."

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And here he is.

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About to do it.

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Right from the outset, Baden-Powell
was heavily outnumbered.

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There were about 2,000
armed men in Mafeking.

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1,100 of them white,
the rest, native.

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Only about a quarter of all of them
had any sort of military training.

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These lot were facing 6,000 Boers.

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This was no ordinary engagement.

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And it tested Baden-Powell
as a leader and as a strategist.

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It also crystallised the ideas
that would later form the core
of Scouting for Boys.

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Baden-Powell was assisted in his
defence of the town by an unlikely
force, a group of boys,

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gathered together
before the siege started.

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They became a sort of unofficial
cadet corps.

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They performed a vital role,
taking messages
between the various defenders.

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Often on bicycles and under fire.

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In later life Baden-Powell would
recount the stirring story

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of the cadets at Mafeking
to inspire English boys.

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I said to one of these boys
on one occasion,

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"You will get hit
one of these days riding about
like that when shells are flying."

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And he replied, "I pedal so quick,
sir, they'd never catch me."

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Could any of you do that?

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00:17:34,120 --> 00:17:37,400
Much of Baden-Powell's
subsequent reputation

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00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:41,640
was based not on his complex
military strategies,
but on his use of tricks and ruses,

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to try and fool the Boers
into thinking the British
were better equipped than they were.

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They didn't have any mines,
but Baden-Powell got these men

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00:17:50,280 --> 00:17:53,440
to walk out beyond the perimeter
carrying big black boxes.

216
00:17:53,440 --> 00:17:56,760
Then to bury them
deep in the sand at intervals.

217
00:17:56,760 --> 00:18:00,200
Then, later on, he let off a
stick of dynamite in the same area,

218
00:18:00,200 --> 00:18:03,720
and the Boers were convinced
they were laying a minefield.

219
00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:08,480
Another of his tricks was to
stake out all these posts
along the front,

220
00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:12,240
and then to have men
moving between them
as if they were laying barbed wire.

221
00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:14,760
They weren't, because they
didn't have any barbed wire.

222
00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:19,720
But the Boers couldn't see that,
and so, they believed that the
whole of this front was fortified.

223
00:18:19,720 --> 00:18:24,600
Again, it was slightly bonkers
but a brilliantly effective ruse.

224
00:18:28,560 --> 00:18:32,480
Despite such daring innovations,
Baden-Powell's problems magnified.

225
00:18:32,480 --> 00:18:34,640
The town was shelled.

226
00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:38,040
Many were injured or died.

227
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:41,640
Horses were killed for meat,

228
00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:44,320
and food was heavily rationed.

229
00:18:44,320 --> 00:18:51,800
Yet convinced he must lead by
example, Baden-Powell's positive
attitude remained unshaken.

230
00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:58,440
People expect you to be able to
give them an idea of how long
the food's going to hold out.

231
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:02,280
And you have to, effectively,
pretend to be omniscient.

232
00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:04,200
You have to be ultra-calm.

233
00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:10,000
And Baden-Powell had been a
very successful amateur actor
and he knew what was required.

234
00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:13,320
He could act really cool.

235
00:19:13,320 --> 00:19:17,560
The siege lasted 216 days
but, throughout it,

236
00:19:17,560 --> 00:19:23,120
Baden-Powell's performance -
because, in a sense, that's what it
was - was extraordinary.

237
00:19:23,120 --> 00:19:27,160
He managed to maintain
not only a stiff upper lip
but a smile, as well.

238
00:19:27,160 --> 00:19:30,800
When he wasn't pulling stunts
against the Boers,

239
00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:34,720
he was putting on plays
in the town or staging games,

240
00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:41,720
and when the public at home heard
of his exploits, they glowed with
pride. This was true British grit.

241
00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:44,840
# Bravos for BP

242
00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:47,240
# Ring, ring the bells, ring

243
00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:50,640
# Bravos, bravos, bravos

244
00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:53,160
# For Mafeking's king

245
00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:55,360
# Our hero... #

246
00:19:55,360 --> 00:20:01,280
When Mafeking was finally
relieved in May 1901,
the nation erupted with joy.

247
00:20:01,280 --> 00:20:04,040
Baden-Powell was
proclaimed a national hero.

248
00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:06,560
# ..To die for our duty

249
00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:11,600
# And we'll never give in

250
00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:13,360
# Said BP! #

251
00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:23,480
The British may have been the
ultimate victors, but the Boer War
left the nation badly shaken.

252
00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:29,520
Mafeking was one redeeming highlight
in an otherwise undistinguished
colonial war.

253
00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:35,320
One of the reasons the British
army performed so badly was that,
compared to the Boers,

254
00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:38,520
the healthy outdoor
farmers-turned-soldiers,

255
00:20:38,520 --> 00:20:41,680
the British troops
had been weak and sickly.

256
00:20:41,680 --> 00:20:46,800
The director general of the War
Office had even issued a memo
warning that between 40% - 60%

257
00:20:46,800 --> 00:20:51,200
of the men trying to enlist,
had been declared unfit for service.

258
00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:59,600
The Edwardian establishment was
terrified that, after a century of
rapid industrialisation,

259
00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:03,360
Western society might be,
in their words, "degenerating".

260
00:21:07,360 --> 00:21:12,800
A deeply influential book at the
time was Max Nordau's Degeneration,

261
00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:16,080
which saw, in modern urban culture,

262
00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:24,120
a kind of frantic pace
that he believed would lead
to the decline of the West.

263
00:21:24,120 --> 00:21:30,440
The dead, carried off by
heart and nerve diseases,
are the victims of civilisation,

264
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:34,840
the consequences of states
of fatigue and exhaustion,

265
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:38,360
of the vertigo and whirl
of our frenzied life.

266
00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:44,560
The Victorian factories had made the
nation wealthy,

267
00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:47,760
but they had also
manufactured a urban underclass.

268
00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:54,440
Undernourished and underexercised,
their offspring were now
the Edwardians' problem.

269
00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:57,520
Some thinkers suggested
that degeneracy was hereditary,

270
00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:01,880
and should be eradicated
by enforced sterilisation.

271
00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:04,760
But Baden-Powell was no pessimist.

272
00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:07,800
And he was not prepared to
write off the nation's youth.

273
00:22:09,360 --> 00:22:13,720
When somebody's a great
national hero, they're a great
national hero to boys,

274
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:16,880
and quite spontaneously,
little boys' groups,

275
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:20,680
they might be choirs,
they might be little local clubs,

276
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:24,520
who had asked him to be
their patron, he sent them advice.

277
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:29,440
When ordinary people began
to buy a book he'd written
called "Aids to Scouting"

278
00:22:29,440 --> 00:22:33,040
he realised that, although they were
originally designed for soldiers,

279
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:37,480
the same techniques could
work for civilian boys.

280
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:41,320
Scouting
is a character-building exercise.

281
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:44,200
It teaches self-discipline,

282
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:49,840
observation, inquisitiveness,
these are all, to Baden-Powell,
good qualities.

283
00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:57,440
Baden-Powell agreed to
use Aids to Scouting
as the basis for a new work,

284
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:01,320
which would promote the health
and well-being of British youth.

285
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:08,560
The Edwardians were the first
generation to go football-crazy.

286
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:12,320
But then, as now,
not everybody approved.

287
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:15,360
The idea of being a fan,
of spectating

288
00:23:15,360 --> 00:23:19,920
rather than participating,
did not appeal to Baden-Powell.

289
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:22,000
He believed in a healthy
mind in a healthy body.

290
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,320
Mens sana in corpore sano.

291
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:27,040
That was the real goal for a boy.

292
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:35,400
My heart sickens at
thousands of boys and young men,

293
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:40,560
pale and narrow-chested,
hunched-up miserable specimens,

294
00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:45,920
smoking endless cigarettes,
numbers of them betting.

295
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:52,920
All of them learning to be
hysterical, as they groan or cheer in
panic unison with their neighbours.

296
00:23:56,720 --> 00:24:02,400
For Baden-Powell, physical and moral
health went hand in hand.

297
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:07,400
And when the men of Britain were
strong, so was the country itself.

298
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:16,240
No body part was neglected
in the quest for national vitality.

299
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:21,320
To be healthy and strong,

300
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:25,560
you must keep your blood
healthy and clean inside you.

301
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:31,000
This is done by breathing
in lots of pure, fresh air

302
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:35,640
and by clearing out all dirty
matter from inside your stomach.

303
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:39,640
Which is done by having a rear,
daily, without fail.

304
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:47,520
If there is any difficulty about it
one day, drink plenty of good water

305
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:52,360
and practice body twisting exercises.
And all should be well.

306
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:00,600
What struck me, editing the book,

307
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:06,480
was the number of times
Baden-Powell talks about orifices.

308
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:08,440
Mouths, anuses,

309
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:12,440
eyes, ears,
all the openings of the body.

310
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:19,640
It seems to me that this reflects
Baden-Powell's concern
with national self-defence,

311
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:25,880
with the keeping the body of the
nation disciplined and controlled.

312
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:29,560
Not allowing any inroads
to disease and infection.

313
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:36,720
Unlike traditional educationalists,
Baden-Powell believed it was in the
national interest

314
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:39,480
for boys to show initiative.

315
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:44,080
And he charged each scout
with doing a good turn every day.

316
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:52,000
Do you need a hand with that box?

317
00:25:56,120 --> 00:25:57,600
There we go.

318
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:05,240
But are the virtues Baden-Powell
encouraged in Scouts
really as highly valued today?

319
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:12,280
Baden-Powell writes about boys
sort of loafing around on street
corners, smoking, doing nothing.

320
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:16,680
He said he wanted to teach them
something useful.
Do you do first aid?

321
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:22,080
Yeah, on a number of camps,
everyone has to know a certain
amount of first aid, on camp.

322
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:24,120
In here, he describes an incident.

323
00:26:24,120 --> 00:26:28,840
A woman was drowning in a pond
and there were
five useless boys on the side,

324
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:32,920
who didn't save her,
because they couldn't swim,
and couldn't do first aid.

325
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:38,360
That wouldn't be you, would it?
I've been trained in first aid,
to a fairly moderate level,

326
00:26:38,360 --> 00:26:41,280
but we're given the skills so that
we know what to do...

327
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:45,480
Right, if I had a heart attack now,
could one of you save my life?

328
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:47,960
Probably. I'm hoping.

329
00:26:52,360 --> 00:26:58,800
By 1906, Baden-Powell was convinced
that his scheme could turn
dissolute boys into decent citizens.

330
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:02,920
And he began to write a version of
what would become Scouting For Boys.

331
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:08,000
But it took the help of a hard-nosed
salesman to galvanise him

332
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:12,080
and turn his modest proposal
into a national sensation.

333
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:17,880
Arthur Pearson was proprietor
of the Daily Express,
and a media magnate of his day.

334
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,840
Baden-Powell, who had
a suspicion of business people,

335
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:25,560
also knew how the world worked,
that he needed a man like Pearson.

336
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:27,360
He didn't want to need him.

337
00:27:27,360 --> 00:27:32,440
In fact, he hated the idea of it,
but without him, it couldn't happen.

338
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:39,960
By summer 1907, Baden-Powell
had completed a first draft.

339
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:45,000
He was now ready
to put his theories into practice.

340
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:54,520
He invited 20 boys for a camping
holiday off the coast of Dorset,

341
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:57,360
on Brownsea Island.

342
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:05,640
Some came from public schools,
others, already working,
were from local church boys' clubs.

343
00:28:11,360 --> 00:28:14,800
But for all of them,
it was a unique opportunity.

344
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:21,800
For Edwardian boys, the idea of
camping on a small island

345
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:24,960
conjured up images
of exoticism and intrigue.

346
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:29,320
They were following in the
footsteps of Robinson Crusoe
and Treasure Island.

347
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:33,840
And Baden-Powell wanted
to reinforce this idea of being
cut off from civilisation

348
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:36,560
and forced to depend
on their own resources.

349
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:40,200
So he didn't have them camp here,
within sight of Poole,

350
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:45,920
but he had them camp a mile away,
on the wildest,
furthest side of the island.

351
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:53,040
The native boys
of the Zulu and Zwazi tribes

352
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:59,240
learned to be scouts before they're
allowed to be considered men.

353
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:04,000
When a boy is about 15 or 16, he
is taken by the men of his village,

354
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:07,000
stripped of all his clothes...

355
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:10,160
and painted white from head to foot.

356
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:12,920
He is given a shield and small spear,

357
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:15,240
and he is turned out of the village

358
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:18,200
and told that he will be killed
if anyone catches him

359
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:21,040
while he is still painted white.

360
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:30,800
Many Edwardians had only a
superior curiosity about other
races, but some, like Baden-Powell,

361
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:35,120
had a genuine admiration
for those they ruled.

362
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,720
Within British imperial law,

363
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:42,440
there was a social,
Darwinist ranking of the nations,

364
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:47,040
in which, of course,
British were at the top,

365
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:51,280
but they were recognised to be
a certain noble tribe's noble
peoples

366
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:55,200
who distinguished themselves
by their muscle on the battlefield.

367
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,200
Despite his admiration
for some African traditions,

368
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:07,840
Baden-Powell thought better of
sending British boys
naked into the Dorset woods.

369
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:13,600
Instead, he'd arranged for
basic amenities to be provided
on a small campsite.

370
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:17,920
The trip was covered by
a lot of the local newspapers

371
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:23,000
and, clearly, their editors were
thrilled to have a national hero
operating on their patch.

372
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:24,800
This is the Bournemouth Guardian.

373
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,520
It explains how the camp was set up,
and then says,

374
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:33,720
"The boys are to learn how the
experienced scout can find life
wherever he may find himself,

375
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:38,880
"to taste the delights of wild
adventure and to track Red Indians."

376
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:43,960
This being Dorset,
there weren't any red Indians,
but there were pheasants.

377
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:47,040
The idea was the boys had to
track the pheasants,

378
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:52,080
get close enough to them, not to
kill them, but to photograph them,
then report back to camp.

379
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:54,800
And this was a classic
Baden-Powell technique -

380
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:59,480
to relocate the thrills
of the Wild West in the South West.

381
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:15,880
This is a set
of extraordinary photographs,
taken on that first camp in 1907,

382
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,520
and it shows the boys literally
here,

383
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:22,560
taking part in the various exercises
that Baden-Powell had dreamt up.

384
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:26,680
Now, that looks like a game
boys would enjoy.

385
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:31,120
Jump head first out of a tree
and see if anyone catches you.

386
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:33,200
That does look fun!

387
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:37,800
This is a manly game.

388
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:39,600
This one's called The Struggle.

389
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:45,520
It does look quite peculiar,
but it's basically people pushing
their chests against each other.

390
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:49,520
It's meant to get the heart
pounding, according to Baden-Powell.

391
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:52,720
First aid.

392
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:56,600
This one is called
Dragging An Insensible Man,

393
00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:00,440
but in this case it's a boy sitting
up and laughing, which ruins it.

394
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,800
They're clearly enjoying
being outdoors,

395
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:09,040
playing games, dangerous games,
and learning practical skills.

396
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:16,320
When they were camping, Baden-Powell
needed to collect the boys together,

397
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:18,520
so what did he use? A whistle?

398
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:22,240
No, he used this,
which is a kudu horn,

399
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:29,000
made from antelope, which he
picked up when he was a soldier
in the Matabele Campaign, in 1896.

400
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:32,840
The Ndebele people use it
for generating fearsome war cries,

401
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:36,080
but it's very good for
collecting together small boys.

402
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,520
LONG, DEEP NOTE

403
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:47,680
THEY SPEAK ZULU IN UNISON

404
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:56,600
At night, Baden-Powell
taught the boys Zulu war chants

405
00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:00,840
and enthralled them with
tales of his overseas adventures.

406
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:04,080
Once, I went butterfly-hunting
in Dalmatia.

407
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:08,600
Batteries had been built upon these
mountain tops and it was my business

408
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:12,800
to investigate their positions,
strength and armaments.

409
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:18,040
I took a sketch book, a colour box
and a butterfly net in my hand,

410
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:23,240
and I was above all suspicion
to anyone who met me.

411
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:28,080
They did not
look sufficiently closely
into the sketches of butterflies

412
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:31,440
to notice that the delicately drawn
veins of the wings

413
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:35,920
were exact representations
in plan of their own fort.

414
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:43,400
In Scouting For Boys,
Baden-Powell concludes a letter

415
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:46,720
that one of the boys
had written to him after the camp.

416
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:51,880
"The most important thing that a
great many boys need to learn is to
look at the bright side of things

417
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:55,160
"and to take everything
by the smooth handle. I, myself,

418
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:59,880
"found that a great lesson.
I shall never find words enough
to thank you for teaching me it."

419
00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:05,760
And that ethic of
keep smiling through became
a cornerstone of scouting.

420
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,440
Invigorated by
the success of Brownsea,

421
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:18,120
Baden-Powell returned to
civilisation
and to completing Scouting For Boys.

422
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:27,440
His original manuscript
is now kept here, at the
Scout Association's headquarters

423
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:30,040
at Gilwell Park, in Essex.

424
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:37,520
So this is it? The book
that launched the entire movement?

425
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:40,280
The manuscript for the book
that launched...

426
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:43,280
There it is, handwritten.

427
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:48,080
I must say, I thought it would
be more organised than this.

428
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:52,040
I thought Baden-Powell would have
taken his motto,
and been more prepared.

429
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:57,400
I get the impression that
he was just jotting down things
as they came to him.

430
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:01,000
I don't think
he actually sat down and mapped out

431
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:05,040
what he was going to do
before he put pen to paper.

432
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:08,480
These are the chapter headings here,
and it says, "Chapter 3 -

433
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:12,920
"campaigning, camp life,
resourcefulness, colonial life etc."

434
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:15,240
Not terribly linked, are they?

435
00:35:15,240 --> 00:35:19,560
I mean, it is more or less,
will there be a bit of this
and a bit of that? Yes,

436
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:25,440
and, to some extent, that helps
the readability of the book. The boys
could dip in and dip out of it...

437
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:26,520
Yes.

438
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,480
..as they fancied.

439
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:30,680
This is a bit he's just torn out.

440
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:35,520
Think he's borrowed a bit
of President Roosevelt's speech.

441
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:40,480
It's about the qualities of good
soldier. Baden-Powell's crossed out
"soldier" and written "Scout".

442
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:46,440
It's a very wide selection of
material that he's read from,
and cross-referenced into this book.

443
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:49,560
There's even Greek philosophers
he's quoting.

444
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:53,560
He's quoting American pioneers.
He's lifting chunks from Kipling.

445
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:55,520
Here we are, we've got knots.

446
00:35:55,520 --> 00:36:02,040
"To tie a knot seems to be a simple
thing, and yet there are right ways
and wrong ways of doing it."

447
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,720
He's written something else
in over the top.

448
00:36:04,720 --> 00:36:09,520
"Lives depend on an knot being
properly tied," is his afterthought.

449
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:11,840
Which is so very true!

450
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:14,840
And these are his drawings?
They are his drawings.

451
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:21,000
It's quite difficult to
actually draw a knot
that people can follow and copy.

452
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:24,640
Yes. There's terrible clarity.
You could follow that.

453
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,440
Do you think? Yes, I do.

454
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,240
Two half hitches.
That one looks hard, doesn't it?

455
00:36:30,240 --> 00:36:33,480
No. Even in diagram form.

456
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:37,800
When you open this, your job,
your movement, everything here

457
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:41,720
comes from his notes on some
bits of lined paper, doesn't it?

458
00:36:41,720 --> 00:36:46,560
From these pages.
It is quite amazing to think that
the whole Scout movement

459
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:51,840
has flowed from him sitting down
and scribbling these notes.

460
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:55,480
A bit like the Ten Commandments
in the Christian tradition.

461
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:57,520
I'm sure he'd be flattered by that.

462
00:37:01,240 --> 00:37:05,240
In January 1908, when Scouting For
Boys was set for publication,

463
00:37:05,240 --> 00:37:08,480
Arthur Pearson
orchestrated the marketing.

464
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,680
He decided that, rather than
publish it as a single volume,

465
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:18,960
it should first be serialised
in separate parts, which you
had to wait for and could collect.

466
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:24,640
Scouting For Boys was a success
virtually from day one.

467
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:31,000
By the time the sixth fortnightly
instalment came out,
boys were queuing to buy it.

468
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:37,840
Baden-Powell's original idea
was that Scouting would piggyback
on existing boys' movements.

469
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:43,880
But then, when the book came out,
Scouting appealed in such a way

470
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:47,520
that boys wanted to Scout
themselves.

471
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:51,200
So, Baden-Powell had more or less
to scramble

472
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:55,400
to catch up with
the wildfire success of the book,

473
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,000
so the movement followed the book.

474
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:01,720
It's one of the few,
if not only, instances, I think,

475
00:38:01,720 --> 00:38:07,560
in world history, of a book
having generated a movement.

476
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:15,400
And one of the secrets of the
movement's success is right there,
in the opening section.

477
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:24,720
This is a very famous painting
of a Scout, and it shows
a boy in that classic Scout uniform.

478
00:38:24,720 --> 00:38:29,480
I think we've all seen it so often
that you forget how very odd it is.

479
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:36,080
The hat is a South African hat
from the constabulary
where Baden-Powell was serving.

480
00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:41,680
Then the shirt, which is a long army
shirt worn in India and Afghanistan.

481
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:46,280
Basically, the Army had fashioned it
on the traditional Muslim shirt.

482
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,240
Shorts - which no-one
in this country wore at all.

483
00:38:49,240 --> 00:38:53,680
Parents had to cut off long trousers
to make them fit.

484
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:55,640
So it's an odd collection of things,

485
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,800
but Baden-Powell always claimed
they were all practical.

486
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:02,280
The hat, you could carry water in.

487
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:05,080
The shirt, if you put
two of the shirts together,

488
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:12,400
shoved the staves that the scouts
carry, they turn into a stretcher.
The scarf turned into a sling.

489
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:14,240
Again, for emergencies.

490
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,960
The figure here on the right
isn't a Scout.

491
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:24,200
The suggestion is, in a fairly
obvious way, that he's blessing
the entire Scout movement.

492
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:31,040
Baden-Powell also ordained
a hierarchy of officers,

493
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,360
invented a Scout salute...

494
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,200
..and he composed a Scout oath.

495
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:42,040
On my honour, I promise to
do my duty to God and the King.

496
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:45,360
I will try to help others,
whatever it costs me.

497
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:48,560
I know the Scout law,
and WILL obey it.

498
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:55,560
Crucially, the Scout law
wasn't a list of forbidden acts,
but one of positive aims.

499
00:39:57,040 --> 00:39:59,840
A Scout's honour is to be trusted.

500
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:02,600
A Scout is loyal.

501
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,160
A Scout's duty is to be useful
and to help others.

502
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:11,040
A Scout is a friend to all,
and a brother to every other Scout.

503
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:16,240
In Scouting For Boys,
Baden-Powell also gave the movement
something critical -

504
00:40:16,240 --> 00:40:19,760
the impression
it already had a history.

505
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:24,120
The British Empire had quite a
propensity for inventing traditions.

506
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:30,200
In other words, for making up a
movement, an idea, an organisation,

507
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:33,280
and then passing it off,
or indeed marketing it,

508
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:36,760
as something traditional
and conventional

509
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:39,360
and steeped in the past.

510
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:45,600
Scouting, of course, does so
by harking back to what Baden-Powell
calls "the scouts of history".

511
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:51,040
In the old days, the knights
were the scouts of Britain,

512
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:55,760
and their rules were
very much the same as the Scout law,
which we have now.

513
00:40:55,760 --> 00:41:00,520
We are their descendants and
we ought to keep up their good name

514
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:02,440
and follow in their steps.

515
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:11,120
Baden-Powell even suggested
that Scouting had a lineage
that led all the way to the king.

516
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:16,600
He noted that the King
signs himself RI - Rex Imperator,
the emperor.

517
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:23,200
He says "Imperator" comes from
two Roman words, "Im" and "Perare",

518
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:27,400
which together mean "prepare for",
that is, to be prepared,

519
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:31,080
which, rather neatly,
makes the King the Chief Scout.

520
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:33,760
It's neat, but it isn't true.

521
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:40,240
"Imperator" just means he who rules,
but no-one was going to object,
and certainly not the King.

522
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:48,360
Edward VII returned the favour
in autumn 1909,
when he knighted Baden-Powell.

523
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:56,400
By now, the Scout movement
had over 100,000 members.

524
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:59,760
Scout troops were
patrolling across the country.

525
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:05,360
And a spin-off magazine
was flying off the newsstands.

526
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,520
Scout fever had gripped the nation.

527
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,520
Scouting offered something special
that other groups didn't.

528
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:23,760
At its core was a belief
in the positive power
of playing and make-believe.

529
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:27,960
Scouting For Boys is peppered
with ideas for staging little plays,

530
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:31,040
dramatising poems,
putting on a show.

531
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:37,800
It encouraged each boy to
imagine himself as a potential hero
on the bigger stage of life.

532
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:48,800
Playing and playacting had always
been central to Baden-Powell's
understanding of the world.

533
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:54,160
Peter Pan, one of the
most popular shows of the age,
was especially dear to him.

534
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:05,600
Baden-Powell was particularly
fixated on it, even more so than its
standard enthusiastic audience.

535
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:10,880
I think that was because the figure
of the boy who never grows up,

536
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,520
who never loses his milk teeth,

537
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,400
who never has to confront
the horrors of sexuality,

538
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:21,240
was to him
a very, very compelling image.

539
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:29,920
The idea that Scouts were boys
on the brink of sexual maturity
was a problem for Baden-Powell.

540
00:43:31,720 --> 00:43:35,800
And the thought that they might be
tempted to indulge in self-abuse,

541
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:39,400
as the Edwardians termed it,
horrified him.

542
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:47,640
But, in typically forthright manner,
he drafted a section of Scouting
For Boys to confront it directly.

543
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:51,920
No prudish sentimentality for him.

544
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:54,440
He even checked his copy
with his mother.

545
00:43:56,400 --> 00:44:00,160
Pearson, his publisher, however,
was much more coy.

546
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:04,480
He rejected the original,
and Baden-Powell
was forced to replace it

547
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:09,720
with a watered-down version
for instructors only.

548
00:44:09,720 --> 00:44:14,880
This is from the appendix
on masturbation,
and this is what he wants to say.

549
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:18,320
"Now the result of self-abuse
is always..." Mind you, always!

550
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:21,800
"..that the boy, after a time,
becomes weak and nervous and shy.

551
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:24,560
"He gets headaches,
palpitations of the heart,

552
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:29,880
"and if he carries on too far,
he very often goes out of his mind
and becomes an idiot." Yes.

553
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:32,600
It's quite extreme, isn't it?
It's very extreme.

554
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:37,560
It's more extreme than even fairly
conservative medical authority

555
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:41,880
would have gone
in the early 20th century.

556
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,520
But there was a huge amount
of anxiety about masturbation.

557
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:52,480
Huge anxiety around masturbation,
because, on the one hand, it caused
all these problems with health -

558
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:58,560
it led to consumption, insanity,
etc - and, on the other hand,
there's an argument that

559
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:03,080
it's a manifestation of
a lack of self-discipline,
it erodes the willpower.

560
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:10,040
If a boy gets into this habit,
he will not be a fit person
to govern the Empire.

561
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:13,920
Part of me thinks Baden-Powell
is trying to do something healthy
by saying,

562
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,400
"We're far too prudish about this."

563
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,640
I think it's good that he's actually
ventilating, he's talking about it.

564
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:25,560
We want to get this out in the open,
out into the healthy
fresh air and sunlight.

565
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:28,640
Why do you think his publisher
wouldn't put it in?

566
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:35,200
There is this concern in saying,
"Oh, God, there's this terrible
habit that boys get into at school,

567
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:39,160
"in adolescence, and they learn it
from their evil companions."

568
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:40,560
Yadda, yadda...

569
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,040
"..We should warn them about it."

570
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:47,280
And then others will come back
and say, "No, they are
pure innocent little lambs.

571
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:50,680
"You will just put this
evil thought into their minds."

572
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,240
It's like the sex education debate,

573
00:45:53,240 --> 00:45:58,840
about whether you tell them,
or whether you tell them about it
and they go and do it!

574
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:06,120
Don't lark about with a girl
who you wouldn't like your mother
or sister to see you with.

575
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:11,600
Don't make love to any girl
unless you mean to marry her.

576
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:18,120
Despite his confident assertions,
Baden-Powell was no expert
on the charms of the opposite sex.

577
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:26,280
Whereas he would often apply the
word "beautiful" to a man,
he would never apply it to a woman.

578
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,760
She might be good-looking,
but he would then often qualify it

579
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:34,000
with a word like "heavy-ish" or some
sort of slightly derogatory remark.

580
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:37,880
I obviously read Baden-Powell's
diary remarkably carefully.

581
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:42,400
There was an entry in the diary which
said, just, "Went to Charterhouse,

582
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:47,640
"saw Todd's photograph album,
naked boys in trees - excellent."

583
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:52,360
I'm sure it was nothing
sort of overtly sexual.

584
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:57,760
But, clearly, Baden-Powell
did very much enjoy
looking at these naked boys.

585
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:05,920
For Edwardian society, an aesthetic
appreciation of the young male form

586
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:09,560
was distinct from
finding it sexually arousing.

587
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:14,920
Whilst works like these
were being exhibited in public,

588
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:21,680
no-one saw Baden-Powell's interest
in boys' bodies as evidence of
paedophilia, or even homosexuality,

589
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:23,840
least of all, Baden-Powell himself.

590
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:27,400
Times have changed.

591
00:47:29,240 --> 00:47:34,360
If Baden-Powell tried to
start Scouting today, I don't think
he'd have got very far.

592
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:38,680
Media interest in a national hero
no longer stops at the bedroom door.

593
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:41,720
And an unmarried, unattached,
confirmed bachelor

594
00:47:41,720 --> 00:47:47,800
who admired pictures of naked boys
would be unlikely to be allowed
to be in charge of a youth movement.

595
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:54,480
However, Baden-Powell scholars
still don't agree
on his true inclinations.

596
00:47:54,480 --> 00:48:00,360
It should be possible to speak
of a sexual preference
that is, in a way, a non preference.

597
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:03,200
"I don't want to do this sex thing!"

598
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:08,840
I genuinely believe
that Baden-Powell
was the eternal Peter Pan,

599
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:14,960
and that, rather than being
a repressed gay man,
he was in fact asexual.

600
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:19,200
He thought that, actually,
men who did commit too early

601
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:22,240
to sexual relationships with women
were contaminated.

602
00:48:22,240 --> 00:48:24,240
Which I think, in a way, is...

603
00:48:24,240 --> 00:48:26,680
You don't think that
unless you're gay.

604
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:34,600
Baden-Powell may have
backed away from women,
but they didn't shy away from him.

605
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:40,600
Yet he didn't give marriage
any serious thought until his mother
began to put him under pressure.

606
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:45,360
Olave Soames was only 23
to Baden-Powell's 54

607
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:47,760
when he met her in 1912.

608
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:53,160
She was a tomboy,
interested in sports and games,

609
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:58,600
and they shared an instant rapport,
marrying less than a year later.

610
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:05,200
She was completely
un-clothes-conscious, never painted
her face, as it was described.

611
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:09,280
Baden-Powell thought the best women
weren't very much interested in sex,

612
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:11,800
and I think that that would be
true of her.

613
00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:15,080
He did get her pregnant with Peter,

614
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:19,320
and he managed
subsequent pregnancies,

615
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:23,400
but after that, he slept out on
a balcony for the rest of his life.

616
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:28,280
There was a single bed on a veranda
outside the front of their house.

617
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:31,880
It was an open veranda,
and he would go upstairs to bed,

618
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:36,640
having sat around a fire, sat
almost on the embers to keep warm,

619
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:40,680
then go upstairs, climb into bed
with two blankets and a pillow,

620
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:44,640
and they'd come out in the morning,
in the winter,
and dust the snow off him!

621
00:49:44,640 --> 00:49:46,440
Quite extraordinary!

622
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:54,080
The boys of Britain
at the start of the 20th century

623
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:57,560
had no interest in the romantic life
of the Chief Scout.

624
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:02,920
They were just thrilled that,
unlike most Edwardian adults,
he refused to patronise them.

625
00:50:05,240 --> 00:50:09,080
He entrusted them with civic tasks,
like giving first aid,

626
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:11,720
or directing people in fog.

627
00:50:11,720 --> 00:50:14,760
Responsibility, he believed,
developed character.

628
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:21,520
Of course, this had its funny side,
and Baden-Powell
was the first to admit

629
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:25,280
that his fad of Scouting
might appear ridiculous,

630
00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:27,400
and others were quick
to join in the joke.

631
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:31,160
This is a Punch cartoon
from as early as 1909,

632
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:35,320
which seems to be
laughing at the idea of the Scouts
coming to the rescue.

633
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:40,720
It shows a very small boy
attempting to help a rather large
lady across the beach.

634
00:50:40,720 --> 00:50:43,240
And he says, "Fear not, Grandma!

635
00:50:43,240 --> 00:50:46,400
"No danger can befall you now -
I'M with you!"

636
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:50,880
Yet, crucially, its titled
Our Youngest Line Of Defence.

637
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:52,400
And this isn't any old lady.

638
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:56,640
This is Mrs Britannia, who stands
for the entire British Empire,

639
00:50:56,640 --> 00:50:59,880
which the Scouts
have been charged with saving.

640
00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:05,280
Remember that the Roman Empire
2,000 years ago

641
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:10,400
was comparatively just as great
as the British Empire of today.

642
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:14,120
It fell at last
chiefly because the young Romans

643
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:18,480
gave up soldiering
and manliness altogether.

644
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:22,880
Don't be disgraced
like the young Romans,

645
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:25,560
who lost
the empire of their forefathers

646
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:30,880
by being wishy-washy slackers,
without any go
or patriotism in them.

647
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,200
EXPLOSION

648
00:51:35,240 --> 00:51:39,760
Edwardians were obsessed with the
idea of losing the British Empire.

649
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:44,320
When thinking of a really serious
enemy, like the Germans,

650
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:48,880
most senior Army officers
were convinced that we might lose,

651
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:52,720
and it would be the loss
of the Empire, our country,
our national wealth.

652
00:51:52,720 --> 00:51:54,720
It would have been
really a catastrophe.

653
00:51:58,720 --> 00:52:03,800
By 1914, a generation of boys
had been immersed
in the book's patriotism,

654
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:08,400
and primed to see themselves
as literal protectors of the nation.

655
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:15,280
Every boy ought to learn
how to shoot and to obey orders,

656
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:19,080
else he is no more good when
war breaks out than an old woman,

657
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:22,040
and merely gets killed like
a squealing rabbit,

658
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:24,680
unable to defend himself.

659
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:31,440
So it might seem that the
First World War was the call to arms

660
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:34,200
which Baden-Powell
had been preparing for all along.

661
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:46,440
Baden-Powell insisted that every
boy be able to handle a weapon.

662
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:51,360
But he refused to see
his Scout movement
as a sort of military cadet force.

663
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:56,520
Indeed, Baden-Powell defended
himself against charges of
militarism in Scouting For Boys.

664
00:52:56,520 --> 00:53:00,000
He said there was a world of
difference between self-defence,

665
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:04,360
standing up to bullies on the
international stage,
and bloodthirsty warmongering.

666
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:09,760
When an eminent public man
wrote to me

667
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:11,920
that I ought not to teach boys
soldiering

668
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:16,520
because, as he puts it,
he hates war like the devil,

669
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:21,080
I felt bound to reply that,
had he seen anything of war himself,

670
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:25,480
he would, like most soldiers,
hate it WORSE than the devil!

671
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:31,840
Rather than see his Scouts become
a branch of the armed forces,

672
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,920
the Chief Scout offered his boys
for civilian duties -

673
00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:39,560
running errands,
working in Red Cross centres,

674
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:42,360
and coast-watching.

675
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:46,680
But the war inevitably took
its toll on the Scouting movement.

676
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:53,600
A quarter-of-a-million
former Scouts and Scout masters
fought for King and country,

677
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:55,720
of whom 10,000 died.

678
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:02,120
Among the fatalities
were five of the 20 boys

679
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:06,160
who joined Baden-Powell
on Brownsea Island back in 1907.

680
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:18,560
After the catastrophe of world war,
Baden-Powell decided that Scouting

681
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:21,360
had to become a force
for world peace.

682
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:25,560
The imperialism of the
original handbook was soon eclipsed

683
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:28,960
by the internationalist message
of global Scouting.

684
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:32,120
That's what we're after -

685
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:35,800
to try and breed,
in the next oncoming generation,

686
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:39,480
that spirit of friendship,
comradeship and goodwill,

687
00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:43,360
which is the true foundation
for peace in the world.

688
00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:51,280
That hope proved illusory,
but the Scouting ideal continued
throughout the 20th century,

689
00:54:51,280 --> 00:54:56,720
even though other youth movements
with less worthy aims
borrowed heavily from its trappings.

690
00:54:56,720 --> 00:54:59,160
The communist Soviet Pioneers.

691
00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:01,200
The Italian young fascists.

692
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:04,360
And, infamously, the Hitler Youth.

693
00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:14,160
But to assume that all boys
in shorts are brainwashed
storm troopers in waiting

694
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:18,880
does a grave injustice to
Baden-Powell's Edwardian experiment.

695
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:23,400
After all, which of these movements
didn't mind what religion you were?

696
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:27,000
Or what colour? Or what class?

697
00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:32,880
And which of them instructed
their members to smile and whistle
under all circumstances?

698
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:39,880
One of Baden-Powell's favourite
mottos was, "get a laugh on."

699
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:43,640
His movement was always a mixture
of earnestness and playfulness.

700
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:46,840
He wanted to instruct boys
how to cut down trees,

701
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:50,040
but he couldn't resist adding,
"Don't chop your leg off!"

702
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:53,200
That's why the book
is still so engaging.

703
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:56,320
And despite being firmly
rooted in the Edwardian era,

704
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:59,920
he was trying to address issues
that still resonate today.

705
00:55:59,920 --> 00:56:04,360
Inner-city deprivation, boys without
role models, unhealthy lifestyles,

706
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:06,400
the need for citizenship.

707
00:56:06,400 --> 00:56:08,880
Amazingly, it's all in there.

708
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:13,560
Which is why, 100 years later,
I think it's still worth saluting.

709
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:40,640
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710
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:43,720
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