Page 61 - It's a Rum Life Book One "In the Beginning 1947 to 1960"

Mind you, during the late 1950’s this unit became the most
popular in town and before the turn of the decade the unit
numbered over 100 boys, from eight year old cubs who moved
up to Scouts when they became 10 or 11, to Senior Scouts of
ages 16 plus.
By the time 1960 came along, I was a Senior Scout Patrol
Leader and the unit had two Senior Patrols of six boys who were
experienced and sufficiently responsible to aid the adult leaders
in teaching and guiding the younger members.
Before all this though I myself was guided and taught,
initially by Barry in the Seal Patrol and then fairly quickly I
became chosen to be part of a new Patrol who would train for at
least a year to take part in the local District Camping
Competition. Our Sea Scouts were looked upon by the rest of
the District ‘Ordinary’ Scout units as a bit of a strange bunch.
We needed to improve our image and show the rest of the
District that Sea Scouts were just as good as ‘ordinary’ Scouts
doing all the ordinary ‘Scouting’ activities as well as our special
boating and water activities too!

A PLANNED CAMPAIGN
The Penguin Patrol was our secret weapon. Planned and
created just for this initial single purpose to win the Taylor
Trophy Camping Competition, the single most important event
in the District Calendar.
Strange as it may seem, Ruth, my future wife was at this time
the girl friend of Andy my Penguin Patrol Leader. I should think I
was a year and a half younger than Andy and Ruth would be
about his age.
From time to time therefore I would ‘bump’ into her, she
was very good looking. I was still very round and much
overweight. ‘Tank’ was my nickname because of my very rotund
proportions, one could admit to being positively fat!

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