Page 46 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK TWO "BOSTON 1960 TO 1970"

CHAPTER 4

CUBS NEEDING TRANSPORT
I had almost forgotten this story until reminded of the
incident while writing the “Sea Scout Bus”.
This story is from before Ruth and I were married, so that
puts it around 1964.
We were both leaders of the 1 Boston Sea Scout “Cubs” at
st
this time. I forget who was actual leader or “Akela”. We had
swapped places at some stage as Ruth continued her post SRN,
Midwifery training at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London.
The origin of this tale is Cub Scout Football matches in the
Boston and District ‘League’. The reason for our cubs to be
constantly losing their football matches was that they were
“Sea Cubs” and “they were sticking to that!”
The boys were enthusiastic enough and had a good trainer
in Mr Worthington one of the Scout parents. Perhaps they
lacked the aggression or capacity to attack that the opposition
seemed to constantly possess.
I suppose a good illustration of typical opposition was the
4 Boston (Kirton) Cubs. Their long established (male) leader
th
regarded defeat of a football match as a personal failure.
“Fanatical” would best describe his attitude and naturally
being typical cub aged boys they picked up this characteristic
enthusiastically.
th
The 4 Boston Cubs never lost a match!
Some of the lady leaders in the District were equally
forthright and pushed their teams forward at every
opportunity.
On reflection, I was probably at fault here as I have never
been really enthusiastic about football, but the District Cub
leaders in general had formed a football league for the
different units to compete in and the boys had to be given a
chance to enjoy everything available to them.

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