Page 71 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK TWO "BOSTON 1960 TO 1970"

We had hardly left the jetty when the boys realised there
was a toilet on board.
I am never sure what it is with small boys and toilets but
they seem attracted like magnets. The poor toilet door was
never still the whole voyage and how we did not take on a
huge permanent list to the side where the toilet was situated I
can only assume the toilet tank must have been beneath the
whole of the boat width.

WILDLIFE
There were about 40 boys on the outing, all hugely excited
especially when one of the “sixers”, a lad called Philip, always
full of life and endless questions, asked rather too loudly
“when are we going to see the sharks Akela?”
There was a very mixed reaction to this question. But the
general effect was to bring almost every boy to the stern where
I was seated, much to the consternation of our already
troubled “pilot”.
While endeavouring to persuade all the boys to go back to
their seats and take turns to come to the stern and look for
sharks Ruth and I were assailed by,
“I say Akela, Pip’s knelt in my sandwiches.”
This from a tall studious lad called Geoffrey who led a
rather different and more “sheltered” upbringing to many of
the very mixed bunch we catered for.
There is one thing you learn early as a Cub Leader. Akela
knows best.
This in fact means Akela knows more too. The respect this
brings from the cubs week after week only came to light to me
when a parent came to me and said “my boy dwells on your
ever word.
Every evening after cubs he is full of what he has done and
is going to do. All the time it is Akela says this and Akela says
that! He takes more notice of you that he does of me!”
To realise this is both humbling and worrying too.

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