More original Scouting Handbooks – Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America

More research for the  Scouting Wide Games on the tabletop project: https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/wide-games-scouting-games-page/

Two new Scouting handbook reprints have arrived, around the time I  finished reading How Girls can Help to Build the Empire – The Handbook for Girl Guides (1912)

Scouting – for girls, 1912

The Girl Guide 1912 Handbook was updated by Baden Powell in 1918 as Girl Guiding. The last BP update in 1931 before his death in 1941, taking into account women’s war work in WW1, can be found here with all the added later guide or ‘Brownie’ information added onto an edited down, shorter Girl Guide sections http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/girlguiding.pdf

What differences if any would I need to make to incorporate Girl Scouts into the Wide Games?

What differences if any would it make if I set these Wide Games in America or outside Britain?

I spent part of the recent weekends and days, some too hot for hobby painting, in skim reading through two affordable new paperback reprints of early scouting books from America. These were The Boy Scouts of America Scout’s Handbook 1911 and the Girl Scouts of America How Girls Can Help Their Country – 1913 Handbook for Girl Scouts.

The Boys Scouts Of America Handbook (1911] is a chunky book, longer at 400 pages (plus adverts of scouting kit) than the British 1908 original (350 pages) and partly written by the first (and only) American Chief Scout Ernest Thompson Seton, naturalist and author. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Thompson_Seton

Peace Scouts? My 1:72 American WW1 Infantry by Airfix transformed  into Boy Scouts due to a similar uniform.

The Boy Scouts of America uniform is remarkably like the US Army one, as you can see from this Handbook Advert.

Almost a WW1 Doughboy uniform by Eisner “Manufacturers of US Army and National Guard Uniforms”   – Boy Scout of America  Handbook 1911

The Boy Scouts of America 1911 handbook is much thicker than the slim ‘British’ or original Baden Powell ‘Scouting for Boys’, first published in serial form then collected into a 1908 book, which also incorporates many of the notes for scoutmasters or Patrol leaders.

The American 1911 Boy Scout version is full of wildlife information, Wood Craft and Camp Craft, a whole extra 90+ pages of American wildlife, geology notes, fishing advice, fungi foraging, much of it by Ernest Thompson Seton. There is even a (Nature) Conservation badge in 1911! Seton’s debt to Baden Powell is acknowledged in the Wide Games section p.305 with a footnote: “The Games from lion Hunting to Hare and Hounds are from General Baden Powell.” These include both Siberian Man Hunt, Snow Fort and Smugglers Over The Border. I wonder what in turn Baden Powell’s debt to Seton was?

For the Boy Scout in America who could afford it, this must have been an informative handbook and reference.

The Scoutmaster’s Handbook Boy Scouts of America 1911

There are ‘civics’ sections on a selective summary of American History, America’s past and recent Wars, Abraham Lincoln, the history of the flag, as well as (Seton’s) references to Native American culture. Slavery is briefly mentioned as a cause of the Civil War.

Girl Scouts of America Handbook 1913

My copy of the Boy Scouts of America Handbook is an inexpensive modern paperback Dover reprint of the 1911 original https://store.doverpublications.com/0486439917.html

Warning! Just reading the list of Dover Americana reprints makes me want to overspend in their online shop.

You can find the 1911 original free online at: https://archive.org/stream/boyscoutshandboo29558gup/pg29558.txt

The  Scout Master’s Handbook 1911 is here:  https://archive.org/details/handbookforscou00amergoog/page/n3

Interesting fact: Every U.S. president since President Taft has been elected by the Executive Board as the honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America. Teddy Roosevelt wrote an endorsement in the 1911 Handbook. This honorary position is still the case in the age of Obama and Trump.
https://voiceofscouting.org/the-presidents-and-scouting

Native American derived Patrol names and symbols, Boy Scouts of America Handbook 1911

Black Scouts, White Scouts?

Fraternisation in Scouting activities between Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts was not officially encouraged, not in the 1910s of America or the British Empire.

My Tiny lead Scouts, you are not listening … fraternisation is not encouraged.

The debate continues today on inclusion and Co-Ed, Girl only, Boy only troops today http://theconversation.com/what-history-tells-us-about-boy-scouts-and-inclusion-74805

I was also quite curious how the segregation issue affected early scouting in America. Native American culture is referenced, but not Hispanic or what we would now call Black or African American culture. Would this reflect what happened around the British Empire?

Could I have black scouts or African  American Scouts alongside white scouts if setting the Wide Game in the early Twentieth Century America?

Protests over the inclusion of African American Boy Scouts  arose early on in the Boy Scouts of America’s history.

When one of its founders W.D. Boyce departed [to set up the eventually clearly segregated Lone Scout movement], he:  “turned the Boy Scout corporation over to the members of the Executive Board with the stipulation that the Boy Scouts would not discriminate on the basis of race or creed.  The BSA established the position that African Americans should be included, but that local communities should follow the same policies that they followed in the school systems.”

“Thus, much of the American South as well as many major northern communities had segregated programs with “colored troops” until the late 1940s. Some troops in the South threatened to leave BSA and burn their uniforms if African American Scouts were permitted, but [James] West was key in overcoming those obstacles.” Reference:  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Boy_Scouts_of_America

According to the African American Registry:

“In the South, with the “separate but equal” mindset of the times, black [scout] troops were not treated equally. They were often not allowed to wear scout uniforms, and had far smaller budgets and insufficient facilities to work with. The BSA on a national level was often defensive about its stance on segregation …

[Early integration] would have also been dangerous, because the Ku Klux Klan had strongly denounced the Scouts for even having segregated black troops. They claimed the BSA was a puppet of the Catholic Church, and it was not unheard of for Scout Jamborees and rallies to be broken up, often violently, by the Klan. After the Civil Rights Act, slowly, troops began to integrate throughout the nation, even in the South …”

Reference: https://aaregistry.org/story/the-african-american-boy-scout-movement-a-story/

“Stanley Harris made significant gains in introducing African American boys to scouting. He was made the head of the Interracial Services division of the Boy Scouts, and given the task of promoting interracial scouting across the nation. He supported the founding of the first all-black Boy Scout troop in 1916 and, during the 1920s, helped organize the first all-Native American troop. In 1926, he organized the Scouts’ Interracial Service”

Stanley Harris (d. 1976) was employed to boost Boy Scout inclusion https://www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2015/08/13/stanley-harris-booster-of-diverse-scouting-initiatives

The inclusion debate continue: http://theconversation.com/what-history-tells-us-about-boy-scouts-and-inclusion

Benjamin Jordan book links YouTube interview: https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469627656/modern-manhood-and-the-boy-scouts-of-america/?title_id=3759

The Girl Scouts of America Version of the handbook

How Girls Can Help Their Country (1913) is the Girl Scouts Of America version of the Handbook Agnes And Robert Baden Powell (BP), so obviously replacing the Britain and Empire references and examples with ones from American history and culture, as Seton did in the Boy Scouts of America version. The Book was written by Walter Hoxie and Juliette “Crazy Daisy” Gordon  Low, founder of the Girl Scouts Of America.

Walter John Hoxie (1848-1934) was a recognized authority on birds and formed a nature group for young girls, many of whom became members of the first Girl Scout troop when it was organized by Juliette Gordon Low.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliette_Gordon_Low

Juliette Gordon Low (1860 –  1927) was the founder of Girl Scouts of the USA.

Inspired by the work of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of Boy Scouts, Juliette Low joined the Girl Guide movement in England, forming a group of Girl Guides in Great Britain in 1911 before returning to America.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-very-first-troop-leader-116645976/

I was interested to read that Juliette had been in England, so saw and took part in early Baden Powell scouting there before returning to the USA in 1912.

There she established the first U.S. Girl Guide troop in Savannah, Georgia.

In 1915, the United States’ Girl Guides became known as the Girl Scouts, and Juliette Gordon Low was the first president. Her birthday, October 31, is commemorated by the Girl Scouts as “Founder’s Day“.

Character types of boys – useful for character cards?  Scoutmaster’s Handbook (America) 1911

Reading these Edwardian / early Twentieth Century handbooks, it is interesting from a gamer’s point of view when writing rules or role cards for Boy and Girl Scout characters to see the similarities and differences between how Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts or Guides were expected to train and behave.

Different characters amongst boys were acknowledged in The Scoutmasters Handbook (America).

Juliette Gordon Low in her Preaface or Foreword mentions that the Boy Scouts book (America 1911? Baden Powell 1908?) should not be followed too closely.

Blurring distinctions of class but not race?  Girl Scouts of America Handbook Foreword 1913

After a brief uncoordinated early year or two when girls set up their own girl scout patrols after Scouting for Boys was published in serial form c. 1907/8, supported by Baden Powell, ‘fraternisation’ between the two sexes increasingly was seen as a problem for both sides.

Advice on Womanliness adapted from the British handbook, The American Girl Scout Handbook 1913

Strictly no boys allowed in camp …

In America, there were many competing organizations for girls that claimed to be the closest model to Boy Scouting. Juliette Gordon Low hoped support from prominent people would help legitimize her organisation, Girl Scouts Of America (GSA) as the official sister organization to the Boy Scouts. Two pages in my 1913 reprint book list the distinguished ladies who became the Honorary Committee of The Girl Scouts. Not being well versed in the minutiae of American history, I’m not sure who all these ‘great and good’  ladies are but recognise the name of Mrs Thomas Edison.

Rival Girls Organisations?

Juliette’ biggest competition was the Camp Fire Girls, which was formed in the USA in part by James E. West, the Chief Executive of the  Boy Scouts of America. It was seen as  a “strong proponent of strict gender roles.”

“In March 1912, Gordon Low wrote to the Camp Fire Girls, inviting them to merge into the Girl Guides, but they declined even after Baden-Powell suggested that they reconsider. James West considered many of the activities that the Girl Guides participated in to be gender–inappropriate, and [West] was concerned that the public would question the masculinity of the Boy Scouts if they participated in similar activities.” Source: Wikipedia article on Juliette Gordon Low 

“Although the Girl Guides were growing, the Camp Fire Girls were growing at a faster rate, so Gordon Low traveled to England to seek counsel from the British Girl Guides. By the time she returned to America in 1913, she had a plan to spread Girl Guiding nationwide by changing the name from Girl Guides to Girl Scouts …”

“[Her] Savannah Girl Guides had already “renamed themselves to Girl Scouts because ‘Scout’ reminded them of America’s pioneer ancestry.  James West objected to the name change, saying that it trivialized the name of scout and would cause older Boy Scouts to quit. Baden-Powell gave Gordon Low his support on her use of the term scout, although he preferred the term Guide for the British Girl Guides.”  Reference: Juliette Gordon Low Wikipedia article. 

Looking at her Part 1  introduction section, Juliette suggested that Girl Scouts should not need be “a new club” but “existing organisations such as school clubs, factories, social or charitable clubs, YWCAs can also take up in addition to their other work or play, the Girl Scouts training and games … Where girls do not already belong to any clubs, they can form themselves into groups and bands, and these are called Girl Scouts.”

Black Girl Scouts, White Girl Scouts?

https://www.girlscouts.org/en/about-girl-scouts/our-history.html

The GSA Timeline mentions: “Additionally one of the earliest Native American Girls Scout Troops formed on the Onondaga Reservation in New York State in 1921, and Mexican American girls formed a Girl Scout troop in Houston Texas in 1922.”

On the segregation issue the African American Registry website notes that although Daisy Low’s first group in Savanna Georgia [the Confederate South] in 1912 was all white :

“Racially segregated in the beginning, the first troop for African American girls was formed in 1917, and by the 1950s GSUSA began a national effort to desegregate all Girl Scout troops. In 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. described the Girl Scouts as “a force for desegregation.”

Reference: https://aaregistry.org/story/black-history-and-the-girl-scouts-iof-the-usa/

There is more here about different individual guiders’ efforts to create suitable scout colonies for African-American girls:

Reference: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/girl-scouting-was-once-segregated-180962208/

I take my 1970s Cub Scout hat off to these founders and those others who fought to make Scouting and guiding accessible to all, regardless of colour and background.

Certainly as I develop my Wide Games tabletop rules,there should be a Daisy Patrol flag for my Girl Scout figures, in honour of Juliette Gordon “Daisy” Low. Patrol colours are yellow and white.

The challenges of the future is how the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts associations round the world join forces and also remain “separate but equal” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-17/boy-scouts-are-just-scouts-now-and-that-s-making-girl-scouts-mad

Despite the great marketing opportunities to have official suppliers with the scout logo or name (a copyright carefully protected from the earliest days) the uniform requirements were basic and hopefully affordable to all:

It is easy nowadays to mock Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting or Guiding; how forward thinking they were is shown in the self defence section on shooting and the section on Women aviation pioneeers here in the Girl Scouts of America 1913 handbook, linked to the Aviation Badge :

They may have had their rivalries and flaws, but I think we and many families over the last hundred years have had many reasons to be thankful to people like Juliette ‘Crazy Daisy’ Gordon Low, Walter James Hoxie, the first original Savannah Georgia Girl Scouts, Agnes Baden-Powell and her brother Robert, Ernest Thompson Seton, Daniel Carter Beard, James West, even controversial characters like W.D. Boyce.

Not to mention the less well known Scout leaders who led the push for African American involvement and desegregation in Scouting, mentioned in the Smithsonian article. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/girl-scouting-was-once-segregated-180962208/

A. Josephine Groves Holloway 1898 – 1988

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Groves_Holloway

B. Maggie Lena Walker https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_L._Walker. Smithsonian article: “The first African-American troop founded south of the Mason-Dixon Line didn’t occur until 1932. This is according to the National Park Service. Maggie L. Walker was a bank president and newspaper editor. She fought to form Girl Scout Bird Troop, Number 34”

C. Sarah Randolph Bailey of “The Girl Reserves” (1885-1972)
https://www.georgiawomen.org/sarah-randolph-bailey

“Perhaps her greatest passion was the Girl Scouts and providing African-American girls the same experience and benefits despite the fact that the Girls Scouts did not allow black troops until the 1940s. Bailey organized groups called the YWCA Girl Reserves in 1935, a movement of the YWCA that offered young black girls the same experience as the Girl Scouts. Within two years, Macon [Georgia] had 15 Girl Reserve groups. Her work did not go unnoticed and in 1945, the Girl Scouts of the USA invited the formation of black troops.”

I might need to add some new more inclusive or diverse Boy Scout and Girl Scout Patrols or Troops!

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN (1970s Cub Scout, Bronze Arrow, retired, 10 August 2019.

More Girl Scout Conversions

 

A couple of broken metal figures have found a brand new life as Girl Scouts.

These conversions  fit well with my slow reading ‘research’ for my Scout Wide Games tabletop project, poring through the earliest Scouting for Boys books and Girl Scout  equivalent, How Girls Can Help the Empire: The Handbook for Girl Guides.

I was delighted to pick up an early original copy of this Guides book  c.1912 or pre-WW1 version on EBay, much cheaper than the paperback reprint! Other originals were £100 or more! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Girls_Can_Help_to_Build_Up_the_Empire

The Victorian or Edwardian sailor suited boy might  have come from the ‘bits and bobs’ box at Tradition of London (their old Shepherd Market shop). He had broken off at the ankles.

The archer was a small broken gilt figure minus its head.

Drilled hand with wire staff and fixed feet and base – penny for size comparison.

The sailor boy was fixed by drilling holes in both feet and ankles with a fine pin vice or hand drill. Small pins  of wire joined body and feet together, secured with superglue.

The repaired Boy

Something about that cheeky face said that this could be a Girl Scout recruit, rather than an Edwardian Boy Scout. I quickly made a tissue paper skirt fixed with clear PVA glue.

Paper skirt and penny base in place

I was quite curious to see how these figure conversions would be enhanced (or not) by paint. I wanted an old-fashioned toy soldier look to the faces, along with a final spray of  gloss varnish.

The floppy brimmed hat seems to work well as an Edwardian or 1920s Guiders hat. 

Rear view of the conversions, the simple quiver was part of the original figure. 

And the scout mistress or archer? He started life as a man, then when I came across him, he had no head. A quick rummage in the spares box found a spare pound store figure about the right size. Off with his head!

Hole reinforcer or hole punch hat brims, spare plastic figure and the headless gilt archer.

I cannot find a manufacturer for either figure. It looks on the original gilt figure as if one hand is carrying an arrow. This fine detail may need to be added.

The American “fritz” helmet does convert into a hat with twenties bobbed haircut.

Archery was certainly recommended as a sport for Guides by Robert Baden-Powell and his sister Agnes, who adapted her brother’s 1908 hand book Scouting for Boys  into the 1912 handbook, How Girls Can Help To Build Up The Empire: The Handbook For Girl Guides. The ‘Girl Guiding’ handbook replaced this first book in 1918.

The Baden-Powells also recommended rifle shooting. Both boy and girl scouts  could attain a Marksman badge for rifle shooting. There was also a section on self defence (jujitsu) as you never knew what you might encounter as a young woman at home or in the colonies on the frontiers of the Empire! Tigers, mad dogs, brigands, insurgents?

Research is slow but enjoyable, being a comparitive reading of this first 1912 Girl Scout or Guide handbook, alongside its predecessor Scouting For Boys. The sections are mixed up and in a different order. It is interesting to note what is kept in and suitable for guides, what is substituted as specifically for girls.

For instance, Baden Powell mentions in Scouting for Boys in a section on marksmanship: “The Boers are all good shots, and so are the Swiss. In both countries, the boys begin learning marksmanship at an early age by using crossbows…”, something suggested to Boy Scouts but not to Girl Scouts or Guides.

Being an accomplished marksman, after the lessons of the Boer War,  was  also seen by Baden Powell as a patriotic duty for men (‘citizen soldiers’) and good for home defence.

There is no obvious suggestion in either book that women should be armed ‘citizen soldiers’ in Britain, only in the frontiers of Empire for self defence of property and family.

Certain of the original Wide Games scenarios are included for girls; the book often mentions to save space ‘as in Scouting’, so the 1912 Guides book and the 1908 original Scouting book are designed to read together.

Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN 9th July 2019.

 

 

Wide Games and the early Girl Scouts?

Girl Scouts?

With a tissue paper and PVA skirt conversion, these could be early Girl Scouts.

I am slowly trying to work out how to reproduce Boy Scout and Girl Scout Wide Games with miniature figures on the gaming table or in the garden.

These red petticoats have to go, far too Railway Children! First tissue paper conversions on four spare LBB30 Little Britons 42mm range Boy Scouts into early Girls Scouts and Guides.

Boy Scouts? Girl Scouts? Girl Guides? What’s in a name?

It took a while to establish standard Girl Scout or Guide uniforms – the blue uniform is more early Girl Guide like, the others more like early Girl Scouts. Paint work, not quite finished yet. 

In Britain since 1910, we have not had mainstream Girl Scouts,  after Guiding was set up to manage the enthusiastic adoption of Scouting for Boys by many Edwardian girls, sometimes originally in mixed troops.

However in some parts of the UK, across America and the world, Girl Scouts have survived in  both name and spirit.

The Girl Scouts of America kept their distinctive Scout name since their formation in 1912, led by Juliette Gordon Low. In this Very good history guide to the early Girl Scouts of Britain before they became Girl Guides, it mentions Cuckoo Patrol Girl Scout troops, the fears about mixed groups, suffragette activities and WW1 and the fact when Guides was set up in Britain  not all Girl Scouts  apparently transferred …

https://lesliesguidinghistory.webs.com/guides.htm

Following the publication of Scouting for Boys in January 1908 girls were actively engaging in Scouting, they had been just as inspired by the ideas in the book as their male counterparts. Troops and patrols of Girl Scouts were encouraged by Robert Baden-Powell;

“I think girls can get just as much healthy fun and as much value out of scouting as boys can. Some who have taken it up have proved themselves good souls in a very short time. As to pluck, women and girls can be just as brave as men and have over and over again proved it in times of danger. But for some reason it is not expected of them and consequentially it is seldom made part of their education, although it ought to be; for courage is not always born in people, but can generally be made by instruction.”

Robert Baden-Powell, The Scout, May 1908

One group of Girl Scouts, sadly only known to us as “Kangaroo Patrol” were so inspired by this quote that they copied it out at the beginning of their patrol magazine in May 1909.   Their magazine was full of adventure stories with Scouts preventing robberies and kidnappings, it also showed girls and boys Scouting together.

Text source: https://heritage.scouts.org.uk/explore/early-days-of-scouting-1907-1920/scoutingforgirls/

Sounds like a good mixed patrol name – Kangaroos!

The British Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts movement (1909), sometimes known as Peace Scouts, ran in parallel for a time, absorbing Girl Scouts who did not want to transfer into Guiding in 1910.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Boy_Scouts_and_British_Girl_Scouts_Association

Wonderfully the BBS and BGS troops still exist in small numbers in Britain and elsewhere proudly wearing the old fashioned uniform, open to boys and girls  and linked to the worldwide scouting movement.

https://www.bbsandbgs.org.uk/differences.php

Uniforms and patrol flags British Boy Scout and British Girl Scouts 2018/19 website

Baden Powell was surprised but not antagonistic towards the enthusiatic uptake of Scouting for Boys by the kind of vigorous “intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books” as H.G. Wells observed in his preface to Little Wars  a few years later in 1913.

British Boys Scouts BBS British Girls Scouts BGS 2019 website photo: Close up details of long socks, patrol colours on garters? Scout staves and patrol flags. Khaki hats and shirts.  The girls are wearing Navy Blue shorts (or maybe culottes) like the boys.

“As records show, at this time Baden-Powell was clearly supportive of Girl Scouts. In May 1908 he wrote to one Girl who enquired that she would be welcome to set up a Patrol of Girl Scouts, and in his regular column in ‘The Scout’ in January 1909 he stated of the girls that “some of them are really capable Scouts” …”

“ …In the 1909 edition of Scouting for Boys the uniform suggestions included recommending blue skirts for Girl Scouts. Large Scout Rallies were held, including one at Scotstoun near Glasgow, where Girl Scouts were both specifically invited, and warmly welcomed.” Source: Leslie’s guiding history website.

1909 Early Girls Scouts UK before Guiding: improvised like the Boy Scouts. Colour schemes: Khaki bush hat, long sleeved khaki shirt tucked into a Lincoln Green, dark grey or Navy Blue skirt.

Useful painting or colour scheme tip : blue skirts rather than the Boy Scout blue shorts mentioned in the 1909 Scouting for Boys. Dark Blue went on to become the colour of early Guide uniforms.

Cropped close up on the Girl Scouts attending the Crystal Place rally 4 September 1909 – a much reproduced photo.

“So clearly, throughout 1908 and much of 1909, Girl Scouts were welcomed, both unofficially and officially” including the Crystal Place rally in 1909 where early Girl Scouts were photographed amongst the boys. It is reported that more than 1000 Girl Scouts were present.

“By late 1909 amongst the official Scout membership of 55,000 there were already over 6000 Girl Scouts officially registered, and more registering daily.” Leslie’s Guiding History.

Blue uniform, blue colour and a glimpse of uniform

By 1910, Guiding had been established to protect the reputation of these Edwardian girls and of the fledgeling Scout Movement. Scouting for Boys was adapted by Baden Powell and his  sister Agnes into a Guiding Manual, “How Girls Can Help Build The Empire”,  designed to equip girls with camping skills, homecraft and child care skills for adult life in Britain or upcountry in the Empire.

It would be almost 70 years before mixed older (Venture) Scout groups were established again in Britain.

Early Girl Scout – Leslie’s Guiding History website

Another fierce looking early Girl Scout from the Leslie’s Guiding History Website.

Leslie’s Guiding Ideas Website also has some contemporary Guiding / Girl Scouts Wide Games  Scenarios, worth coming back to:

https://lesliesguideideas.webs.com/gamesandwidegames.htm

Guiding and scouting being world movements, it is of course possible that fictional  Imagi-Nations like the Bronte family’s  Gondal and Gaaldine, or the many great Tintin-esque Imagi-Nations and Grand Duchys created by gamers could have their own Boy Scout and Girl Scout movements.

Girl Scouts of Gaaldine or Gondal?

Boy Scouts of Angria or Generica, anyone?

Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN (1970s Cub Scout, Bronze Arrow, Retired) 17 May 2019

 

Rules notes and initial ideas for the Wide Games scouting game

I am happily surprised by the many comments about memories of Scouting type Wide Games after my last blogpost https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/easter-eggs-wide-games-and-the-cloak-of-romance/

Alan Gruber, the Duke of Tradgardland https://tradgardland.blogspot.com has received his copy of Wide Games (Scout Association, 1933) and his reactions and initial thoughts were surprisingly similar to mine:

“The Wide Game book arrived and l have had a chance to have an initial look. There seems to be much that can be translated into rule terms. I am less successfully tried to locate my scout figures, they must be experts in stealth and use of cover.

I have been thinking of giving each scout ratings for things like stealth, speed, detection etc.

When trying to spot a hiding scout figure compare the hiding rating against the spotting rating adding the score of a dice. If the the result is higher than the hiding rating the figure is spotted.

I felt this method could be used also to represent the removal of a “wool life” .

I like the idea of each scout being different in his abilities adding a sort of role play vibe. I really must scribble these ideas down in a more coherent manner.”

Alan’s ideas were in tune with many of my own initial thoughts.

I also thought that the list of a scout’s skills looked like a character card or RPG character.

Badges acquired or skill numbers would help resolve some non-combat issues on points –  visibility (stalking, camo, use of cover), listening skills, pathfinding etc.

Wide Games no. 3 – Staffs  – has a hidden numbering system, 1 to 8 being allocated to each patrol and concealed from the enemy  (maybe on their base). The number was only revealed when challenged – sometimes finding out that you have challenged a higher number too late, if you are low numbered! This solves the taking of the wool life, based on whether Scout is higher or lower.

Interestingly in Scouting for Boys (1908),  BP suggests Patrols have regular  numbers: Patrol Leader 1 with whistle, Corporal 2, scouts 3 and 4, scouts 5 and 6, scouts 7 and 8 working in pairs. No mention of the bugler!

As mentioned in Staffs (Wide Games no. 3) a kind of wild card that no 1 (patrol leader) can take number 7, so is both strong and vulnerable.

These could be inscribed on the figure bases of scout models.

Weapons and Combat

Although a Marksmanship badge existed for shooting, the only “weapons” carried by scouts were their highly versatile scout wooden staffs.

Ogdens cigarette cards of scouting reproduced in book form shows quarterstaff fighting – reproducible through my Gerard De Gre / Featherstone duelling cards Lunge and Parry (past blogpost). Jujitsu, boxing and wrestling were also practiced – see Nobby’s comment below on quarterstaffs.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/26/duelling-in-the-sandpit-or-garden/

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/28/more-duelling-inspiration-bartitsu/

Range Weapons

However in Wide Games, suggestions were also of early washable paint balls being thrown to mark a hit on an enemy, known as  “whiting balls”, along with wooden blunt headed thick dowelling darts with  paper feathers and chalk on the blunt heads. This chalk or whiting indicated or marked a hit visible to any watching umpire.

Usual hit dice roll  /  d6 mechanisms etc would work here. If hit, a Scout loses a life, has to return to the ambulance base to be healed and then rejoin the game.

The “wool life” or colour to be taken can be represented by a thread or circle of wool over their shoulder like a sash. They are then temporarily out of the game, but rather than being “Pinned”, they must then be restored to life by reaching the designated Red Cross base / healer / ambulance station. This recycles them after a pause back into the game, starting from the healing base, bearing their new wool life marker or token.

Some other variations on the “wool life” token or marker were a paper scrap on shoulder, handkerchief or scarf tail tucked into belt or scalping (removing the scarf when worn as a head scarf)

Movement Rates

Speed of movement would vary with stealth  and cover / ground.  One rate for quiet moving through a wood etc, another for pursuit / rapid noisy movement. ‘Thick country’ is distinguished as taking twice as long to cross from ‘open country’ in terms of movement. Obviously roads would have faster pace / movement.

Movement Rates need  to be decided for crossing streams, uphill, bicycle scouts, along with bridge building etc. In this respect, there is no difference from Featherstone’s Close Wars rules in War Games (1962) or other simple early rules. https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/close-little-wars-featherstones-simplest-rules/

Walking Pace or Scouts Pace?
There is a concept of scouts pace referred to in Wide Games is hybrid pace of twenty paces running, twenty walking (as a rest break) meaning you can go faster and further for longer.

Early Scout Patrols (according to Ogden’s Cigarette cards) were of eight  scouts: patrol leader with patrol flag, corporal, 5 Scouts and a bugler. Each Patrol appears to have different scarf colours.

Patrols of eight play against other patrols, rising up the scale to whole Troops playing  against another troop.

Four Patrols equals one Troop of 32, plus scoutmaster.

Patrols had names reflected in their patrol flag symbols, carried by the patrol leader, who was appointed for one year. Each “animal named” patrol had their own animal calls to communicate secretly.  Patrol flags were important as base markers etc.

Semaphore signals by flag, third figure is the patrol bugler shown with patrol flag usually carried by the patrol leader (fourth). These wolf patrol scouts appear have the correct yellow and black garters / sock colours to match  their patrol / correct patrol flag.

Patrol names (Ogden’s scouting series of cigarette cards issued pre 1914) – wood pigeon, owl, lion, wolf, cuckoo, otter, eagle, peewit, ram, kangaroo, Fox, cobra.

Scouting for Boys 1908 mentions slightly different animal patrols and their colours: these affect the patrol’s coloured neck scarf. The printed scraps show different socks and shirts but this may not be accurate. Originally a coloured shoulder knot was worn.

Patrol flag animals and patrol colours – Oxford 2005 reprint of the 1908 Scouting for Boys.

Throughout Wide Games there are strict instructions for the Scoutmaster to pass on:

“All fields of standing crops must be placed out of bounds”

“Camp raiding is strictly prohibited” (Rule 340) ?

Points are deducted from a patrol or Scout for each Scout being captured or losing a “life”.

Points are gained per patrol or Scout for attaining another’s wool life, captive or token object.

I am still reading through Wide Game scenarios for rule clues, but as Alan Gruber observes, this could be an interesting basis for a set of rules.

Vikings (Wide Game 1, a Flag Raid scenario) mentions that the aim should be success “by strategy rather than force, so not more than two go together at one time and it is regarded as shameful for more than two to attack one man.”

Scout’s honour and fair play seem important concepts, almost a numerical value of honour points or shame points, to be redeemed by good and honourable deeds.

Image source: Oxfam online bookshop

Girl Scouts of America – and Britain?

The addition of a fullish Edwardian skirt easily turns a few of my tiny metal Boy scouts into Girl Scouts. Not all Girl Scouts wore their hair down and long, as was common with Edwardian girls, hair styles varied with age. Loose and long was generally for younger girls.

Girl Scouts used Wide Games, as their first guiding manual was based on Baden Powell’s Scouting For Boy’s. Thousands of Edwardian girls flocked to create their own patrols, occasionally working alongside Boy Scout Patrols.

This unchaperoned fraternisation began to cause difficulties locally and nationally for both Boy Scouts and Girl Scout groups. The solution? Girl Guides.

Guiding took over most of the 1908-1910 Girl Scouts Troops in 1910. However some BGS British Girl Scout troops still exist, alongside BBS British Boy Scouts wearing the traditional 1908 uniform. But that’s another story for another blog post.

Wide games are still used in modern Guiding.

https://lesliesguideideas.webs.com/gamesandwidegames.htm

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN (1970s Cub Scout, Bronze Arrow, retired) 2 May 2019.