B-P
This WebSite is for Olave Baden-Powell, nee Soames. But these few snippets have been resurrected from dead WebSites, so it is right they be included here. B-P does have a similar WebSite here.
Baden-Powell wrote of his mother on her death in 1909
When I first put forward the idea of the Girl Guide Movement, I was not so very hopeful about it myself until my mother, with her ripe experience and plucky spirit, urged me to go ahead with it. Her feeling might have been expressed briefly thus:
"Push on with it - suggest it to the girls, and they, with their spirit, will do the rest. And I believe you will."
Robert Baden-Powell was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the year 1939, but the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided not to award any prize for that year due to the start of World War II.
BP's view of Australia
"Have you ever noticed that the east side of Australia is like a rabbit's head and the west like a lion's?"
Yarns By BP
Robert Baden-Powell gave Olave her engagement ring as they went to arrange for their special marriage licence. He formally proposed to her on the steps of the building and slipped the ring on her finger. The ring was a simple metal band, embossed with a fleur-de-lys, made and given to BP by a African scout.
source, 'Window on My Heart'
Earliest known drawing of a Scout by BP
Yarns By BP
From:- http://www.reocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/3965/bpbirch.html, which recovered this from a "lost" WebSite.
SCHOOL DAYS
One of the few relic's of B-P's schooldays is this Birch [picture lost].
A label attached to it, written by B-P reads:- "Birch used for training boys in character when I was at Charterhouse."
B-P gained a scholarship and started at Charterhouse, then still in London, in 1870. The school moved to Godalming, Surrey, in 1872.
B-P was not an outstanding scholar or a brilliant athlete although he took part in games. Football was his favourite and the school magazine often praised his goalkeeping. He took part in most of the School's many Clubs and Societies and was on the Committees of the Boat Club, the Museum, Sports Day and the Hockey Club.
He and a few friends even started a private society known as the Druids Club. Members had special names and B-P called himself "Lord Bathing Towell". One of the rules of the Club stated:"Any brother not producing a song or speech (within a minute after being called on) the latter in length not less than five minutes or one year, shall be fined a bottle of lemonade".
Another side of B-P's life at Charterhouse took place beyond the school playing fields known as "The Copse". Although this was out of bounds, B-P was often to be found there. In the woods he taught himself the elements of Scouting - snaring rabbits and cooking them over a bushman's fire, using an axe, tracking and loving silently through the bush, climbing trees, learning the ways of the birds and animals.
Many years afterwards he said it was the copse that he gained what helped him in after life to find the joy of living.
School holidays provided some exciting adventures, with his brothers on various boating expeditions and tramping holidays in different parts of the country.
By 1876 B-P, now 19, was in the 6th Form and Second Monitor of his House. He sat for the open examination for an Army Commission. Out of the 700 candidates he gained second place for cavalry and fourth for infantry.
On the 11th September, 1876, he was gazetted a Sub-Lieutenant in the 13th Hussars and sailed for India.
http://www.reocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/3965/bpblack.html
Black Prince
Caption to a lost picture:-
This is part of the harness of Black Prince, the black charger which was given to him by the people of Australia, in congratulation for his wonderful defence of Mafeking.
The news of the raising of the Seige of Mafeking was greeted with wild enthusiasm throughout the Empire. Crowds assembled outside the house of B-Ps mother and they were not satisfied until she had appeared in answer to their cheers.
Later, when B-P returned home he was overwhelmed with receptions and presentations of all kinds. King Edward VII summoned him to Balmoral to confer on him the C.B. and to hear B-P's own account of the Siege.
Source "The Scout", Date unknown.
The war-horse was very large, but very placid and gentle. B-P's children, when very small, would climb up onto his back over his back legs, pulling pulling themselves up on his tail.
http://www.reocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/3965/bpunion.html
B-P's UNION FLAG
This flag [picture missing] flew over Mafeking on Sundays, October 11th, 1899 to May 18th, 1900. On weekdays a smaller flag was used in order not to give away the position of our Headquarters to the Boers (who did not fight on Sundays). The defence of Mafeking was the climax of B-P's military career. His heroic and brilliant defence of this small town in the Cape made him a national hero. In fact, such was the wild rejoicing at the news that a new word - "mafecking" - was added to the English language.
Mafeking was a small frontier town held by B-P with only 1,250 armed mean, many of them untrained, against a besieging force of 9,000 Boers. B-P called the Seige a great bluff from start to finish. He was continually inventing means of deceiving the enemy and keeping them guessing. For instance, a number of apparently explosive mines were laid all round the town. Danger notices were put near them so that the information would quickly reach the Boers by spies.
One was tested, producing a loud explosion. Actually all the "mines" except the one tested were boxes of sand by the ruse fooled the Boers and made them very wary of approaching the town at night.
Dummy figures were placed in various forts and moved from time to time to give the enemy the impression that all forts were fully manned. Even some of the forts themselves were dummies.
Source "The Scout", Date unknown.
