Chapter 2 - The First Door Opens
When I knew that I was going to France I did a thing that will make you Guides laugh — I started doing lessons, me, at MY age !
You see I had not made the most of my opportunities when I was your age and I had never learned to talk French properly, and of recent years I had not had a chance of conversing in that language at all, and it is one thing to be able to read and understand a foreign language — which is fairly easy — but it is quite another thing to be able to make conversation in it !
So I got hold of a good teacher to give me some lessons. And she was kind too. I must have been frightful to teach because, being rather busy, I could only spare an hour two or three times a week with her, when we read and talked together, and in every sentence I said things wrong in grammar or wording. It must have been most painful to listen to, but she was so patient, and quietly corrected me in so clever a way, that I never realised that I was learning from her and improving all the time. Of course, I ought to have made time to practise more, and do the thing thoroughly, but even though I didn't get half as competent as I should have liked, the mere fact of trying made me feel better and gave me confidence.
And how thankful I was later, that I had made even that much effort, because naturally, I had to talk the language all the time I was on tour, and even had to make extempore speeches in it at Rallies, Camp Fires, official parties and public meetings, and even sometimes when suddenly unexpectedly finding Scouts and Guides awaiting me at railway stations whilst my train halted for a few minutes en route to somewhere !
You never know what you are going to be faced with on a tour like that ; and I certainly had to do my best to live up to 'Being Prepared' during my wonderful and most inspiring trip through France.
But at the first moment of landing all my anxieties about the language vanished completely, for the welcome that was given to me at Dieppe took them all away.
As our ship crept slowly into the harbour on April 20th, the Scouts and Guides were there to greet me, out on the end of the jetty in the early morning, flags flying and hands waving. Later
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on I heard that they had been awaiting my arrival for over two hours.
The Director of the Guide World Bureau and the County Commissioner for Worcestershire, Mrs. Arthur Hill, were with me, and whilst kind Scout and harbour authorities managed all our landing permits and luggage, we went ashore at once to inspect the Scouts and Guides, who by then were lined up on the quay, suddenly feeling a little awed by the importance of the occasion and standing stiffly to attention. It was a thrilling moment indeed to find myself inspecting Patrols of French Scouts and Guides on their own soil.
A procession was then formed, and we all marched through the streets to the town War Memorial, where there was a beautiful ceremony which I was later to take part in again in many different towns. All the important personages of the town and district were gathered together—the Commandant of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, the Commissaire de la Republique (who is rather like the equivalent of the Lord Lieutenant of a county here in Great Britain) and the Mayor and Town Councillors — and, with lines of Scouts and Guides, we were all drawn up in a hollow square facing the Memorial.
Big up-standing Patrol Leaders came forward to the high flag staffs on either side of the statue and slowly hoisted the Union Jack and the Tricolour ; we all sang the two National Anthems, I laid a wreath on the steps of the Memorial, and then we all stood silent a moment, as we thought of those who had fallen so long ago in the last war, as well as those who have made the supreme sacrifice in this one so lately ended.
Gracious speeches of welcome were then made to me, bidding me welcome, not only as Chief Guide, but as a messenger of goodwill from England itself, and paeans of praise and admiration and gratitude were sung to me of what France owed to Great Britain. It was most touching.
I have an English passport, of course, and I was born in England and lived in England most of my life, but of recent years I have not felt held and tied to this country more than to any other, because my duties and responsibilities to all other countries are equally great through being a 'WORLD Guide.' I owe all Guides my care and my thought in the same measure, and in no way did I go to visit the Guides in France as representing Great Britain, but purely as their own special friend, to let them feel that they were in touch with the world of Guiding now that their doors were open
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once more, and to rejoice with them at their new freedom. So it was quite a new idea to find myself in the position of being a spokesman for Great Britain and not a little embarrassing. But there it was, and both for the Guides and my nation I was the humble object of the most courteous and sincerely friendly reception. This almost overwhelming friendliness was shown to me over and over again as I went from place to place in many different parts of France, showing that there is the most earnest desire for understanding friendship with this country.
I mention this specially to all of .you now because sometimes you read in the papers about unfortunate things happening and unkind things being said between one country and another. People are very critical and only too ready to find fault and pick holes in the government action here or there, and the politics and political life of a nation is quite often not the true indication of the life and feelings of the people of that nation themselves.
To know that, you need to go and get first-hand knowledge yourself, and meet people personally; and I want you Guides to gain from me this impression of the deep-rooted affection that is in the hearts of a large proportion of the French people for this country.
It is up to us to cherish and foster that goodwill, and to work for it; and I hope that through succeeding years we shall see a great deal of inter-changing of visits between you and the Guides in France (as well as other countries too).
Now to come back to my journey !
When the official part of the ceremony at Dieppe was over, we all got into columns again and, headed by the colours, marched to the empty and battered railway station to await our train.
For years France had been very short of milk, and what there was had been reserved for babies and small children, and many of our friends had not tasted milk for five years.
In spite of this, in their determination to show us the best hospitality possible, Guides had gone off early that moming, scouring the countryside for farms outside the town, and had got a wee jug of milk to pour into my tea. I felt quite ashamed of defrauding a French baby of its ration that moming.
Whilst we were being fortified for our joumey by a meal, Guides and Scouts formed rings and squares, and performed some of their lovely Country Dances in the middle of the main entrance hall of the station.
By the time the train was there to carry us away, all vestige of
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shyness had vanished, pent-up enthusiasm was bubbling up ready to boil over, and the whole lot made a wild rush on to the platform, and, forming a wide circle with linked hands criss-crossed, reaching up to mine sticking out of the carriage window, we all wildly sang their song of Au Revoir which goes to the tune of 'Auld Lang Syne' :
Faut it nous quitter sans espoir
Sans espoir de retour
Faut it nous quitter sans espoir
De nous revoie un jour ?
Ce n'est qu'un au revoir mes soeurs
Ce n'est qu'un au revoir
Oui nous nous reverrons mes soeurs
Ce n'est qu'un au revoir.
On the eve of my departure for France different people bade me farewell in different ways — some of which were rather comic. One said: 'I am sure you will have a lovely holiday!' The following tale of the tour through eight countries of Europe will give you some idea of what sort of 'holiday' it was, and I don't think I have ever worked so hard in my life !
Another said: 'What a pity that you will miss the spring.' How she thought I was going to miss that lovely season by going across the Channel is a little mystifying, for May is spring time in France just as much as it is in England — if not more so !
I arrived over there just at the most beautiful lilac time, the forests carpeted with wild lilies of the valley, and as I journeyed through the lovely country from the coast to Paris, it was all looking its greenest and its best, so well cultivated and so peaceful.
It was almost impossible to believe how lately war had swept across these very fields and woods.
As the train pulled into the station of Goumay, I saw a Scout standing there; and pushing my head quickly out of the window I saw another, and then another, and then another — a whole Troop of them — all standing at intervals along the whole length of the platform. And then in a quick rush they all collected like a pack of hounds baying at my carriage window, bursting into singing, and then presenting me with a charming souvenir drawing of
'Greetings from Goumay.'
I only just had time to say a few words of thanks, as the train whirled me away from them, waving their hands and cheering. It was such a gay little goodwill meeting, and it was such a
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sensible plan of theirs to stand well spaced opposite all the carriages like that, so that I could spot them quickly, and vice versa. Had they all been collected in a bunch at a given spot far from where my carriage halted, we should have wasted more of the precious short minutes of the stop. This is an idea that may be worth while to remember when you are meeting a friend at a crowded station.
On arrival in Paris lots of our Scout and Guide friends met us, and as we came out of the station I came at once upon one of the finest pieces of Scout-Guide service that I have heard of.
At all the main railway stations in Paris, a Centre D'Accueuil had been set up — a 'Welcome centre' — for the soldiers returning on leave, for the thousands of unhappy civilian people who had been deported to Germany for slave labour, and for the thousands more of what were known as the 'political prisoners' who had been suffering untold misery in the concentration camps.
Volunteers were needed to receive these men, who arrived, by day and night, tired and without friends to meet them. People were wanted all the time to see to their needs, to get them into communication with their families, to escort them from one part of Paris to another, to feed them, and to give them every kind of assistance.
This was being done by hundreds of Scouts and Guides all day and every day, and by night too. One day an urgent request was made over the radio for a thousand Scout-Guide volunteers to attend quickly, for the sudden arrival of a very much larger contingent than usual, and over fifteen hundred turned up, to give their services as needed.
It was really grand to see those helpers 'on the job' at the stations; and during all those days it was quite usual to see anywhere in the streets of Paris little groups trudging along consisting of a returned soldier, re-united with his wife and children, being shepherded through the crowded thoroughfares by an attendant Scout, carrying half the luggage.
The biggest day of my stay in France was, of course, the great St. George's Day itself. This started with a lovely 'Scouts Own' (which in French is called a 'culte') held for about 3,000 Scouts and Guides out in the beautiful Bois de Boulogne, the big wooded park on the edge of the city itself; whilst at the same time Mass was held for the Roman Catholic Scouts and Guides in the gardens of the Trocadero, where about 15,000 were gathered together,
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holding their up-lifting service, right in the heart of Paris—out of doors for the first time for over eighty years.
Later came the ceremony of laying flowers at the Unknown Warrior's Grave.
Most of you Guides who live in London, or who have visited London, will have seen the Unknown Soldier's Tomb in Westminster Abbey, and will know that after the war of 1914-1918 an unknown soldier's body was brought back from the battle fields of Flanders, and was placed in this honoured shrine, representing those thousands of other men who had been killed, but whose names would never be known.
In Paris the tomb is out of doors, in the most out-standing place of the town, right under the high portico of the 'Arc de Triomphe,' which is a little like the old Marble Arch in London, but much bigger and finer.
It stands out on high ground, and from it you can look in all directions down wide avenues and boulevards lined with trees, radiating out like the spokes of a wheel. At least, I should say radiating out like the rays of a star, for the space round it is called 'L'etoile.' Beautiful Paris is spread out all round it, so well laid out, with fine buildings placed at vantage points where they can best be seen, all so handsome and attractive and full of charm.
At the head of the Unknown Warrior's tomb is a flame of fire, which never goes out, reminding one that sacrifice shall always be remembered, and that the flame of such bravery as was shown by those men in that war, will never fade or die out. And as I was standing there that morning in April, thinking back into that other war, surrounded by Scout and Guide leaders who had suffered through this one, I heard someone in the crowd say: 'It is nearly over. We are into Berlin.'
Four years of war; twenty years of peace; five years of war, and peace coming again at last. What are we going to do with it in these coming years ?
My answer to that question came at once. We are going to work, we Scouts and Guides, to make our Movement so strong, and get the ideals for which we stand so well developed, that peace shall go on and on. We can play a larger part than perhaps we realise in making for understanding and friendships everywhere, which can be the foundation for a lasting peace.
The Scouts and Guides of France have this ideal firmly in their minds and in their hearts; and their vigour and their enthusiasm for 'le scoutisme' has to be seen to be believed.
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I saw it in full measure at this wonderful St. George's Day Parade. Scouts and Guides of all shapes and sizes came pouring into this centre from all ends of Paris, in spite of the only means of transport being the one Underground Railway (known as the 'Metro') or bicycles or feet.
With General Lafont, the Chief Scout of France, I stood on a high platform for an hour and three quarters, watching a stream of them pouring down the Champs-Élysées, and past our saluting base, gradually forming up in a solid mass in the wide open space called the 'Place de la Concorde.'
There were over 40,000 of them there. Never have I seen a better managed parade. They marched past in groups of about 200 at a time, and well out in front of each walked two Scouts carrying a large placard giving the name of the unit and the district which it represented.
The Scouts carry staves, of course, as the Founder always thought Scouts should; and the Patrol Leaders of the Guides always do too. These are nearly always decorated in rather fantastic fashion, and have infinite variety. They usually have an embroidered flag representing their Patrol emblem, and sometimes at the top of the staff they will put a bunch of fur or feathers; and then all down the staff are quaint decorations, such as woodcraft signs, the dates of camps, designs of badges and insignia, and initials, so that the staff carries a sort of symbolic history of the life and activities of its owner.
This great March Past flowed on, and out in front of each marching group also walked about six of its members carrying flowers. If it were a group of Wolf Cubs or Brownies (Petites Ailes or Jeannettes) these cheery little people carried posies of primroses or cowslips; and then with the older ones the leaders at the head of the group carried great sheaves of lilac, laburnam or guelder rose—which gave such a picturesque and decorative effect.
Some of the groups merely 'eyes righted' as they passed; but most of them cheered and waved their hats, and all had their own individuality, as it were; all were feeling that the whole effect of the parade was being upheld by each one of them themselves. There was no mooching along just in a herd, looking on the ground and passing by dull and unsmiling. There was a concentrated life and vigour about these people such as I have never seen surpassed; and even I — old hand as I am at Guide Rallies — could have shouted with the thrill of it, as they came striding by, heads
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up, alert and vigorous, enthusiastic for the game and filled with a zest for doing their Scouting and Guiding as well as they possibly could, determined to play their part in the re-making of the national life of their country as it rises out of the shadows that have befallen it.
13 (part)
