Opening Doorways | 18 Journey into Italy

Chapter 18 - Journey into Italy

So my travels continue, with a journey from France to Italy, and this time by air.
Perhaps to those of you who have not yet flown this sounds a-very exciting way of getting about. Certainly the first time is very exciting, and I always enjoy the first moment when the signal is given to start and the great machine roars forward, bouncing a bit on its wheels and then rises, and you feel yourself actually ' airbome.'
After that, and when doing long distances, you begin to find it a little monotonous, and many people just read a book and sleep to while away the time.
Looking down, even from a great height, it is wonderful how clearly everything shows up, spread out like a map below. Generally the view is remarkably clear, cars look like little toys running along the road, cattle grazing in the fields which look like so many little garden patches with the hedges intersecting them. You can even spot hens strutting about in the farmyards and farmers working in their fields, and one day, watching a flock of sheep

being driven down a lane, I could even see the sheep dog shepherding them along.
Perhaps the strangest thing about this flying is that although the plane is tearing through the air at 180 miles an hour or more, there is no sensation of speed, because there is nothing by which to gauge the pace that you are going—no buildings flashing by, or traffic to overtake, or lights to slow you down!
You seem almost to be hovering in space, until suddenly a cloud rushes at you and in a second the plane has dived through it and out into the clear air beyond.
We flew at about 7,000 feet, out over Cap Ferrat, and saw miles of the length of the Cote 'Azure,' the white foam caused by the breaking waves in its little coves and inlets looking like a scalloped fringe of lace attached to the very blue limitless covering of the sea.
Then we sighted Corsica and crossed its Northem tip, and on over the island of Elba, passing within sight of the Anzio Beaches, where the famous bridgehead was made and held after the initial landings of British troops in Italy during one of the most grievous phases of the war.
Sliding down the coast, now flying over land and then out over the sea as the coast line bulged in or out into capes and headlands, we seemed quite suddenly to find ourselves nearing Naples. Down we came and ran-in at an immense airfield thronged with aircraft of all shapes and sizes, tiny one-man Mosquitoes looking like toys beside great giants of the air.
There used to be a saying ' See Naples and die,' because it was thought enviable to close one's eyes for the last time with the exquisite beauty of that place mirrored in them. Perhaps it would be more true now to say 'See Naples and cry,' and this is not alone because of the badly bombed buildings in the town. There is a general look and feeling of poverty and depression. The people, descendants of gay and independent Neapolitans, are dejected and sad and cowed. Elsewhere in the world, suffering people have rescued their pride from the ruins of homes and country and have set to with fresh determination to build anew, but when I was in Southern Italy there was a sense of great pain endured for no great purpose and towards no great end; the people were still numb with the shock of betrayal by the leaders in whom they had put too much trust, and by the loss of their prestige and pride.
It was there, in dusty, dirty, damaged Naples, that I suddenly

of thought of writing this book. As I set foot in the country from which Scouting and Guiding had been banished for so long, I realised to the full that what had been sealed doors were swinging back again, if a little creakily, on disused hinges, and that the book might appropriately be called ' Opening Doorways.' Had I not come to Italy for the express purpose of helping to pick up fresh threads in order that they might be woven into the pattern of the newly started Guide Movement in that country ? But more of that later, for we are still in Naples, and I must take you with me on a road journey from there to Rome.
After lunching at Caserta in a palace built for the King of Naples at the end of the Napoleonic wars—an enormous building, with a great staircase and imposing halls, wide corridors and frescoed walls, and a roadway running through its centre!—we motored in the tracks of our Army over and beyond the Voltumo River, a trail easy to follow because of the dreadful devastation left behind. The blown-up bridges and battered houses were in striking contrast to the beautiful background of distant hills, whose grey blueness matched the blue-grey of the olive trees, and here and there the great screens of vines, caused by the custom of festooning them from tree to tree instead of cultivating them in the usual low bush style.
Having joumeyed on through small, ruined villages stuck like limpets on the hillsides, we experienced another startling contrast as we found ourselves transported into quite an East-African countryside with low scrub bushes and bare hills and stony, rocky, empty river beds, and even the heat of the blazing hot sunshine that one finds so much in Africa and so little in Europe. Now and then we passed little cemeteries with their orderly rows of soldiers' graves, here a British, there a Nazi, lying ironically close to one another and surrounded, wreath-like, on the day we were there, with fields of scarlet poppies.
And so eventually to Cassino, the ruins of a town and the shattered remains of its famous monastery on the hill above, devastated so cruelly by the bombs and shells of the Allied armies in their long and tragic struggle for the freeing of Italy from the clutches of her so-called friend. From afar we sighted the great Dome of St. Peter's, the world renowned Roman Catholic Church, built within the walls of the Vatican City on the site where St. Peter himself preached the gospel of Christ.
The moment you set foot in Rome you begin to feel a sense of wonderment at what people accomplished in those long ago times

of ancient Rome, the capital of the great Empire whose rulers conquered and governed half Europe, including our little outpost of England.
You who live in Northumberland, close to the great wall that they built to divide England from Scotland, or at places like Chester, Bath, Boroughbridge and York, will all, I expect, be especially interested in that period of the world's history because of the Roman walls and tiled floors and pieces of buildings that have remained through the centuries as evidence of their occupation of our island and of the energy and skill of those men who built them.
And in Rome itself, of course, with fullest pride in their own great city, without electrical implements or compressed air machines or any of the modern appliances our builders use to-day, they built their beautiful triumphal arches, pillared halls, and the ' Forum ' where the judges sat to administer justice, and often, in those days of terrible cruelty, to condemn people to death. One quite usual way of killing those unfortunate people was to turn them loose and unarmed into a huge arena called the ' Coliseum,' a vast building with a wide space in the middle rather like a cross between the Albert Hall in London and an indoor football ground, if there were such a thing—oblong in shape and with tier after tier of seats piled up to a great height, all made in stone and in the most lovely style of architecture—where the poor wretches were faced by wild lions who just tore them to pieces.
The great amphitheatre is partially ruined with patches of crumbled walls, but it is possibly more beautiful in that state than before.
I wonder if you have all read and enjoyed as I did years ago, that grand story of Androcles ' ? He was an escaped prisoner living in a cave in the mountains, and one day a lion came in with a thom embedded in its paw. It was in such pain that it did not attack Androcles but just lay down in agony. The man very bravely took the animal's leg into his hand and pulled out the thorn, and the wound soon healed. The two continued to share the same cave, however, until eventually they were both captured, and the man was taken away to live again in a cell while the lion was starved to make him the more ferocious.
Androcles was condemned to death, but when the day came for him to meet his doom in the arena of the Coliseum, a miracle happened, for the lion loosed on him recognised in Androcles

the man who had shown him kindness and saved him from pain. Instead of dashing upon him to eat him, the lion fawned on the man like a dog, licking his hand. This so surprised the Emperor that he pardoned Androcles and also gave him the lion to be his pet—and after that they were constantly seen strolling about the town together!
I could not help thinking of this story as I strolled round the ruins, feasting my eyes on the beauty of the old walls on the one hand, and then turning to watch the hurly burly of the traffic in the streets beyond—a constant rushing stream of army cars, lorries and motor-bicycles, which, however, was slightly influenced and slowed down by the presence of horse-drawn cabs like the old-fashioned Victorias ' which act as taxis, and also by the crowds and crowds of carts pulled by little donkeys which go pit-patting along on their tiny hooves, manfully lugging such big loads.
But from the past I must turn to the present and tell you what I saw of the Guides in Rome.
Scouting had flourished in Italy from the earliest days, and one of the best contingents attending the first Scout World Jamboree in London in 1920 came from there, the leader of it being the uncle of one of the founding members of the Guides in Italy to-day. There were also a few Guides in those far-off days, but they only formed small groups in two or three of the chief towns, so could never have been called a whole Guide Movement exactly.
When Mussolini came into power both Scouts and Guides had to stop, their place being taken by a State organisation called The Balilla. The name was that of a boy hero of the Austro-Italian war. -In some ways there was a touch of Scouting and Guiding in the national concern because they had three age groups, roughly corresponding to Wolf Cubs, Scouts and Rovers; they camped; they were tested for badges; and they played games to help themselves grow fit and strong. But, although when the Founder and I visited Italy in 1933 we were told that the Head of the Balilla kept a copy of Scouting for Boys in his writing table drawer' for reference purposes, there was very little real likeness between the two organisations because membership of the Balilla was practically compulsory, as punishment fell on the family of those children who refused to join, their own school progress was arrested, and it was all forced upon them, instead of being a game undertaken of their own free will. The training given was of a military character, and the boys were forced to

carry little wooden rifles on parade, and entirely dominated by adults. The slogan was ' Work, Obey, Fight,' and that did not appeal very much to the children, who themselves had no desire to belong to an organisation that gave them no fun at all.
And just as the Fascist Govemment of the country crumpled when put to the test, the Balilla has now entirely vanished, having achieved nothing in its seventeen years of life because it was built up on wrong and twisted lines. It developed no stability in its members, did not encourage or bring out their powers of leadership, and in fact, proved that a kind of imitation Scouting does not work—the real thing has to be done in the right way, or not at all!
With the liberation of Italy came the desire to restart Scouts, and Troops sprang up in town after town as the British Army advanced. Scout flags and insignia were unearthed from hiding places in crypts and cellars, old uniforms were discovered secreted in cupboards or even sewn safely away inside mattresses. There was a natural uprising on the part of the boys themselves; men who remembered the Scouting days of their youth came forward to act as leaders, and this re-birth of Scouting was very much helped by ex-Scouts in the Army and the Air Force who gave generously of their support and encouragement to the Italian boys.
Guiding had actually been started again by a few young women in Rome before the whole country was completely free. With an English edition of Scouting for Boys as their only literature, they studied and trained themselves as future Guiders, hidden in cellars and catacombs under the very nose of the enemy. The first Patrol, ' The Squirrels,' were enrolled in secret in December, 1943, and these were the foundation members of the now definitely formed Roman Catholic organisation Associazone Guide Italiene which has the full support of the Vatican. Side by side with this Movement, an association called the Unione Nationale Exploratrici Italiene, for girls of any religious faith, has been revived, and now news is coming through that this Association, joining hands with the other and forming together with them the Federation of Guides for All Italy, is really getting on to its feet, and is going ahead with a programme of training Guiders and leaders that will help Guiding to spread more rapidly through this war-scarred, unhappy land.
Not that there was much unhappiness visible at the very enjoyable Rally of 370 Guides and 1,000 Scouts which I attended in a beautiful Park belonging to Prince Doria, a little way out of

the city of Rome. All the arrangements for this gathering had been made in less than a week, which says a great deal for the energy and enthusiasm of those concemed. The rally was delightfully informal, but both Guides and Scouts put on first-rate displays, full of good humour and charm, and in spite of the unspeakable difficulties of clothes, everyone had bits of some sort of uniform. A nine-course lunch was cooked on real camp fires, and the Guides' display of Second Class test work, and a pageant of St. George, with an armour-clad knight on a real white horse, was all most effectively carried out, with lots of good humour and in a most happy spirit.
Before leaving Italy I paid a flying visit to Florence to see the Guides and Guiders there, and also had the great honour and privilege of an audience with His Holiness the Pope, who firmly believes in the immense good that can be done in the world through Guiding.

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