Chapter 22 - A World Meeting
The last of these tales of my 1945 tours is about Switzerland again, where the doors have opened wide, and where it has at long last been possible to hold.a meeting of the WORLD COMMITTEE for the first time since 1938.
Before taking off from Croydon I was intrigued to receive an unexpected message; requesting me to be sure to look out of the aircraft before landing at Zurich. What this meant I could not imagine, until, as we neared our destination, peering out of the window, I saw below me a huge Trefoil, half red and half white, making an immense replica of the Swiss Guide Badge, spread out like a great mushroom on the ground.
On landing I found that this was composed of several hundred Guides all massed together, holding umbrellas up, skilfully covered half and half, with red and white paper.
As if this was not enough welcome, I was then hustled into a waiting car, and in the gathering dusk we rushed off into the woods, and here—as often before—I found myself faced by the unexpected.
By the light of dim lantems held by a long line of waiting Guides I was conducted without pause along a slippery, slithery, sloping track down the hill side, until suddenly I found myself facing a wide, dark, deep gully, with a rope slung across it. I may say I have no ' head ' at all for heights. I can't even walk across a plank over a stream, I can't bear walking along high walls, or looking down from the tops of high towers ; and I don't even like climbing up ladders ! And here was this monstrous idea of me having to walk across this swaying rope bridge, its far end hidden in the darkness, the plaited rungs far apart, its lashings slender, with the eyes of dozens of Guides watching to see the fun ! I believe that if it had been daytime my courage would have failed me, but mercifully it was too dark for me to see just how far the ground dropped away beneath the wooden slats. How thankful I was for that covering darkness, as I clung desperately to the ropes and, pulling myself together, strode from one step to another and gained the other side with a sense of utmost relief.
And after that little ordeal I found that the Scouts too have their own ideas about springing surprises on the Chief Guide,
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and arriving later at their rendezvous, I found a Camp Fire all ablaze but nobody there to enjoy it. There was just one Scoutmaster standing about, and he said that I was expected to call out the Scouts by making ' some animal noise ! '
-Well what would you do, when suddenly asked to make an animal noise ? It isn't easy to think quickly of the right one to choose, I am not in the habit of making animal noises, and it comes as a bit of a shock if you have never been asked to do such a thing before ! My mind switched vaguely from horses and hounds, to bull frogs and buffalo, And then suddenly, having heard lions in Africa making their hunting noises, I mentally rehearsed their grunts and growls and did my best to imitate that. I don't know whether it sounded much like a lion, but it had the immediate effect of calling forth a wild, tumbling mass of Wolf
Cubs, who came tearing out from their hiding places, followed later by another avalanche of running Scouts, who had all been waiting, hidden in the trees for any sort of sound that I might make,
So what with the welcome by a living Trefoil, the strain of walking the plank, and the sudden emergency of having to roar like a lion, my second arrival in Zurich that year was as eventful as the first. It just shows that one has to Be Prepared ' for anything!
The World Committee meeting took place in Geneva, and there could have been no more appropriate place for the session, steeped as it is in a tradition of international goodwill, and with an air of peace-mindedness. The atmosphere all helped the delegates, who came from war-hurt countries, and all together we discussed the past, but planned and thought for the future, and all that Guides can do and will do as the years unfold.
As travel becomes more possible all the doors will gradually open wide to allow, we hope, of many conferences and camps and happy re-unions for Guiders of all nations, and schemes for the holding of these were well to the fore in the discussions.
When the meeting ended, I was hurried off to pay fleeting visits to those places in Switzerland that I had been unable to go to earlier in the year.
I peeped for a day into the Canton de Valais, to see the Guides at Sion, and thence to Fribourg, a most entrancing old-world town, perched on a hill, with a river rushing in the deep valley below, and with several interesting historic towers guarding the approaches to the bridges.
I expect you may sometimes wonder how the Guides and Scouts
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it in other lands manage about the Scout and Guide literature they require for studying the art of Scouting, when most of the books are written in English. But for many years now the Handbooks of the Movement have been translated into quite a number of different languages. They are produced in French in France, in Switzerland and in Belgium, and in Polish and Danish, Italian and Norwegian, as well as in German and Spanish, too; and a lot of Scout Associations in different countries have their own books of games, tracking, handcrafts and camping information which have been written by their own experts.
Some of the Founder's other books have also been translated, and I soon realised that the Scouts of Fribourg must have read his Lessons from the Varsity of Life. In this book he gave the account of how he had seen me walking once in London, several years before we actually met, and though he only saw my back he liked the way I walked. Years later, when we were both on board ship, bound for the West Indies, he was walking along the deck behind me, and recognised that walk.
On my arrival at Fribourg, all the Scouts and Guides were formed up outside the station, and a minute, very smart Scout read out a long and gracious address of welcome in English, in the course of which he said : ' we have already known you for a long time. The first time we heard your name in reading "At the School of Life." and so became acquainted with your way of walking. And if to-day we were not forming a square to receive you and if, the station floor were not so hard, Cubs and Scouts would eagerly have followed your steps, in order to observe the exceptional footprints which were the origin of your association with the Scout Movement.'
This conjures up yet another thing that might have been sprung upon me, and I am only so thankful that I was not expected to go off on a tracking expedition, or to lay a trail in the snow !
When I arrived at La Chaux de Fond there was a snow storm raging, but, nothing daunted, the whole crowd of Scouts and Guides determined that their parade should not suffer from that, and, to a fanfare of trumpets I was given a great welcome in the station courtyard, and escorted round the whole hollow square to inspect each Patrol in turn, snow or no snow.
After that came a special treat of a meal called a Fondue, which is a great speciality of that district. We all sat round separate tables, for about eight or ten people, but these were not apparently arranged for a meal, for there were no places laid with knives and
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spoons and things, but just a few forks and'some dry crusty rolls. Suddenly a deep steaming hot dish was put in the middle of the table, filled with the most delicious melted cheese, cooked up with a little white wine. Everyone broke up their bread into chunks, put a chunk on to the tips of their fork, dipped it into this delicious soup, and gulped it down !
Being a novice at it, I was very slow and awkward, and my bread would fall off the fork into the dish. But I soon got better at the game, which caused lots of amusement to the on-lookers.
One of the most original Guide locales that I have seen was at Neuchatel, tucked away in the cellar of a big apartment house. The walls have been lined with brown paper, with clever devices stencilled all over them, carved wooden shields and mottoes are hung round at intervals, and there are nice little home-made stools to sit on, round a wide open fire place, decorated with models of badges.
Before leaving Switzerland I was able to visit two Cantons that I had never been to before—St. Gall and Appenzell.
At St. Gall we had a great big rally, of about 1,000 Scouts and Guides who gave a lot of displays and sang and laughed and had quite a good joyous time together !
And then I went on to Heiden, a lovely little village, and from there 1 could see right over the Lake Constance to Germany, and also look across to the distant mountains of Austria.
There were some fine Scouts in Austria at one time, and a few Guides too, and a rumour reached me when I was within sight of their border, that our Movement will revive now and grow there again by degrees, re-building itself on the foundations laid quite long ago.
For a few hours I crossed yet another frontier, looking in to pay my first visit to the Guides of Liechtenstein.
It was lovely to find yet another door that has opened to us, and on that short visit, I met a wee company at a small village close to Buchs, and the rest of the Guides at Vaduz, the capital of this little independent Principality.
It is only about the size of a small county, and shelters under Switzerland's wing, and gets their assistance in things like military protection, police, and it even uses the same coinage. But it has its own postal service, and the country gains quite a good income from the sale of stamps, which are much sought after by stamp collectors all over the world.
The Guides there have eamed a good name for themselves for
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various forms of social service during the war, by assisting the Red Cross and working on farms. Then, with the peace, came their greatest opportunity. As hundreds of French soldiers began to pass through Liechtenstein on their way home from the Russian front, they were supplied with food, and the Guides helped to put up little wooden huts where they could find shelter and rest before continuing their long wearing journey across Europe.
A few more days in Switzerland, and my touring in the momentous year of 1945 was done. I took off from Switzerland in fog, rising into heartening sunshine, only to find as we circled round high above the ground that Croydon was completely eclipsed by a thick ground fog, and that it was impossible to land.
The pilot circled round for a little while, considering whether he should take us back again to Zurich, it was strange for a time not to know where we should land, and eventually we flew back to France, and so, as rather a strange coincidence, I unexpectedly spent the last night of my November tour in Paris, just as I had spent in that self same city, the first night of my April tour, the beginning and the ending of my journeyings through the opened doors of Europe.
This, the end of my chapter and of my book, is written at the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Scouting and Guiding —a history that has had many tales of courage and perseverance added to it during the second war which the Movement has survived.
The Scouts of Fribourg at the end of the address which began so humorously, asked me to convey to their brother Scouts the world over the message that they had promised to be, in common with them, not heroes of war, but, through friendship and devotion to Scout laws and ideals, heroes of peace and mutual understanding. A Norwegian Guider, writing after my visit there, said that until the dark days brought about by the invasion had caused her country to be isolated from the rest of her Guide friends in other lands, she had never realised that she ' was so tied up with all the world,' and she went on to say that because of the isolation, that she had suffered and because of the merciful redemption from that isolation, she now had a sense of belong-ing-ness and obligation to people in all other countries,' that she did not have before.
That is a good lesson to have learnt from suffering and one which, because of the very nature of our Law and Promise, we
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are all bound to put into effect. The Guides in Europe where the war clouds were blackest and hardships were most severe, have doubled their numbers and enthusiasm and are keenly aware that they belong to a great world-wide sisterhood, of which their own national organisations are only a small but vital part.
Let us all feel like that. In the words that the Founder used at the end of the 'Calgaric' cruise about which I have talked so much in this book : ' Let us be thankful that we have seen all these things, especially that spirit of love in our neighbouring nations. May the inspiration of it dwell in our hearts, and enable us to go forward with confidence, with hope, with courage, with patience and with faith, to press on with what we are doing towards, and helping in, that great work of bringing about goodwill among men and peace upon earth.'
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Made and Printed in Great Britain
by The Surrey Fine Art Press
Redhill Surrey
