Geoff Brown on Sea Scouts

Just before I became 18 I joined what was then Decca Radar, which is now BA Systems and that’s before all main buildings were built. And I joined Decca, was sent up to Weybridge initially for training and then when I moved back to the Island I then got talked into becoming a Scout Leader. That was in 1964.

So, I’ve been a Scout Leader, what now, 54 years. At that time, Leader training was very random, you didn’t have to do much training basically because we had the experience of coming up through as a Scout, you knew everything so to speak.

You don’t, but you thought you knew everything. It’s over the years when Headquarters started going … ‘cos a lot of the training was optional then, but the … you then had a sort of “well I think you need to know a bit more about this, and you need a bit of this and if you were an Assistant Leader when they brought the training in compulsory, the Assistant Leader, you only did so much training and if you became a full Scout Leader running the Section you had to do a lot more training.

And then over the years they said, “Well why should one leader have a lot more knowledge, training knowledge? When that person’s not around the others had to step in” so then all the training became compulsory over the years for everybody and eventually you had all to do the same sort of training.