It was at this time I noticed a number of Beavers and Cubs running around the car park giggling, and shouting, and generally enjoying themselves as they do, closely followed by a number of read faced Leaders waving their arms. Have you noticed its more with Cubs than Beavers, they are all behaving themselves, then one of them does something, usually its one of the younger Cubs, the others look round and whilst Akela is occupied with the needs of the “decoy”, this is the signal for the others to one by one erupt into a fit of unruly and disruptive antics, and to think they wanted me to be a Cub Leader?

When we got back to the tents lunch was prepared, and as the first pans went on the fire a small group of leaders started to erect a tent close by, ha! Some company we thought (little did we know) then another tent went up, and another, the thing was they were all small tents and scattered around the area, within fifteen minuets there were sixty or so Cubs and Beavers watching us.

This is when we began to realise we where about to have lunch in the middle of a joint Beaver and Cub picnic, worst of all some of their Leaders where unaware of the dangers, slowly we were being overrun. Guy lines, pegs, Cubs, and footballs do not mix, let alone camp fires, hot pans, etc, they looked upon us as a new form of entertainment, and as we all sat down there must have been well over a hundred of them running around and we were the main attraction. What are you doing, what’s that for, can I have a bit, where are you from, can I put some wood on the fire, what’s he doing, you’ve hared it all before put that down, don’t do that, you will hurt yourself, fortunately the novelty soon wore off when the face painting started and they wondered of to the camp fire circle to have fun and make friends.

Having fun that’s a thing anybody can do on one of the best, Scout camp assault courses in the country, (or so the warden tells me). Team work, strength, stamina, agility and determination, are just some of the attributes needed to improve your performance on an assault course, all the requirements for a good Scout. At the start most of them were a bit shaky, but after some practice, and lots of encouragement by late afternoon they all had improved on their times, so it was decided to have a run off to find the fastest, I must give you a rough description of the

course so you have an idea of what they had to do, there were more bits and pieces but you’ll get the general idea.

The assault course was in a dry stream bed, flanked on both sides by a steep bank almost vertical in parts (it has since been dismantled, health and safety, and all that?) it started with a run down one side, and up a scramble net on the other, followed by a pole to slide down, then came some stepping stones/up turned logs, followed by a short tunnel, yet more obstacles to step over and then, the piece de résistance a 7ft wall, a 15ft log to run or straddle across also 7ft or so of the ground, more steps down, then back up, across a short plank before a run up the opposite bank, and then a final dash back to the start, over 300 metres up a one in six track?

This was a great finish to a good activity with little or no organising, apart from the safety aspect, and time keeping, we all had a great time leaders and all (have you noticed with practise you get better keeps cropping up?) an assault course is well worth a visit.

The older Scouts could organise it, with the others taking part to improve their physical fitness, and used in conjunction with all the Scout Awards, with run offs to fined the fastest individual, and team/Patrol, with a prize or certificate at the end, you could make it a yearly event.

Four years later two of the Scouts from that day where part of a team that won the shield for the fastest over thirteen team at our Count Rally, run on the same assault course, and they almost won the yearly run off against the best teams of the Year.