Scout Camp Wiltz, 1951

To begin at the beginning. July1955. Under the sootencrusted roof of Trinity Street Station “Pip-of-the-pipe” Porter, “Bill” Brookes, “FR” Poskitt et alia are leading the exodus of 120 Scouts plus tents, equipment, cooking paraphernalia and trek-cart, all to be hauled on and off buses, lorries, channel ferries and trains en-route to the sleepy town of Wiltz (with a “V”). In retrospect the mind boggles at the bravura of “Pip” et alia for acting in loco parentis to this motley mélange of treble-pitched prepubescents, basso-profundo emerging adults and all hormonal points between. Camp is pitched amidst rolling fields of the Ardennes with its ghosts of the Battle of the Bulge. We “tenderfoots” are initiated into “Long Camp” traditions of leaky tents, damp sleeping bags and nights on hard ground; of deciphering latitude, longitude and contours on maps; of collecting dry wood for morninglit fires; of adjusting guys and hammering of pegs; of burned porridge and scrubbing black pans; of First Aid, bandages and stemming of blood: of sheep-shanks and bowlines and lashing of ropes; of earth-dug latrines and washing in streams; of inspections of kit and morning parade; of “Doctor Pip’s” pills for camp constipation; of camp-fires in moonlight with singing of songs; of promises of duty to God and the Queen. Eventually “sleepy” Wiltz awakes to our presence. The bush-telegraph buzzes and Luxembourg TV launches cameras and crew to film the Troop in action. A football “friendly” with locals was played on an improvised pitch suffused with Friesian “residue”. FA rules got “lost in translation” and entente somehow lost its cordiale. Groups were dispatched on “initiative ventures” to the far corners of Luxembourg. No GPS or Satnav. This was the stone-age of crinkly maps, wobbly compasses and optimism for safe return. “Risk” and “assessment” had zero connectivity in “Pip’s” lexicon though, entrenching tools primed to excavate latrines, he was sufficiently risk-averse to warn of buried war-time explosives. I joined the “trekkers”, hauling the two-wheeled trek-cart on the less-travelled Ardennes roads – a low-tech trek. Sputnik, Gagarin, Glenn and eyes-in-the-sky had yet to appear. “Social media” was science-fiction. “Global access” was snail-mail retrieved from Poste-restante in sleepy Wiltz. “Real time” was line-of-sight semaphore from hill-tops or forays into morse-code for those with sufficient aural agility to distinguish a dot from a dash. The echoes of Panzer Divisions had long faded in those

muted forests of Ardennes. We youngsters re-lived the war vicariously via The Dam Busters and Escape from Colditz, but we faced reality in Bastogne as we came across a preserved Sherman tank – a respected symbol that memories live, though the brutal face of the war might fade. As time-honoured Lancasters born in that war, we Wiltz generation have made our exits and our entrances on the changing world stage since our shining morning faces graced School. We lived with the chill of Cold War, the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall and segregated Europe. Spies and counter-spies danced in the new “Great Game”. Gratefully, we saw the growth of NATO, Western European integration and Solidarity’s rise in Poland – the thin-edge of the geopolitical wedge leading to perestroika and glasnost. Hope for global stability rose only to be dashed as those Towers fell and the ugly head of war re-surfaced. Trek-carting around those peaceful roads of Luxembourg the future acts of our young lives were as yet unscripted, so little could I foresee a scenario, long into the future, when I would be facing this “ugly head of war” as rivers of blood flowed around me in the dusty streets of Kabul – but that’s another story. So, to return to soot-encrusted Trinity Street Station. A train squeals to a stop amidst a vaporous cloud of smoke. There is a clatter of opening doors. A somewhat malodourous and motley mélange of travel-weary Scouts emerges through this vaporous cloud, passing the solitary figure of “Pip” Porter, shrouded in his own pipe-infused vaporous cloud. Having “counted them out” three weeks prior he is “counting them back in” Luxembourg TV captures before dispatch to expectant families. Mirabile dictu – the Scouts in action one hundred and twenty! Epilogue: Evening light is fading in that Luxembourg field. The Union Jack flutters on the carefully fabricated flagpole. Arms rise respectfully in the Scout salute. A patrol leader advances. He reverently lowers the flag which is furled and stowed for the night. In the tranquility of that moment, the sound of 120 voices soars gently into that good night: “Day is done: gone the sun; From the lakes; from the hills, from the sky. All is well safely rest. God is nigh” “Pip” et alia – I salute you. This is an abridged version of Robin’s memories – the full version can be read at bit.ly/3CdpoMh.

A stark reminder of the realities of war