Celebrating with a book! - 04-03-2010

Members and friends of the 113th Glasgow gathered together to commemorate 100 years of Scouting in Burnside recently with the launch of their book; Scouting Without Woggles.

The Group celebrated their centenary in 2009 with a year of high profile events and activities including a civic reception hosted by South Lanarkshire council, a fun day, a family camp, a reunion dinner and a family walk round Strathclyde Loch and it had been suggested that the book would be an excellent way of capturing the Groups rich history.

The launch of the book marked the conclusion of a mammoth 8 month task involving members past and present, research of old minute books, photograph albums & local newspapers.

Laughing, Graeme Hamilton said ‘this book caused me to spend one of the longest evenings ever, in the Scout Hall; that was the night of proof-reading when Willie Goldie, John Cassidy, Jim Mortimer, Jim Bolton and Janet Moffat stayed with me until nearly midnight reading through the first draft.’ He continued ‘the book has had quite a journey; born in Burnside, type-set in Florida, finished in Cornwall, printed in Norfolk and published by a company in Edinburgh.’

Cub Scouts Jonathan Christie and Logan Boyd and Scout Fraser Armstrong read passages from the book, sharing their centenary adventures at the Group Family Camp in May 2009 and reminiscing about the lighting of a huge beacon for King George V’s Silver Jubilee in 1935 and the infamous story of the “kidnapping” of the Chief Scout” to inspect the Cub Camp in 1966.

In concluding Graeme noted that this book gathered all our knowledge, stories, minutes and records in to one place. He reflected on a conversation he had had, with an elderly gentleman earlier that morning in the library; the gentleman knew that the colour of the Groups neckies were white for purity and purple for loyalty, the two knots reminded us to do our good turns each day and all, bar our youngest members still proudly tie their neckies each time they put them on.

The book which contains more than 150 photographs of activities of the Group from over the years, is available from Graeme Hamilton, priced £10 plus postage, with all funds going to the 113th Glasgow (Burnside) Scout Group.

Click here for pictures and video of the launch.

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