Leon Rings recalls adventures in Brandon Scouts during the 1950-60s.
We had a scout leader in Brandon late fifties to early sixties, who was an American by the name of Joe Janacek. Joe would spend hours with us teaching rope tying, fire lighting and we experienced sleeping in our tents in the wild. He taught us how to cook on an open fire using spits to roast our food, which would consist of sausages, tomatoes, mushroom, bacon, carrots and just about anything you could get on the stick. We’d boil water in our billy cans for cups of tea and heat our can of beans to compliment the food on the spits. Food never tasted so good!
Other camping experiences were held in November at the Santon Downham campsite as it was in those days. About eight of us with just a tarpaulin on the ground, which was pulled over and up to our chins. No sleep that night as it froze sharp and we were all too cold to sleep. When daylight came we all had white hair and eyebrows.
Picture taken at Castle Hill, Thetford, by local press.
We progressed from scouts and Joe took us on another journey and that was youth hosteling. We had many weekends away cycling around East Anglia to our destination. Our age at that time varied from 13 to 16 years old. We’d leave Brandon approx 9-30 am on a Saturday morning and arrive at the destination around 6pm just in time to sign in for the night at the hostel. Our return journeys again started at 9-30am, returning back in Brandon around teatime from the more distant travels. Our journeys took us to Yarmouth, Sheringham, Lowestoft, Blaxhall (near Dunwich), Saffron Walden and more local areas like Finningham, Newmarket, Cambridge, Norton Mill, Houghton Mill and Flatford Mill. Joe and Helen taught us map reading with a compass and how to pace our journey – when to rest and when not too. At each destination a badge was purchased which we fitted to our bobble hats indicating the journeys we had undertaken. No modern cycles, just our everyday bikes we’d use for paper delivery and school. In all those trips I remember only one person having a puncture. We could travel from Brandon to Norwich having about a half a dozen cars pass us during the whole trip.
A valuable lesson was learned which I imagine stuck with all of us and that was resilience. Be it scorching hot, raining hard or sleeting, we were relentless in getting to the destination before doors closed for the night at the hostel. To boost our energy and quench our thirst we carried neat orange squash in our bottles, take in half a mouthful and leave it there in our mouths whilst cycling along. When one of us felt like giving in others would back up the person and encourage him to carry on and they did, we all succeeded and no one gave up. Joe, and his wife Helen who also supported us on trips, were experienced cyclists and camping enthusiasts who taught us much about survival and how to cook hedgehog on an open fire, amongst other foods like grass snakes etc. Great days and great times.