WHEN Sir Robert Baden-Powell was fighting in the Boer War towards the end of the 19th Century, he was concerned that his soldiers were not fully rounded men.

"They had been brought up in the herd at school, they were trained as a herd in the Army," he recalled in 1937.

"They simply did as they were told and had no ideas or initiative of their own. In action they carried out orders, but if their officer was shot they were as helpless as a flock of sheep. Tell one of them to ride out alone with a message on a dark night and ten-to-one he would lose his way."

Baden-Powell set out to change this by teaching his men to be Scouts.

With the Boer War over - but with a bigger, more deadly conflict looming - Baden-Powell turned his attentions to the young boys who would one day become adult soldiers.

In 1908, to see if his ideas would work, he took a group of 20 boys from the public schools of Eton and Harrow and the streets of London's East End and "mixed them up like plums in a pudding to live together in camp".

The camp was on Brownsea Island, in Dorset.There Baden-Powell taught them "camping, cooking, observation, deduction, woodcraft, chivalry, boatmanship, life-saving, health, patriotism, and such things".

So impressed was he with the results, that he began publishing his wisdom in a fortnightly 4d magazine called Scouting for Boys.

In Sunderland, Colonel Vaux was trying a similar experiment, and he had a troop of Scouts ready for the inspection of his great friend Baden-Powell in February 1908. Vaux was involved in many Sunderland organisations, including the Street Vendors' Club, which looked after paperboys out selling evening newspapers in all kinds of weathers.

Vaux agreed to buy from the paperboys all their newspapers that were unsold at 7pm, if they would attend an evening's Scout meeting.

By May, he had enough Scouts to hold a month-long camp at his estate at Grindon. Boys from London were also brought up for the occasion.

Many of these youngsters' imaginations had been fired by Baden-Powell's magazine. In Darlington, apparently without any persuasion from their elders, avid readers at Albert Road School formed a patrol of Cuckoos, which quickly joined up with a patrol of Wolves from Elton Parade to form a pack. With tents made out of old sacks, they headed off to Ketton Hall Park for a camp.

And so the movement spread. A Bishop Auckland troop was formed in June 1910; Barnard Castle joined up in May 1913. In Darlington, at the same time, the town's 5th pack was meeting in a large loft over Emmerson Smith's workshops, where Binns in High Row is today. The 5th, which now meets in Cockerton, would appear, therefore, to be Darlington's oldest surviving pack.

Then came the First World War. The boys' training was put to use. Those old enough went to the front; those young enough stayed at home, where they guarded railway bridges with their staves, or helped the wounded or with the harvesting. Many of them actually had quite responsible duties, considering they were only 11 or 12.

In September 1916, Baden-Powell attended a rally at Feethams, in Darlington, where 1,000 Scouts from across the district paraded before him. It was a growing district: by October 1917, Bishop Auckland had three packs with 66 members. There was one in Eldon with 25, another in Chilton with 40, one in Auckland Park with 12, and one in Binchester with 40.

Cockfield and Evenwood assembled their own packs in 1918, and by 1924 Witton Park, East Howle, Dean Bank, Willington, Cornforth and Shildon had all joined the movement.

By 1928, Darlington had ten packs with 186 Cubs, 405 Scouts and 48 Rovers.

Over at Barnard Castle, in March 1933, a heavy snowfall collapsed the wooden Scout hut, which had just been completed for £150. Undeterred, the Scouts asked the council about the future of an old mill chimney. When it was felled, the Scouts set about cleaning and removing the thousands of bricks. Some were used to build a new hut in Wilson Street, others were sold to finance the new hut. It was demolished in 2000 and replaced with the help of a £170,000 National Lottery grant.

The big event in the early Scouting years occured in August 1936, with the Northern Counties' Boy Scout Jamboree, held at Raby Castle. About 7,000 Scouts camped at Raby for a week, posting 20,000 letters and drinking 150 gallons of milk a day.

There were sprinklings of Scouts from Holland, Norway and Sweden, and Lord Barnard, Jamboree Chief, said: "To see how Scouts of different nations get together would be a revelation to people. If we could only rule the world there would never be any more war."

About 600 Girl Guides were safely ensconced a couple of miles away, at East Shotton.

The big day was August 6, when Chief Scout Baden-Powell visited and nearly 20,000 people were on the campsite in the pouring rain.

So much we know about the history of Scouting in south Durham.

John Thompson, of High Etherley, who joined the 1st Chilton pack in 1946, is county archivist and is collecting any books, badges, papers, cuttings and ephemera connected with Scouting in the county.

He would be grateful for any items and can be contacted on (01388) 832113.

RETURNING to the North of England School Furnishing Company, in East Mount Road, Darlington, John Swales has sent in a couple of interesting pictures, one of which is printed below.

His father, also John, worked at the "Furney" from after the First World War until he retired in the late 1950s. He started as a joiner and finished as a commercial traveller.

Rather like Lingfords, of Bishop Auckland, the "Furney" organised annual staff outings when the charabanc era began in the early 1950s.

It also had its own assembly hall, over the road from the factory, and was renowned for its Saturday night dances.

A PICTURE of Darlington Male Voice Choir graced this page a few weeks ago. Kenneth Staton was honorary secretary of the choir, formed in 1894, when it disbanded in 1959.

His father was a member during the 1920s and 1930s, when the choir gave a concert at Durham Jail.

One of the pieces they sang was called The Beleagured, and its opening line was: "Fling wide the gates, come out".

"My father thought that was amusing," says Ken.

HECTOR was the giant, revolutionary computer installed in British Rail's Stooperdale offices in 1958, to work out railwaymen's wages.

The Echo Memories picture (June 5) of Hector showed it being operated by John Bowman OBE, a member of the British Transport Commission. His son, Kenneth lives in Bishop Auckland, and has written to say that John died in April 1981, aged 92.

SOME weeks ago, Echo Memories was talking about John Inman (1877-1944), the Newton Cap miner who played the big bass drum but was so small he could not see over the top of it - particularly on those occasions at the Durham Miners' Gala when he might have over-indulged himself.

He was one of the prime movers in the Etherley Dene Wiffing Wuffing Waffing Band, and played in the orchestra assembled by Nicholas Kilburn.

Kilburn, one of Bishop Auckland's most famous musical sons, died in 1923, aged 80.

He lived in Princes Street and was an ironmonger by trade. But he was also a choirmaster and orchestra conductor, and a close friend of the composer Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934).

Elgar sent Kilburn many newly-composed works to try out with his orchestra before they were published.

Elgar dedicated his 1911-12 composition The Music Makers, a well-regarded choral ode, to Kilburn.

In a letter to Lady Elgar, having rehearsed The Music Makers in Bishop Auckland, Kilburn wrote: "Especially did I strive to impress on all concerned the importance of a subdued, mystical treatment of certain parts of the words. Sing and play, I said, as if you were in 'dreamland', then all will be well."

JUDGING by the number of recent calls, it appears to be the season for the vast number of lecture societies, women's groups and social clubs to plan their talks for next year. Echo Memories has two illustrated talks that should not bore too many people too much. There is Darlington: First Among Equals, which concerns quirkier aspects of the town's history, and A potty/potted history of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Inquiries as below.

Published: 03/07/2002

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.