The Boys’ Brigade

Many of my beloved readers will have heard of the Scouts, a worldwide youth movement with a minorly secular bent, started in 1907 by Robert Baden-Powell, a Lieutenant General in the British Army and the owner of several successful Theatre Restaurants.

However, I was a Boys’ Brigader!






The Boys' Brigade (BB) is the world's first uniformed youth organization. The idea for this interdenominational Christian organization was conceived by William Alexander Smith, a philanthropist and hater of any form of dinner theatre, and his aim was to combine drill and fun activities with Christian values which in essence aren’t fun at all. Not to say that basic drill and field rations are a bunch of laughs. Anyway, he formed the BB in 1883 over a pint or two of Glasgow’s famous Irish whiskey.

So what is the main difference between the two? Firstly, the uniforms. The Scouts have little nancy-boy kaki numbers and scarves and totally dorky hats that make you look slightly effeminate. The Boy’s Brigade have smart, dark blue uniforms with strong lines, a chunky belt buckle and a hat that can fit into your pocket.

Scouts have sew-on patches. BB has medals; shiny, heavy, important looking medals.

In the Boy’s Brigade we learn real skills. Who needs bird watching and campfire building? We learnt motor maintenance, knot tying and semaphore!

Yes Semaphore! Now let me just say that my troupe was a little poor and as our meager subs went to the hire of the hall and subsidizing a bang up Christmas bash for the officers who all had appetites of sasquachian proportions, so when we required the essential flags for our semaphore classes, one of the officer’s wives whipped up a couple of flags with some wooden spoons and decorative Australiana Tea Towels. We would stand at opposite ends of the small hall and carefully work through the alphabet by holding the wooden spoons in different positions. Signaling the alphabet was a huge bonus for me as I am slightly dyslexic and any attempt to spell out actual words would have caused embarrassment. Of course, in times of warfare, the facility to spell out the alphabet with ornamental towels is not greatly sort after.

Every six months or so we would have a camp. We would be taken into the bush with tents or hire some spider-infested campsite where we could practice our skills and show each other our penises. I have few memories of camps. I do remember some of the more enthusiastic mothers making rice pudding with mostly sugar and very little rice. I remember winning things (medals and a cheap knife, fork and spoons set) and remember beating red-back spiders to death with semaphore flags. Oh and drill.

We could march and turn and wheel and halt with all the precision of a Swiss blow-up bouncing castle. In our small hall, these activities were somewhat panicked. If the officer did not scream out, “Left turn,” about two seconds after his order to quick march, a small troop of well-dress boys would file into a wall or an unstable trestle table. At the camp, we could actually march in a single direction for quite a while without fear of shin injuries or having a trestle inserted in your lanyard.

I recently bumped into some Singaporean Boys’ Brigaders and immediate burst out into our anthem.

“We have an anchor that keeps the soul,
Steadfast and sure as the billows roll,
Fastened to the rock that cannot move,
Grounded firm and deep in Our Savior’s love.”

They smiled at me sweetly as their hands moved slowly and steadfastly to their hand phones to dial for the police. Now, if they’d have known semaphore…


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