Figure 1.--

HBU has little information about nationalist English youth groups. We know of no really important groups. I think there have been realtively few, in part because of the importance of Scouting and the Boys' Brigade. An exception was Mosley's British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. I believe the small Mosley English-NAZI group tried to organize a youth movement, but it was of no real importance. They may have had a small youth group, but HBU has no details and doubts if it was of any importance. Not all Nationalist groups have been sinister groups like Mosley's Fascists. We note a few small, mostly loval groups. A least one modern group, the Rangers, have been formed because of the middle-class orientation and complicated beauracracy of Scouting. There appear to be a few indepenbdent nationalist groups, but the number of boys was very limited.

British National Youth (BNY)

A British reader writes, "I was National Secretary of the British National Youth (BNY)--an independentnationalist youth organisation that existed from 1962 until the end of 1967. Like many other nationalist youth organisations in Europe and other western countries we used the Odalsrune as our emblem. We used to get our odalsrune badges from the Wiking Jugend in Germany but they were banned in 1994 after having existed since 1952." [Read] The British National Youth publication was "The Bugler". The group was strongest in the Wirral area of Cheshire and leased premises in Wallasey and Hoylake as youth clubs. They had once-a-week youth clubs in community centres and church halls. When the BNY first started, they considered having uniforms but dropped the idea because they might be illegal under the 1936 Public Order Act.

British Wiking Jugend

There was a British branch of the Wiking Jugend (Viking Youth) who did wear uniforms, from late 1978 until late 1981. Their leader was Paul Jarvis. Their news bulletin was "Young Folk" and there were other publications. They used the Odalsrune as a symbol. Activities included hikes, camps and film shows. The Viking Youth never got prosecuted for wearing uniforms.

Mosley Youth

Sir Oswald Ernal Mosley was a World War I veteran and both a Conservative and Labour member of Parliament. Mosley left the Labour Party to become the leader of the British Union of Fascists. The Union was a pro-NAZI group which became known as the Blackshirts. There was little support for Mosley in England because of the country's democratic traditions and the growing anti-NAZI feelings of the British public. Most British objected to the pro-NAZI positions of Mosley and his followers. Mosley secretly received funding from the Italian Fascists to support his movement. I'm not sure to what extent the NAZIs provided support. There was an attempt to create a youth movement. It was called the Mosley Youth, presumably following the example of the Hitler Youth. As far as I know, it was never of any significance, but we hacve little information at this time. British humorist PG Wodehouse wrote a series of books about a witless British gentleman, Bertie Wooster, and his level-headed genleman's gentleman, Jeeves. (An internet search engine is named after him.) Some of the Wodehouse books contained mocking references to Mosley and his Blackshirts. Two books contained references to the Fascist movement renamed "the Blackshorts" amd led by Sir Roderick Spode, later Lord Sidcup. They crop up in Code of the Woosters and Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit. Bertie Wooster's madcap run in with Sir Roderick was chosen for one of the "Jeeves and Wooster" drmatizations shown on PBS.

Pheonix Rangers

The Phoenix Ranger Group is a military orientated uniformed youth organisation catering for boys between the ages of 6 to 16 years of age. They are a registered charity and members of Youth Clubs UK and Greater Manchester Youth Association and an approved operating unit for the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme. The Phoenix lads wanted to do more military types of activities but were told that scouting was not a military organisation!! This being, dispite the fact that it was started by Baden Powell, a Soldier, and was based on military training. When their Scout HQ had a fire the Leaders re-appraised the situation. As they also operated a Youth Club, they decided to close the Scouts and become independent as they were more able to respond quickly to the wishes and needs of their lads.

Sources

Read, Arthur. E-mail message, April 15, 2006.

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Created: December 12, 1998
Last updated: 6:49 PM 4/15/2006