I was never a Cub as I was in the Belgian Congo when I was Cub age. I was when I returned to Belgium, however, a keen Scout. When I became a Scout, our troop went to summer camp in Germany and Austria several times. We had traditional uniforms with short pants and kneesocks. I noticed that Scouts in the Netherlands were giving a lot less attentiin to their uniforms. Belgians Scouts, however, still were often quite strict about the uniform. I often wore my lederhose, but was at first one of the few boys to do so. While at summer camp in Germany and Austria, many boys would swapped uniforms with the local Scouts. Lederhosen became a real hit. In the long run about a third of the troop may have been wearing them. After Scout camp I was off to Scotland.
I was never a Cub as I was in the Belgian Congo when I was Cub age. At that age I was living on a plantation in the Congo.
I was when I returned to Belgium, however, a keen Scout. There were several different Scout associations in Belgium. My Antwerp troup belonged to the Vlaams Verbond van Katholieke Scouts (Flemish Catholic Scout Leauge--VVKS).
We all basically wore their standard uniform. However, within VVKS there was much freedom and the actual details differed to some extent. Standard headwear would have been a black beret, worn at an angle, with a metal VVKS badge attached to the front. Like most troups that traced their origins to
pre-war years we held on to the smokey bear hat. We wore light brown shirts. They had breast pockets with button flaps, and epaulettes to which a tag was attached in the colour of our patrol. Mine was grey
first, when I joined the Cuckoo patrol, and green when I was an Eagle later. Our shirts had long sleeves, and we rolled them up to above the elbows. One or two vertical white sripes on the breast
indicated an assistant patrol leader and a patrol leader. Standard VVKS neckerchiefs were the same colour as the shirt, with a heraldic lion at the back Our troup wore blue and white striped scarves without
emblem. They were held together with a woggle made of braided
leather strips. Our shorts were of dark brown corduroy. Buttons, no
zippers. Our belts were made of three three
pieces of solid dark brown leather. The picture by Rien Poortvliet shows a belt which is exactly like it. The belt was joined by two metal rings and a buckle with the VVKS emblem. Grey stockings with turnovers. I think that our cubs had tags showing below their turnovers but our scouts did not. We wore a second pair of stockings, rolled down to and covering the top of our boots. There were no rules on footwear but lace-up boots were traditional. My first pair were brown. Later pairs were of black pebble
grain leather. Later still I bought a pair of hobnailed British ammo boots at an Army and Navy store. Rainwear was a khaki coloured anorak The were waterproof but did’nt breathe. I disliked them for
that and later bought a front buttoning army jacket
made of more comfortable material. We were required to strictly stick to regulation shorts when lining up, marching the streets of the
city, attending Mass etc. but when playing, camping or trekking, about a third of us wore lederhosen. I was one of the first to do this but our numbers increased after we had gone camping in the Eifel Mountains and in Tyrol.
At home in Antwerp much of our activities were based
at our school in the medieval city centre. It has a
lot of cobbled alleys and passageways in a winding and
interlacing pattern. Also, one of our leaders’ family
were wine merchants and they owned a number of
interconnected warehouses and sparsely lit cellars.
All this was an ideal territory for our games. We
frequently went out into the country by bycicle or by
tram, often to a plot of woodland that our school
owned just east of the city, but also further afield,
even to Ghent and Brussels. Once I took my patrol to
see my aunt and uncle’s house in Rotterdam (about 60
miles). My sister had said that aunt would probably
panic at the sight of eight dust-covered and sweating
teenboys but she proved to be a valiant woman and we
had lemon squash and sandwiches in the garden.
Two or three times a year there was what we called (in
fake English ?) a ‘dropping’: we were taken in
windowless vans to some place out in the country and
had to walk back to the city by compass.
When I became a Scout, our troop went to summer camp in Germany and Austria several times. We had traditional uniforms with short pants and kneesocks. I noticed that Scouts in the Netherlands were giving a lot less attention to their uniforms. Belgians Scouts, however, still were often quite strict about the uniform. I often wore my lederhose, but was at first one of the few boys to do so. While at summer camp in Germany and Austria, many boys would swapped uniforms with the local Scouts. Lederhosen became a real hit. In the long run about a third of the troop may have been wearing them.
We had two camps a year : 5 days during Christmas
holidays, always in Belgium or in the southern Dutch
province of Brabant; two weeks in summer, usually in
the Eifelgebirge just west of Cologne and once in
Tscherms near Meran in the German-speaking part of
Italy (South-Tyrol).
The biggest event was ‘the great game’ which lasted
up to two days. We were usually dropped at night in an
unknown area and were required to work our way back to
camp without getting in touch with ‘the enemy’.
On the last evening there was a campfire to which we
invited the locals for songs and sketches. When I was
a PL of the Cuckoo patrol I taught my mates Indonesian
krontjong songs and this became a big success. I
didn’t speak Indonesian at the time and had never been
there yet, but my father used to play records with
that kind of music. Krontjong is a mixture of musical
styles: Indonesian melodies in a western key to the
acompaniment of a guitar that has evolved from the
Portuguese cavaquinho. The texts are in Dutch or Malay
and sometimes both.
After Scout camp I was off to Scotland for the rest of the Summer.
My parents were interested that I learn English. As a result, I spent several summers in Scotland with friends of the family. I'm
not sure how many people learned English in Scotland, but I did. Our friends lived in Kinrossshire, several of the boys there
wore kilts when they dressed up. I never did, but as they wore their national costume, I often wore my lederhosen as it was
summer which was as close to a national costume as I could get, altough of course lederhosen are really German and not
commonly worn in either the Netherlands or Belgium.
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