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.

Cubbing

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.

Belgian Scouting

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).

My Uniform

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.

Scout Activities

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.

Camping

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.

Scotland

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.