"Pete" supanet.com> wrote in message
news:mYOdnegEzehFhbrVnZ2dnUVZ8u2dnZ2d@posted.metronet...

Sounds great...
my only similar experience was more problematic.... ... in Venture Scout
days.
They camped within sight of the scout patrols, who had to get-up, light
fires and cook breakfast while the older ones slept, eventaully getting up,
having a scratch and burning something on a stove, before going back to bed,
or standing around shouting at the scouts ( because that is what the
Ventures did to them when they were scouts... ) Then they piled into a
fleet of old Cortinas and cruised-off in a cloud of blue smoke to the
nearest McDonalds.
On their return, while the scouts were washing-up and doin scouty stuff,
they would all put their heads under a car bonnet and talk about gaskets, or
of how to stop radiator leaks using eggs and nettles, or they would start
changing each other's brake pads......
It was pretty depressing and undermined troop moral no-end. They did have
their uses as 'bases' on night hikes, or driving the country lanes looking
for lost scouts. of course it was every Venture scout's ambition to sit in
their car, radio & heater on, parked in some lay-by as a 'base' on a night
hike, winding the window down just long enough to shout something at the
poor bedraggled scouts... who couldn't wait to get spots be Venture scouts
and.......

But yes, quite suddenly a star would arise in the East End , who would lead
them to do some amazing work of a charitable nature, with pictures in the
local paper of cheques being handed-over and the Leader would dream dreams
of clinics being built in Uganda, well scubbed spotty faces at Windsor,
until the Warden of a huge camp-site phones him to ask where they all are?
It is Bank Holiday, hundreds are arriving and they are supposed to be the
service crew...... phone calls, bewildering excuses, embarassment, phoning
the GSL to resign.... again.

Ah, these are the days we will dream about
and we'll call them the good old days!

Eddie Langdown 16th Bermondsey London