Published by Jonathan Straight on January 5th, 2022
Ken Beardsley is a Scout and has been awarded the Silver Wolf - Scouting's highest honour. I met him along with another Silver Wolf recipient, Colin Walker, at the Remembrance Sunday events in South Elmsall.
Ken was born in Kingston upon Thames but his mother married a man from South Kirkby. His father was in the London Regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery and was stationed in Dunkirk, El Alamein and Greece. He was away so much that Ken did not see his own father until he was four years old.
Based in London, his mother's friend was killed in an air raid and so she decided to relocate to South Kirkby where Ken then attended school on the South Common Road. His brother Brian joined the Cubs and so Ken joined the Scouts, describing this as the finest thing he ever did in life.
When Ken was ten, he was being bullied due to his psoriasis and so he joined the Scouts in South Elmsall. There, he recalls Mrrs McAlister, North and Taylor who were the "Scout Masters" rather than leaders. His own progression through the organisation then began, and he was subsequently Seconder, Patrol Leader, Troop Leader and Scout Master by the age of eighteen. (He says that strictly speaking he was Assistant Master - but there was no-one to assist). The uniform at the time included shorts and a brimmed Scout hat.
On leaving the Army, Ken's father became a driver for the West Riding Automobile Company. He would drive an eight-wheel wagon to London at 20 miles per hour - the journey taking 11 hours. He also drove a faster double-decker bus, the Leyland PD2 which achieved the heady speed of 31 miles per hour.
Ken got his first job as a result of being a Scout. His father used to take him with on his journeys as he had a keen interest in heavy transport. When he was 15, his father asked him what he wanted to do and he replied that he liked heavy goods vehicles and busses. As his father was well respected, he got Ken an interview with the Chief Engineer at the bus company, Fred Smales. Hearing Ken was in the Scouts, he said, "start on Monday". By the time he was 18, Ken had already done three years of his seven-year apprenticeship.
At that time, the Scouts would meet at Carlton Hall which was at the top of Broad Lane in South Elmsall. They then got a new site at the bottom of the hill where the bus station is now. This became the social centre of South Elmsall at a time when the market was operating at some scale. The Scouts ran a cafe and everyone would come on a Saturday morning to meet there.
Ken describes when going off to camp, Ken describes how a treck cart would be pulled by hand with ropes to the front and the rear, for five or seven miles, with a team on each side. When going downhill, the ropes had to be held tight to prevent the cart running away. The equipment they were carrying included very heavy wartime canvas tents and this was hard work. At the campsite, there would be no toilets - they dug a trench and surrounded it with hessian screens.
The atmosphere was competitive with regular uniform inspections being carried out. Ken mentioned that the army was never a hardship for anyone who had previously been a Scout. In charge of 30-40 lads when he was just 18, he was awarded the Queen Scout badge which would allow the recipient to parade in front of the Queen at Windsor.
He would take the older lads fell walking and climbing - sometimes on a 10 hour journey by van to Snowdon. Some of them would have never been out of the village.
The Scouts were heavily involved in the local social scene and would hold a New Year dance at Westfield Lane School. A live dance band would play and many people from the town would attend this. People were generally supportive and would give money to the Scouts.
When a Scout reached 18 years-old, they could become a Rover Scout - a post they could hold until the end of their life. With roots in the Knights Templar, there were 6,500 Rover Crews before they were disbanded in 1967. Rover Scouts would (unofficially) visit the local pub in uniform, gathering new recruits.
Every town and village would have at least one Scout troop at the time- South Elmsall had three with a troop being made up of 20-40 lads. In the late 1950s, the scout building was burned down by a suspected arsonist and a collection was launched for a new building. Some ex-army buildings were used for a couple of years, but these also burned down and whilst never proven, arson was again suspected.
Finally, the Scouts moved to Westfield Lane. This was a stone building, so would not burn down so easily, but being out of town centre the group lost the weekly contact with the townsfolk who had funded their three Scout huts.
Ken and Brian Beardsley are both immensely grateful to the South Elmsall Scout Masters who provided them with their Scout Training, sewing seeds that led both to an average of 60 years service in Scouting. Perhaps uniquely, certainly for South Elmsall, they have been awarded the Silver Wolf, Scouting's highest honour.
