Just before my fifteenth birthday, I went to America with the Scouts. We were supposed to go to Iran for the World Jamboree but they had a revolution instead and so we ended up in Fort Worth, Texas. Like you do. It was a world of hitherto unknown pleasures. Baseball. Tacos. Rodeos. And there was …
As a boy, I was a member of the 2nd Headstone Scout Group. I was a cub, a scout and a Venture Scout. I made friends and I misbehaved. I learned to camp, make a fire, climb a hill, clean my shoes, paddle a canoe, chop wood, make plaster-casts of animal tracks, sharpen a knife, …
Community is a tricky idea these days. Surveys tell us we no longer know our neighbours and TV tells us that, when we do, they are very often ‘from Hell’. Online communities are elusive and shifting. The Guardian reported recently that ‘Facebook is now dead and buried to teenagers’. But politicians like the word ‘community’. …