The Baden Powells

Lord B.P.: "Hello Hello"
Lady B.P.: "I love you"
Girl Guides: "stand up and say hooray"
Boy Scouts: "Be Prepared"

Once upon a time, many, many years ago, there was a man who lived in England. His name was Robert Baden-Powell. We usually called him B-P for short.

B-P loved adventure. When he was a boy he sailed and camped with his big brothers. They made him do some of the work, but he didn't mind because there was so much to see and do outdoors. It was the best place of all.

He grew up and become a soldier. Life in the army was exciting and often dangerous. He lived in many different countries and enjoyed them all.

After B-P went back to England and retired from the army, he stared BOY SCOUTS. First of all he asked some boys to go camping with him on an island. It was a great adventure. Hardly any boys went camping in those days and the boys had as much fun as B-P had when he was little and camped with his brothers. The boys even went hunting for some of the food they ate and cooked it themselves. B-P wrote a book with all sorts of ideas for boys to try, mostly outdoors. Pretty soon the boys were calling themselves SCOUTS. Girls read the book and got together with their friends to do what the boys were doing - cooking on an open fire, creeping up on animals to watch them, and hiking over fields and through woods. B-P didn't know that some of the SCOUTS who wrote him letters were really girls! But how GIRL GUIDES began is a story for another day. All these years B-P never had a wife. One winter he was on a ship down south, on his way around the world to visit SCOUTS in other counties. On the ship was a beautiful young woman whose name was Olave. Almost right away Olave and B-P fell in love. Sadly, they had to leave each other when the ship docked. He had to keep traveling to see the SCOUTS and she had to go home with her father. They didn't see each other again until the end of the summer. They were married soon after.