Boy Scouts in the Family - 1975, 2008 and 2011

                      My investiture or formal acceptance ceremony as a scout in 1975, 35 years ago !

 This is a much treasured picture of me and 2 mates of mine, Freddy Choy (extreme left) and Chew Ping Nan (right) during our investiture ceremony in the opne field of St Andrew's School at Woodsville.The date was sometime in February 1975 when I was 12 goingon 13.  Now the area is called Potong Pasir, the field no longer exists but the school and its premises have expanded to include the St Andrew's Junior College and so provides for 12 years of seamless education.

I recall vividly the ceremony whereby we start out as recruits and after 2 months or so, get promoted to be fully fledged scouts. After the investiture, we were made to crawl through a human tunnel with the senior scouts forming a triangle with their spread legs and we had to crawl in the mud through their legs. When we started crawling through, the seniors then took their berets and whacked the hell out of us !
Some even were made to be the 'horse' and were pushed face first intot the ground. It took about 10 minutes for us to finish the tunnel and after that I was so tired and muddy, I still remember the occasion to this day !  

Although this photo is in black and white, I must add that the uniform of the day was brown or khaki,
with black belt and silver buckle. The beret is a dark green and scarf is white with red stripes representing Singapore flag colours. Our scout troop was numbered 2501, or the first troop in the Potong Pasir constituency.

We had many campfires and night games were remembered with relish. Jamborees were the events where we could meet with scouts from brother and sister schools (they were called Girl Guides then).

I put this post up as I was invited to attend my son Andrew's Investiture yesterday at the ACS Barker Road school and was full of curiosity as to what to expect. The event is put up in the next couple of posts.

Coincidentally or not, my 2 sons, Noel (16 going on 17) and Andrew (13 going on 14) are also Boy Scouts, here is a picture of Noel taken in 2008 (above). He was made Patrol Leader in 2010 in Sec. 4 last year. The uniform is now a faint green with dark green pants, the beret is green and the scarf is red.