Last night was a big adventure for our Beavers. As part of our WW2 programme, the Beavers brought in sleeping bags and torches, and we cleaned out some very dusty cupboards under the stage of the village hall to make air raid shelters. The children spent most of our meeting by torchlight, and wrote some excellent pieces about what it would have been like to be a child during an air raid.
We also listened to an account written by a chap who was eight years old when the war broke out, describing how he and his class mates would file out of school into the air raid shelter whenever the sirens went off. The general consensus was that air raids would have been quite scary, but boring after a while!
The Beavers were also fascinated to hear the tale of Jasper Maskelyne, a magician, who advised the British army during the war. Maskelyne pulled off the biggest con trick of the war, by hiding an entire city - he built a cardboard copy of the city of Alexandria a little further along the Egyptian coast than the real thing. Then, as night fell, the real city extinguished its lights and the 'fake' Alexandria was illuminated - complete with fake boats in its fake harbour.
The German bombers duly did their worst, and the cardboard city and harbour were blasted during the night. To complete the illusion, Maskelyne's team applied fake bomb-sites and craters to the real city, so that when the German reconnaissance planes flew over next day, they were able to report on the success of their mission and the destruction of Alexandria!
We also sold many jars of 1st Swallowfield jam, so thanks to all parents for their contributions to our funds. Enjoy your jam! Scout and Cub parents can buy jam at their meetings this week.
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