Carry On Camping

Apart from those two Summer holidays, the only other times I was able to go away was at Scout camp for a week in the Summer Holidays. I have already related an experience at one of these camps when I was fifteen. I can't remember when the first time I went away was. We were not allowed to stay at camp overnight before the age of about 11 anyway so if it was very far, I probably wouldn't have gone but for the first couple of  Camps I attended, Luke was there as well.

The only problem was with money so tight, my Father wouldn't pay unless we could afford it ourselves with what money we had saved. That was fine for Luke as he had a paper round in the mornings. I didn't get one myself until I was thirteen. Even on this meagre sum, my Father insisted that some of the money, a third, went towards the housekeeping. As I recall that meant about a pound a week was lost.

In order for me to go to camp one year, which I was desperate to do, I had to get some money together. I resorted to lies and deception for which I still feel guilty.

 Bob-A-Job week, cleaning shoes!

It was the usual thing for Scouts to do jobs for money in the 70's. They would call this 'Bob-A-Job' week in which the money paid for the service would be collected by the troop and given to charity.

One year, although it was not the set week, I went out in my uniform knocking on doors and asking if they had any jobs that needed doing. My plan was to keep the money that I had earned and put it towards the cost of the summer camp, which was wicked of me.

All went well, until I unfortunately got an elderly man who it seemed, was wise to exactly when the allotted week would be and asked some awkward questions about why I was doing it now. My quick thinking saved me as I told him that I would be unable to do the actual week as I was on holiday so I was doing my share now. I am not sure if he was convinced as he handed me the fork to dig his garden and I kept seeing him eyeing me suspiciously from his kitchen window. However, when the job was done, which took a couple of hours, he duly paid the money and offered to show me his collection of football programmes!

This was another occasion, when I lay awake wondering if he had contacted my Troop to confirm my story and if I would be taken to task the following Wednesday when I got to Scouts.

My Father hated a thieving and lying and several times I had been punished for doing both. I am sure he couldn't really tell if I was lying to him or not as he would always disbelieve me even when I was telling the truth! Perhaps that was just his excuse to give me a whipping anyway?

 I was not a good liar, my Father always knew.

When the camp week came, I would organise all my kit into an orange rucksack. There was no light weight camping in those days. My rolled up brown sleeping bag weighed a ton and I would go plodding off down the road in my uniform with my patterned socks and sandals on my feet.

The Scout hut, tents, camping gear and boys all had a very distinctive smell. I am not sure what it was but if I smell it now, it takes me right back to those times.

It may have been the canvas or just the unwashed youth themselves but once smelt, it is never forgotten, a kind of musty smell.

Usually, the tents we had were of varying sizes sleeping two or four scouts. The leaders in their own tents. At my very first camp, I shared with my Brother but after that, it could be anyone although you would try to get in with your friends.

Sometimes we would be split up by the Leaders in order to avoid too much larking about.

Once I remember being in a tent with three other lads, one of whom was a boy called Andrew. We had the usual laughs and conversations that lads do when freed from the restraints of the Family well into the night. We must have made so much noise that one of the Leaders, Mr Shirfield, angrily burst into our tent and told Andrew to get his stuff as he would be spending the night with him. The rest of us were told to get to sleep without another sound or else which we did. Andrew had apparently been singled out because it was his voice that Mr Shirfield could hear above all others. He came back the following morning having spent the night on the floor next to Mr Shirfield's camp bed not daring to even breath to heavily!

 The best camp site we went to was in the New Forest which had purpose built toilets and showers so at least you could keep yourself clean and showering was encouraged in my Baptist run troop as 'cleanliness is next to Godliness' we were told.

The showers were, however invariably cold and not very inviting standing on wet concrete trying to dry yourself.

There were many different troops at that particular campsite which was very large and probably full to capacity on the two occasions I was there.

There were also Sea Scouts and Air Cadets as I recall and on Sunday morning the whole camp would get together for an open air Church service in the centre of the camp around the flag pole. The sound of a couple of hundred boys all trying to sing a hymn, all out of time and mostly out of tune was not pleasing. One of the attending leaders, probably a Minister of some denomination would conduct the service which would have a message of goodwill and friendship mixed in somewhere.

Scouts just wanna  have fun.

We did feel like we were one unit as well. If ever I have felt the presecence of God or whatever God means, it was probably one of those Sunday mornings at camp and not in a drafty church pew where I spent most of my Sunday mornings.

However,all we wanted to do as boys was to get it over with and get on with that days planned activities. More often than not these would be 'home grown' such a s nature rambles, night hikes and building camps as there was a lot of acreage surrounding the campsite in the New Forest and of course much of the woods to explore. Occasionally we would be treated to something really exciting such as canoeing.

The most frightening activity for me was the 'Hare and Hounds' a kind of paper chase where one lad would have to run off with some minutes in advance and leaving some sort of clue, usually in the form of paper or rice to indicate his trail.

The other Scouts would chase after, the 'Hounds' as they were known and try to catch up with the lead boy. I say this was frightening for me because once I was chosen as the Hare which seemed like a good idea at the time, but I soon realised that keeping ahead was not as easy as it seemed. Having recently read 'Lord of the Flies' at school all I could picture was the pig hunt leading to the death of one of the boys and soon I was beginning to panic and the fear adrenalin was rushing through my body! To make matters worse, I tripped and fell, tearing the knee out of my Scout uniform trousers and badly scraping myself. That made me even slower and when I arrived back at the camp, I practically collapsed in front of Mr Shirfield like a gibbering wreck, hotly followed by the rest of my troop.

To cap it all my Father was not pleased at me wrecking my trousers which had to be darned as a new pair could not be afforded, but I paid in full for that! Even now I have a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach if I see a man hunt of the television and I can't watch the film version of 'Lord of the Flies'!

 However, the best time of all was when we had our free time just to go off and do whatever we wanted, within reason, for an hour or two. We were free from the restrictions of home and for me at least, I didn't have to ask permission before heading off into the woods.

Freetime!

At a later camp when I was fifteen, I shared at tent with Andrew alone and it has to be said, he was responsible for leading me astray and teaching me bad habits during that week.

He had brought with him some 'nude' playing cards which was somewhat risky. He would go through the whole pack telling me about which girls he fancied and ranking them in order of preference, size of tits etc. and then I would do my comparison on who I fancied and why, not unlike 'Top Trumps' with marks out of ten.

Andrew swore he had had a hand job from a girl at school but as he was a bit of a bragger, I didn't believe him. However his stories about spying on his step sister whilst she was in the shower were more likely knowing him. All these things used to fuel my bate and give me lusty thoughts of a girl I had never met, soaping herself. The kind of illicit thoughts my Father was trying to prevent..

Spying on Sister in the shower.









He was the one that also told me how to masturbate without detection in bed.

That old phrase 'hands off cocks and n with socks' has never seemed more apt when he revealed to me that when he felt like a wank, he would put a sock over his dick and continue to masturbate, eventually ejaculating inside it. The job done, there would be no mess on the bedsheets and the sock could easily be put out to wash with the semen securely inside. There was no worry about being found out..

Of course I put this to good use at home and found it worked very well provided it was me that took the washing to the laundrette as the socks tended to go hard with the semen when dried out and I am sure my Father would have been wise to it.

 Hands off cocks and on with socks!

He was responsible for a lot of young squaddies who were probably all as horny as me. If he was aware of this trick, and Army Sergeants usually are wise to a thing or two, I am sure he would have caught me out.

I remember Andrew having a wank in his sleeping bag one night when he thought I was asleep, presumably with sock in place. We all wore pyjamas when camping in those days! The unmistakable sound of gentle rubbing and breathing getting slightly heavier cannot be mistaken. I have done it myself in a hostel dormitory full of other  lads. You are desperate for a wank but are just as desperate not to be heard for the sake of embarrassing yourself!

I wasn't going to have a wank in front of Andrew. He was far too straight to suggest mutual masturbation and so I resorted to the toilet block and as I have already told, I was caught out by one of the scout leaders.

He also told me he could make himself cum just by squeezing his dick between his legs and this was a trick he used when he was at school in a boring lesson. I had my doubts. Not about the trick, but about doing it at school as I couldn't imagine his cum filled underpants soaking through to his trousers would go un-noticed for long. This was how he assured me, he had had his hand job. It was under the desk from a girl in his class who sat next to him. I can't see that he would get away with cumming all over his shoes without being noticed either. What a liar he was.

Nylon Pyjamas, great for life saving!

Talking of pyjamas, we would sometimes get taken to the swimming pool on a Wednesday night and one of our badges involved life saving techniques. For this you needed your pyjamas which acted as clothing and you had to take them off whilst in the water. Then, try and fill  them with air and tie up the  leg ends to use as a floatation device. Nylon pyjamas were the best for this sort of thing as they were practically dry by the time you got home, so I was  ahead of the rest in that respect, especially as I probably had to wear them that night.

That was to be my last Scout camp. By the following Autumn I would be sixteen and my Father had told me I was to spend the Summer working to pay my way before I was old enough to go into the army. I had already worked extremely hard to pass my examinations and was looking forward to a little break but it was not to be whilst I was living under his roof.