boy scout wankers

In the Tom Bell Hut at the Scouting movement's buildings at Hebden Hey in West Yorkshire, there is a carving of the scout fleur-de-lys logo. The artist has signed it 'Donald Potter 1932'.



The explanatory plaque at its base has been moved to a somewhat ill-fitting place in the centre, in order to make way for a more recent explanatory one. The explanation on the latter reads

This carving was hung in the rover den of the 2nd (Heath Grammar School) Halifax Scout Hut for 50 years, until the group closed in 1984, when it was presented to this hostel along with the assets of the Group.

That original plaque reveals something altogether more saucy;

THIS ROVER HUT
was presented to
THE 2nd (HGS) HALIFAX GROUP
in grateful memory of the Mother & Aunt of the donor
BOTH OF WHOM WERE INTENSELY SYMPATHETIC
TOWARDS YOUNG MEN & BOYS

Oh come on, stop smirking. That's just our modern smutty minds corrupting innocent and noble sentiment, right?

I mean, 'intensely sympathetic to young men and boys' doesn't necessarily mean any carnal activity to alleviate any other urges, does it?

Don't be so sure.

This section was deleted by the publishers from the original edition of Lord Baden-Powell's Scouting For Boys in 1908, but was reinstated in the 2004 reprint

You all know what it is to have at times a pleasant feeling in your private parts, and there comes an inclination to work it up with your hand or otherwise.

Well, lots of fellows, from not knowing any better, please themselves in this way until it often becomes a sort of habit with them which they cannot get out of.

The practice is called self abuse and the result is that the boy after time becomes weak and nervous and shy.

He gets headaches and probably palpitation of the heart, and if he still carries it on too far he very often goes out of his mind and becomes an idiot.

A very large number of the lunatics on our asylums have made themselves ill by indulging in this vice although at one time they were sensible cheery boys like you.

The use of your private parts is not to play with when you are a boy but to enable you to get children when you are grown-up and married.

But if you misuse them while young, you will not be able to use them when you are a man.

Remember too that several awful diseases come from indulgence - one especially that rots away the inside of men's mouths, their noses and eyes.