BOY SCOUTS ON CORONATION DAY.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 136, 25 June 1937, Page 4

BOY SCOUTS ON CORONATION DAY.

The Boy Scout Movement played an important part in the London celebrations on Coronation Day, says The Times. About 1000 Scouts saw the procession from the reserve enclosure on Constitution Hill for representatives of youth movements. These comprised units from 54 counties in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and from a score of contingents in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Southern and Northern Rhodesia, Nigeria, Gold Coast, Cyprus, Ceylon, West • Indies, and the Irish Free State. Seven thousand London Scouts took charge of the aelliug of the offieial souvenir programme on the route of the procession. The whole issue of the latest edition of the programme, consisting of 175,000 copies, was sold out. The takings were afterwards collected by Scout trek carts under police escort. The proceeds are in aid of King George 's Jubilee Trust. Some 2400 crush barriers were ereeted along the route during Tuesday night and in the early morning of Coronation Day by 1650 Rover Scouts over 17 years of age. The barriers had steel fittings, and the pCints had to be screwed into sockets in roadways and pavements. Rehearsals of the work, which was undertaken under the direction of the police, took place on the three previous Sundays. The Scouts also manned the barriers and moved them as required by the police. There were also 125 London Scouts on duty outside Westminster Abbey, attending to the movement of motor-cars of guests entering and leaving under the orders of ihe Ghief Gold Staff Officer, ' During the day Lord Baden-Powell, the Ohief Scout, visited some of the programme depots in the company of Mr G .W. G. May, of the London movement, organiser of the Scout participation in the CoronatiOn celebrations. He then left to take his seat on the House of Lords st:and at Westminster. In the evening he visited the Hortieliltural Hall, Westminster, where about 1000 of the visiting Scouts have been accommodated for three days of their stay. He spoke informally r,o Scouts from many units, and on leaving the hall was loudly cheered.