THE UNION JACK

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 11, 6 October 1937, Page 10

THE UNION JACK

This is out of the Sea Scout feature in "The Scout," although it is written for Sea Scouts it is also well that Land Scotffcs should know it too: — "The headquarters of the Ipswich Scouts had the flag at the fight place on the mast, by the way, when we last visited there, which wasn't so at every visit we paid in Suffolk! A fashionable golf club we passed had it wrong, too, so I had better tell the right way. The Union Flag, or Union Jack, is not worn on board shap at all except by H.M. ships, so that's quite easy. On shore it js the general flag to fly, but oAly at the masthead. Nothing may be flown over it, so it's got to *be on the to'p. Some flagstaffs have a yard or a gaff. At neither of these may the Union Flag be flown. Some Scouts a l°ng way from Suffolk sent me a photograph of their camp flagstaff the other day, and the Union Flag was flying at the yard — and not only that it was upside down, too 1 Other flags cun be flown at the yard or gaff, and when you fly the Red Ensign, for instance (as yacht clubs do, and as it is permissable to do on the shore headquarters of a Sea Scout group) the peak (or farcend) of the gaff is the proper place for it. The yard (the wooden stay at right angles to the mast) is the right place for the green Scout Pennant, .or signal flags, the starboard side being the most important. So there you are. By the way, I saw in London the other day a splendid filrn having as its basis the story of a famous historical charge by British troops. The film was made in America, and every Union Jack was upside down all the way through. You'd have thought that with all Hollywood's resources and tlie number of British actors there, they could have found out the right wayl"