WHO SAID, “NO BULLSHIT”?
It was a fairly normal Scout Camp in the early seventies. We were camped on a farmer’s field. You know the sort of thing: a tap some distance from the site. We had to dig a latrine; that wasn’t unusual but sharing the field with the farmer’s herd of cows while they were running with the bull was, to say the least, a bit ‘interesting’. Also, never having tried to herd sheep before, I didn’t realise that one false move and I’d be surrounded by the woolly bastards.
It was one of those years of drought and we had to put up with it. The main problem was that the young bull (Farmer’s Missus: “Don’t worry abewd ‘im, just talk to ‘im real sternly loik ‘e were a choil. Then give ‘im a good whack on the backsoide.”) must have had the only herd of ugly cows in the South of England. (I’d better not say where, even after all this time). Every single one must have been ugly because he would ignore them all and he’d bay across the canal to the cows on the far side whilst standing in the wreckage that he’d just created from our bog screen.
OK having set the scene, Paul was a good kid, he just found himself on the outside of my sphere of sympathy one afternoon. He kept interfering with what I was doing in the mess tent. Chris Sparrow, lone of the Scouters, quickly slung a rope over the branch of a tree and poor Paul, who was already bare-chested due to the incredible temperature, found his wrists bound above his head.
Once I had finished what I was doing, I took the opportunity of tormenting the prisoner.
“Are you going to untie me?”
“Not yet.”
Chris had found himself with a lot of left-over rope hanging from the branch, so I just lifted Paul’s left leg and tied it into that rope.
Paul could do a perfect impression of Blakey from ‘On the Buses’.
I was becoming used to hearing, “I hate you, Butler” in a very wheezy London accent.
The rest of the Troop, obviously, would not dream of being left out. They hammered four fairly hefty tent pegs into the ground.
Paul saw this happening and started to guess what was about to ensue.
“I hate you, Butler” he affirmed but it didn’t make much difference to the assembled ‘Butlers’. Predictably, the troop showed their usual solidarity with their suffering fellow Scout and helped Chris release him from the rope - before removing his trousers and footwear. They then tied him, spread-eagled, not vey tightly, between the tent pegs.
Sharing the field with cattle had certain advantages at this stage. The Troop went around with bowls collecting generous samples of the ‘advantages’.
Really good, sloppy cattle droppings were collected and dropped on Paul’s belly and chest. His best friend, Spike, lifted up the front of his bright blue swimming briefs (Seriously, I believe that some boys stayed in their swimming costumes all week!) while someone slipped a generous helping onto his belly and helped it slip down into place. Spike released the waistband and Paul’s swimming trunks snapped (if that is the right word in the circumstances) sharply into place.
Probably the most popular move was shortly after when two prize-winning piles of crap were positioned just against his armpits. Spike and Tom then untied Paul’s wrists and pulled his arms forcibly against his body with a very pleasing result! The satisfied acclamation as the dung was forced up between Paul’s arms and his torso was resonant!
Even Paul himself was laughing uncontrollably. He was then allowed to free his ankles before jumping into the canal.
Aaaaah! Those were the days!
