Look Wide

When I get together with my dad, we often talk about camping. Not that I am into camping. Oh, no. It was a part of being a Girl Guide that I could really have done without. Is it supposed to be fun, or is it just meant to toughen you up? And why, if you have a home with a warm bed, running water and a kitchen, would you want to sleep in a tent on bumpy ground, half a mile from a tap and half a hoof from a cow? Don't get it. LOS loves tents. He and Lady Sunshine have camping holidays. When he was a kid he used to have a great time at the January Scout camp. I need a hot bath just thinking about that. My mum, bless her, used to knit him sweaters that could insulate a roof.

Dad was a Scout back in the day, then ran the local troop, and he, too, loved camping. A lot of the sites they used to go to are close to where Tony and I live now, and one of them is a historical site for the Scouting movement. The books tell you that the first scout camp was on Brownsea Island. Well, it sort of was, but at that time they weren't scouts, they weren't anything really. At that stage it wasn't an organisation, more of an idea, a project. By the following year they were the Scout Movement and held their first ever camp near a little place in Northumberland called Dilston. Near the site they raised a cairn which is still there, and called it Look Wide.

If you ever come to this part of the world and you're at all Scoutery Guidery, you might like to look out for Look Wide. Most people come here to look at the Roman Wall and the various medieval odds and ends, but Look Wide is another little bit of our history.

By the way, I was a rubbish Girl Guide. Tomorrow I'm going to talk to the local Brownies about Being a Writer. They will suss me out. They'll take one look at me and think 'camping wuss' and my authority will be lost.