MANY local men will have been members of the Scout movement when they were young - but not many of them will have had the opportunity to go to a World Scout Jamboree.

However, just 50 years ago, a group of local Scouts went to the Austrian spa of Bad Ischl, among them young Norman Parker, later to become the Chief Librarian at Bolton Libraries, who has sent me the photograph above and details for this article.

"Nowadays," he writes, "it is not unusual for young people to have a 'gap year' between completing their higher education and commencing work, when they often seek to broaden their horizons by travelling round the world.

"Opportunities like this were rare in the 1950s, though some managed it at government expense during national Service! (including me, Mr Parker - I spent 14 months in Cyprus. It was during the emergency there, and we were rarely let out of camp, but fortunately we had three beaches on camp, and unless we were on guard duty we worked from 7am until 1pm, spending most of the afternoons on the beach! Hard times! - LG)

Mr Parker continues: "I was fortunate enough to have a 'gap month' in August, 1951 between leaving school as a 16-year-old and beginning work in the Bolton Public Libraries.

"As a member of the 51st Bolton (Trinity Methodist) Scout Group, I was one of the Bolton scouts selected by competition to attend the Seventh World Jamboree in Austria - it cost £21 to attend, a considerable sum in those days; I got a grant of £10 from scout funds, and raised the rest myself by delivering meat for Mr Lund, the local butcher, on Saturday mornings.

"By comparison with modern World Scout Jamborees, this was quite a small one, as most of Europe was still in the grip of post-war austerity, but nevertheless it was attended by about 15,000 scouts from 60 different countries. Looking back on it, it was one of the formative experiences of my youth, bringing me into contact with boys from countries I had hardly heard of, and learning that however superficially difference we appeared to be, we all shared similar hopes and ambitions for the future.

Scouting in Bolton in the mid-20th century was well served by a number of men who devoted much of their spare time to organising troop meetings, camps, competitions and badge examinations for scouts throughout the town.

"My own troop owed everything to the enthusiasm and dedication of leaders Jack Disley, Ronnie Moss, and Jimmy Horrocks, while elsewhere in the town many of your older readers will remember, often with a smile, the work of Ted Harrison, Arthur (The Robin) Catherall, 'Jock' Murray, Bill Brookes, 'Pip Porter, Tommy Jenkins and many others."

Mr Parker sent me his scrapbook of the Jamboree, which he has carefully kept over the years, and which included photographs, letters home, and cuttings from the paper.

One of these cuttings lists those who went from Bolton as K. Roberts, 348 Deane Road; A. Massey, 29 Markland Hill Lane; D.N. Wood, 59 New Brook Road; D.G. Connor, 12 Longford Avenue; G. Kirkham, 181 Kay Street; G.P. Wilson, 64 Kildare Street, Farnworth; Rex Bissel, 20 Kingswood Avenue; Alan Greenhalgh, 29 Primula Street; N. Parker, 166 Bromwich Street; Roy Moulton, 15 Dickinson Street West, Horwich; C. Greenhalgh, 293 Tonge Moor Road; D. Hindley, 25 Holly Street; A Parkinson, 5 Platt Hill Avenue; J Foster, 316 Temple Drive, and Peter Harrison, 22 Milford Road, Great Lever.

Although all the boys obviously enjoyed their experience, Alan Massey, a member of the Bolton School (19th) Troop, found that the food was not quite to his liking. "There were too many of the cheese and tomato dishes, and I am afraid, also, that there was so much jam that it became known as the 'Jam-boree'!"

Another cutting reported: "Tuesday was a big day for the scouts when they travelled to the Dachstein mountain region to visit the ice caves. It meant rising at 3am, travelling on the local railway system to Obertraun, and then facing a steady climb of 2,000ft. The climb took about two hours, and was reasonably strenuous, but fortunately there was a 'Gasthaus' at the top and they were able to enjoy some food and drink."

Looking at the Jamboree as a whole, feeding all those thousands of hungry mouths was a big problem. Bakers of five towns in the vicinity formed an emergency combine to supply 18,000 loaves of bread and 16,000 rolls daily. Then there was 70,000lb of sugar, 100,000lb of flour, 2,000 cases of bully beef, oatmeal porridge for British scouts, spaghetti for Italians, and curry and rice for Indians.

Scoutcraft competitions filled the greatest part of the Jamboree programme, with knot-tying, lassoing, signalling, bridge-building, archery and first aid contests, while Air Scouts from eight countries entered for a gliding competition.

Incidentally, scouting was banned in Soviet Russia, and that country and her satellites were the only major countries of the world not represented at the "Great Gathering of the Tribes."

It was a couple of weeks which Norman Parker - and no doubt all the other scouts there - found fascinating, and a highlight of their scouting years.