Helen Chick
I’ve been a leader in the Scout movement for a long time now … 27 years in fact (which is a bit scary) and I guess I’m a bit of a traditionalist at heart (or an old fogey … depending on which way you look at it!). Despite my concerns about climate change and the environment, one of my favourite traditions is singing around a campfire and telling the odd tall tale with a bad pun for an ending.
Our scout troop had a camp this weekend in the company of another local troop, and we had two nights of singing around the campfire. It was great to be in the company of other leaders who like singing and being silly, and the kids all joined in despite — or in fact because of — this! We did the classic Scout campfire songs such as “He jumped from 40000 feet without a parachute”, “The Bear Song”, and even — most famous of all — “Ging Gang Gooley”. We got “Campfire’s Burning” going as a great-sounding round the first time we tried it. We did at least one that isn’t in the usual Scout campfire repertoire that I hope the kids don’t tell their parents about (there is something macabrely humorous about Tom Lehrer’s “The Irish Ballad” which my kids know as either “Ricketty Ticketty Tin” or, more simply, “The Dead Song” … it is harmless but it’s not exactly politically correct!). Being a long weekend we had to do “Monday’s a holiday (Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are!)”, and as usual we managed to get the newbies totally tangled up trying to do the actions to the song I only know as “Loo lah”.
We did heaps of others, from the gentle (“Land of the Silver Birch”) to the silly (Barnyard “Good King Wenceslas”) to the loud (“Old Lady Leary”). I threw in a story or two (those shaggy dog stories with long build-ups and then a really bad pun at the end), including “Herman the German”, “The Monk Story”, and “The Viper”, and, of course, we toasted marshmallows, ate chocolates, and I was introduced to “Smores” (toasted marshmallows sandwiched between Choc Wheaten biscuits).
The consequence of all of this is a voice that has smoke huskiness and a few extra notes in the bass register, and clothes that stink of smoke … and a whole bunch of warm fuzzy memories of a great group of kids and adults sharing two cold evenings around the campfire making a pretty good sound. Thanks May, Matt, Lucy and co.
Viva la campfire!!
Tis a shame you’ll be away for 6 months or I’d suggest we do it again real soon!
T’was a grand way to spend the weekend. So many thanks go to YOU!
Wonder if a District Campfire night would be out of the question??
Anyhoo, here’s hoping Matt keeps the tradition alive while you’re galavanting about the globe.
Y.I.S,
A campfire loving old fogey!
Ah, that sounds so fun. (“The water tasted bad for a weeeeeeek!… so we had to make do with gin.”)