Author Topic: Baden Powell's lanyard  (Read 5358 times)

Scouter John

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 7
Baden Powell's lanyard
« on: February 02, 2011, 01:25:27 AM »
I'm trying to research the details of the original lanyard for scouters (length, material & knots used) To date, the only reference I could locate was a piece in  "Boys Life (Boy Scouts of America) for September, 1932"

Page 31- To make the Lanyard illustrated in the Service Library Pamphlet, ?Projects in Leather,? you will need 4 strips, 4? long and about 1/8? wide. Narrower widths may be used if you desire. For the sliding knot you will need 1/8? strip of thong about 1 ft. long

I did see a picture of a white 3-strand twist, cotton (I assume), from the 1959's. It appeared to have a 3-pass monkey's fist at the fixed loop end and some kind of a spherical slider knot that wasn't readily definable.
Unfortunately, I'm not even sure that I'm on the right track with either lanyard. I would assume that there are more knowledgable scouters out there than I and I would appreciate any assistance that you could provide.
john

CreditonJules

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 40
    • My Folksy shop
Re: Baden Powell's lanyard
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2011, 09:55:34 PM »
I wish I could help you further John in your quest but alas!  :(

It did give me a great opportunity to look at my 1946 Memorial Edition of Scouting for Boys and my 1942 edition of Hints on Girl Guide Badges.  It looks like the young ladies of the day were more into lace making than actual knotting though there was a badge for a boatswain but nothing about lanyard making.  Some of my favourite sounding badges from that day are Bee-Farmer, Cobbler and Domestic Service! How things have changed!!

I love this quote taken from Scouting for Boys -

"To tie a knot seems to be a simple thing, and yet there are right ways and wrong ways of doing it and Scouts ought to know the right way.  Very often it may happen that lives depend on a knot being properly tied.

"The right kind of knot to tie is one which you can be certain will hold under any amount of strain, and which you can always undo easily if you wish to.

"The bad knot is one which slips away when a hard pull comes on it, or which gets jammed so tight that you cannot untie it.

"The best way to learn knots is to get a fellow who knows to show you.  Knots want a lot of practice as you soon forget them.  Use pieces of rope or cord and not messy bits of string or bootlaces."

Nothing to do with your query I'm afraid but I will be interested in watching this thread to see if anyone comes up with something more positive!

CreditonJules
Be Knot Afrayed!

Don't get your knickers in a knot. Nothing is solved and it just makes you walk funny. ~Kathryn Carpenter

Scouter John

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 7
Re: Baden Powell's lanyard
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2011, 02:33:20 AM »
In my continued quest to hunt down the elusive B.P. lanyard, I have come across some other interesting information. Following the Boer War, B.P. was given the task of organizing the South African Constabulary which was made up of many former Canadian military personel. The Canadian contingent favored wearing the "mountie" style stetson hat. B.P. liked the hat so much that he adopted the stetson as part of the Scout uniform. This info got me to thinking that perhaps the rest of the uniform had it's roots from the Boer war and in particular either the British uniform or (specifically) South African Constabulary uniform. I have contacted both the British and Canadian War Museums to research this further. I'm of the mind that the lanyard might be of similar construct as the lanyards attached to officer's sidearms. I'm hoping that there is a specific uniform code that will provide details of the lanyard

Scouter John

peterleroux

  • New Member
  • *
  • Posts: 2
    • Ropes and Poles pioneering blog
Re: Baden Powell's lanyard
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2011, 09:26:28 AM »
Hi John, from a fellow Scouter.
I can't offer any specific advice about B-P's lanyard. The 4 strand leather one sounds more like the sennit for the Bushman's Thong award than a scarf lanyard.
The current lanyard that scouters use in South Africa is a white nylon braid, with a Turk's head as the sliding knot and a doubled overhand knot as the loop for (usually) the whistle.

Yours in Scouting
Peter

 

anything