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THE PATROL LEADERS HANDBOOK
THE
PATROL LEADERS’
HANDBOOK
by
John Thurman
THE BOY SCOUTS ASSOCIATION
25 Buckingham Palace Road
London, S.W.l
First published March 1950
Second impression September 1950
Third impression May 1952
Made and printed in England by
STAPLES PRESS LIMITED
at their Rochester, Kent, establishment
Page 1
THE PATROL LEADERS HANDBOOK
Downloaded from:
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Editor’s Note:
The reader is reminded that these texts have been written a long time ago.
Consequently, they may use some terms or express sentiments which were current at the
st
time, regardless of what we may think of them at the beginning of the 21 century. For
reasons of historical accuracy they have been preserved in their original form.
If you find them offensive, we ask you to please delete this file from your system.
This and other traditional Scouting texts may be downloaded from The Dump.
Page 2
THE PATROL LEADERS HANDBOOK
Contents
Chapter Page
I THE PATROL SYSTEM – WHAT IS IT? 4
II THE PATROL AS A GANG 8
III THE PATROL AND THE COURT OF HONOUR 11
IV THE PATROL IN ITS CORNER 15
V THE PATROL AT TROOP MEETINGS 18
VI THE PATROL AND ITS DEN 22
VII THE PATROL IN CAMP 25
VIII THE PATROL LEADER AND HIS SECOND 31
IX THE PATROL LEADER AND THE TENDERFOOT 33
X THE PATROL AND THE SECOND CLASS 37
XI THE PATROL AND THE FIRST CLASS 43
XII THE PATROL AND SOME NATURAL FACTS 53
XIII THE PATROL AND PROFICIENCY BADGES 69
XIV THE PATROL OUT OF DOORS 74
XV THE PATROL AND HIKE 77
XVI THE PATROL AND OTHER PEOPLE 83
XVII PATROL MEETINGS 85
XVIII THE PATROL AND THE SCOUT LAW 91
XIX P.L. NO MORE 95
The humorous drawings are by KEN SPRAGUE
This book is dedicated to all Patrol Leaders, past, present and yet to be; the Patrol
Leaders of Brownsea Island, the Patrol Leaders of your Troop and the Patrol Leaders of
my Troop, to all Patrol Leaders everywhere, the lucky fellows who have the best job in
Scouting.
Page 3
THE PATROL LEADERS HANDBOOK
Chapter I
This Patrol System – What is it?
OU can’t be a successful captain of a football team if you don’t know the rules of football;
you can’t drive a train if you don’t know how to work the engine; you can’t make a cake fit to
Y
eat unless you know how to choose what to put in it. Obviously, then, you cannot be a proper
Patrol Leader unless you understand the Patrol System.
Of course, you can play at being a soccer captain; you can play at driving an engine; you can
play at baking a cake (far too many cooks do), and you can play at being a Patrol Leader.
Inevitably, though, if you haven’t taken the trouble to learn how to do the job in hand, you’ll make a
mess of it, and perhaps everything will end in disaster for you and, more important, for other boys
who are relying upon you.
That is one of the most important things about this Patrol Leader business – to remember
first, last, and all the time that other Scouts are depending upon you and that your actions will affect
them: for better or worse, and it is your job to see that it is for better. One of the apparently
harmless sayings that has crept into use in recent years is ‘I couldn’t care less’, which is just about
the worst idea for a Patrol Leader that ever was, and any Patrol Leader who uses it and means it
ought to hand in his stripes right away. A Patrol Leader needs the attitude of ‘I couldn’t care more’
for himself, for the Scouts in his Patrol, and for everybody.
I expect you have often been told – I know I was until I was tired of hearing it – that ‘It’s the
little things that matter!’ Well; they do, you know. However tiresome or trivial or irksome they may
seem, everything does matter and, in the main, the little things do matter most because they happen
most often and affect more people. I expect you’ve heard also that ‘Little things are sent to try us!’
and if your experience is at all like mine I’ve no doubt you will agree that little things really do try
us; in fact, they can be very trying.
The Patrol System is a system made up of ‘a lot of littles’. This is why there are difficulties
about it; why there are problems; why it is not too easy to understand, and why I hope that from this
book you will get a real picture and a vision of all that the Patrol System can and should be, mean,
and do.
I’ve always been glad it isn’t too easy. If all we had to do was to write ‘Patrol System’ over
the entrance to every Troop Headquarters and a sort of miracle resulted it would really be too
simple to bother with, but fortunately, and I mean fortunately, it isn’t as easy as that. It does not get
any easier as the years go by, and perhaps in that lies its secret, its charm and its possibilities. It
always needs and always will need two special qualities – the one common sense, the other effort. I
hope you have the first (which is by no means as common as it should be) and will make the
second, because upon those two things the rest will depend. I, and, indeed, many others, can explain
a little, suggest a lot, advise perhaps and encourage always, but no one except you, the Patrol
Leader, can really do anything about the Patrol System, because it really does all depend upon you;
it is your show and it is always up to you.
When Scouting was started, over forty years ago, the idea of the Patrol System was really a
very revolutionary thing; in fact, a lot of people criticised it and told B.-P., the Founder, that it was
dangerous, that it would not work, that he was asking for trouble, and that the boys would let him
down, but as the years have gone by the method of the Patrol System has more and more become an
accepted practice in all kinds of boy activities, in school and out of school, in relation to work, to
sports and to all sorts of things, and, of course, it has been carried far outside Scouting into service
and civilian life: the bomber crews, the infantry patrol, the patrol of scientists engaged in a special
project.
Page 4
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