I protest at your ridiculous headline (Scouts get their Ging Gang Goolies in a twist over UCAS forms, News, April 24). Your writer would have done well to research her subject before pronouncing on ways in which the Scout movement is "stereotyped and often even mocked": she might have learned that the term "Bob-a-Job Week" was dropped even before "bobs" ceased to be legal tender, that the call of "Dyb-dyb-dyb-dyb" (for Do Your Best), which formed part of the ritual opening and closing of Cub meetings, was discontinued in 1965, and that "Ging Gang Gooly" (it was Shing gang gooly when I was young, but no doubt there are different versions) is only one of dozens of camp fire songs used by the Scouts.
The suggestion discussed in the article, that the Queen's Scout Award should be recognised by UCAS, is entirely reasonable. In my Scout days the official statement was that the award was bestowed on a boy who, "having thoroughly trained himself in Scoutcraft places his training at the disposal of the community". That was long ago, admittedly, but the principle has not changed: the Queen's Scout Award is, or should be, a mark of real achievement, as deserving as the Duke of Edinburgh Award of recognition. A paper of the Sunday Herald's standing should be able to report on the topic without ignorant flippancy.
Derrick McClure
Aberdeen
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