Rover History 1945 - 1956

1951 - "A New and Better Den Obtained"

At the start of this year, we were on 'clover' for we had now a very thriving Crew and could now look forward to some healthy Rovering.

At the start of the year, we had three Rover Mates, and this is the only time that we have had so many at once. After a few months of office, Geoff Booth had to resign as Mate owing to pressure of work, so Rex was appointed in his place. Peter Atkinson took over the duties of Forces Correspondent from Terry, and Dennis took over as QM on the resignation of Ray.

Life was not to go on quite as pleasantly as we had hoped, for fairly early in the year- March to be exact - George resigned from the Crew, and in April,Eric followed suit. Later on Geoff Lomas joined HMF.

Owing to very many commitments on the Secretary, who was Chairman of the Young Rovers Panel at HQ, the Crew very generously appointed a second Assistant Secretary in order to relieve the strain a little. This was Dave Wallis who carried on until the Forces claimed him.

To turn now to brighter things,during this year Stuart and Pete G were made Rovers and Keith and Ken rejoined the Crew. Unfortunately, we lost Dave and Stuart into the Forces, so what we had gained on the swings we had lost on the roundabouts.

This was Rover Year and each Crew gave a party, ours was, I think, one of the most successful.

In the Trophy World, we certainly showed that we were very much on the map, we gained third place in the Vere, second in the Mallett and were joint winners with KES [King Edward VII's] in the Thomas,

The most important event by far, was of course, the securing of the present Den and on the 24th September we had a host of VIPs and other visitors and the new Den was well and truly opened. It must be recorded that all the thanks for the acquiring of the Den, plus the hard work attached to the whole project, must go to Dick.^{[30140][30130]}

At the ending of the year a Youth Council was formed in St Augustine's, and Dick and Mick were elected to represent the Crew on this body.