B-P's footprint

B-P's Footprint

B-P's footprint is a casting, usually in bronze or brass, of the right foot of Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scout and Guide Movements, who is known as "B-P." The idea is that people may put their foot into this casting, so that they can say that they have "walked in the footsteps of B-P."[1]

History

The 1928 Scouting World Conference was officially opened on May 4 in Budapest. The next day, the delegates went on a excursion to Lake Balaton and other places returning to Budapest in the afternoon. That evening, Baden-Powell, his wife Olave and Lord Hampton arrived.

On May 6, there was a rally at the Hárshegy Training Park attended by 9,647 out of the 25,000 scouts then in Hungary and up to 20,000 of the public. In the June 1928 issue of The Scouter B-P wrote, about the Rally at Hárshegy:

This took place in pouring rain... An unusual incident marked the occasion of my visit when they invited me to make my footprint in the soil. A cast of this was taken and imprinted permanently on the spot in concrete.

From this cast two bronze copies were made, one was for the Hárshegy Training Park and the other was a gift to Baden-Powell, which he passed to the British Scout Headquarters.[2]

When the communists took over and banned Scouting in 1948, the training ground was confiscated and houses were built on the land; neither the original concrete footprint, nor the "Hungarian original bronze" has been seen since.[2]

Britain

Some years later a copy of the "British original bronze" was cast and placed at Gilwell Park, the original remained at Scout Headquarters in London. In 1991 four Members of the Hungarian Scout Headquarters team visited England, and saw the Baden-Powell footprint at Gilwell. At their request, a plastic mould was taken of the first "British original bronze", by this time at Baden-Powell House, and from this the Hungarians cast a new footprint, which was installed in their new Scout Training Park, given them in 1991 by the Hungarian Government.[2]

Norway

The Norwegian Boy Scout Association received a copy of the B-P Footprint as a gift from Gilwell Park by Camp Chief John Thurman[3] in the summer of 1959. A Kudu horn was presented at the same time. The footprint then was mounted in front of the house at the Norwegian Gilwell Training Ground on the farm "Sverveli" in Telemark, Norway.

There it stayed for 41 years, until June 2010, when Sverveli was sold. The Norwegian B-P Footprint then was removed and is at present a part of the equipment used at the annual Norwegian Trefoil-Gilwell (Wood Badge) training courses.

In June 2012, a casting in brass was made at Østlandske Lettmetall, Elverum, Norway, from the Norwegian B-P Footprint, to be used during the week as a symbol of The B-P spirit, along with a 6-bead woodbadge suspended from a tripod. In 2012 the 67th Norwegian Trefoil-Gilwell Training course took place on Brownsea Island, attended by 28 scout leaders and a staff of six. The staff leader was Hanne Mette Lundberg.

Brownsea Island

On Friday 3 August 2012, there was a dinner to close that Training Course (previous paragraph), and that B-P footprint was presented by staff member Øystein Gonsholt to Brownsea Island, represented by the warden for that weekend, Claire, as a symbol of the deep-felt gratitude felt by the course attenders and staff, but also on behalf of former, present and future Scouts and Guides of Norway as a tribute to B-P, his scouting idea and Brownsea Island - the cradle of Scouting.

In 1963 the National Trust (the owner of Brownsea Island) opened the Island to the public, in a ceremony conducted by Olave Lady Baden-Powell, the World Chief Guide. On 13 May 2013, as part of the celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening, the Brownsea Island footprint was installed beside an existing bust of Lord Baden-Powell and unveiled by one of B-P`s grandchildren, Gillian Clay, daughter of the B-P's daughter Betty Clay. It is the donors' highest wish that their gift will benefit Brownsea Island and give joy and good B-P spirit to visitors to Brownsea Island for many years to come.[4]

Other copies

Apart from those mentioned above, an unknown number of copies exist around the world, among them:-

References

  1. ↑ Miss Kari Aas, who also designed the WAGGGS emblem that was adopted at the World Conference in 1930, attended the Scouting 1928 World Conference as one of the Norwegian delegates, and much of the information herein was gleaned from her report.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Ineson, John (August 2008). "Abstract from an article". SCOUTING Magazine. BSA. p. 12.
  3. ↑ Visitors' book, Sverveli
  4. ↑ Øystein Gonsholt, staff member 65. Trefoil-Gilwell training
  5. ↑ "Sztrilich Pál Cserkészpark, Nagykovácsi - Juliannamajor". Sztrilich Pál Cserkészpark, Nagykovácsi - Juliannamajor.
  6. ↑ "Seva 2011 in Kenya, Africa - Back to Kenya for Alvin, after 22 years... and visit to the Children's Garden Home for seva". coloursoflife.info.
  7. ↑ "Monumentos Scouts". google.com.
  8. ↑ "Scouting: In Baden-Powell’s footsteps - Millard Fillmore's Bathtub". Millard Fillmore's Bathtub.
  9. ↑ "craig-rix - BPs Footprint". angelfire.com.
  10. ↑ "LISTSERV 15.5 - SCOUTS-L Archives". tcu.edu.
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