It's a little unfair to single the Scouting movement out a somewhere that promoted or facilitated child abuse. Like any other institution, including families, sexual abuse will have occurred. The ethos, the uniforms never did appeal to all parents, hence organisations like Woodcraft folk grew up. Our girls did Brownies and Woodcraft and still say they preferred Brownies because it was more fun and well organised. Luckily Brown and Snowy Owl were typical of the women who ran our local troops. Dedicated, kind and determined their girls would have fun.
One of our neighbouring towns has a plaque of the head of a black slave who escaped and somehow got to England.. He spoke at various cotton mills in the north west in the early part of the 19th century. Reports say mill workers listened and were horrified at the hardships slaves endured. Lancashire cotton workers refused to work with cotton from the southern plantations. I wish we could incorporate the negatives from our imperial past, along with some of the positives. Those cotton workers would be my ancestors. England also was amongst the early opposition to slavery. Let's not forget these things in our rush to acknowledge the horrors.
