There’s something very wrong about sending Scouts to Disneyland

Youngsters need to be thrown into adversity, via howling gales and leaking tents, not sent to the outskirts of Paris to meet Mickey Mouse

It was as a Cub Scout that I looked up at the moon, and saw – at least in my imagination – Neil Armstrong step on it. And it was as a Cub Scout that I learnt, in a rather creaky scout hut, to tie a reef knot, a sheet bend, and – best of all – a hang man’s noose. I cooked sausages on the campfire – quite a few were burnt black – and, under the watchful eye of our wise leader, Akela, was trusted for the first time with my pen knife. With this I whittled a stick – it was to shove bread on, for toast.  
Back then it was all one big adventure. As a sworn member of the 1st Gerrards Cross and Fulmer pack, somewhere in the dank beech woods off the Amersham Road, I fixed my woggle, shared stories under the stars, played conkers with alacrity and above all this: I promised to do my best. And even now, decades on, I still try to. 
Imagine my horror, then, hearing that the Humberside Scouts are among those organising a trip to Disneyland Paris over February half-term in 2026 – and at £650 a pop. I kid you not! Pack members won’t be cooking bangers or earning a swimming badge but taking a coach to a theme park.  
Forget the wholesome business of learning self-reliance and communal endeavour, instead it’s exposure to saccharine characters who are paid to smile – “Have a magical day!” – artificial thrills, and merchandise.  
Where once there was Akela to look up to, now there’s Mickey Mouse. Where once we discovered the rewards of camaraderie by torchlight, now we discover the virtue of corporate greed. 
But wait! The scouting movement has for too long – I hear you say – been a mainstay of the middle classes, steeped in old-fashioned values that promulgated the empire and extolled Edwardian notions of morality.  To widen the organisation’s reach we should – nay must – keep up with the times. So, out go duty and service. The watchword is now fun. Positivity, inclusion, and so forth. 
Here, lest I get carried away with my rant, I should mention that I very much welcome the appointment of the new chief scout, Dwayne Fields – the first black Briton to reach the South Pole. At long last, the top man (they always seem to be men) isn’t actually a toff – by which I mean someone like me, I suppose. Fields speaks of the movement in terms of gratitude – as a child in a rough part of North London, the Scouts gave him somewhere to “belong”, after surviving a stabbing. Besides, Scouting has long since been something beloved of not just the Home Counties; there are no less than 57 million members worldwide.
Yet this is precisely the nub of my argument. Because, if truth be told, I was the last person who’d fit in. Yes I was white, male and middle class, but even aged nine I found the other two thirds of the Cub Scout promise – “to do my duty to God, and to the Queen” – hard to swallow. I was a natural outsider. I was bolshie. I needed to find my own way.
My time in the Cubs wasn’t just formative, it was life-changing. And it strikes me we need these Scouts and their woggles more than ever. In a post-pandemic world, here’s a chance for children to get out and about again – and especially when so many are overly connected to their phones and disconnected from the ecosystems that sustain us. 
Such activities build relationships, improve life skills, and develop the leaders of tomorrow. In other words, here’s an alternative to everything represented by that shrine to vacuousness called Disneyland. In that happy place, everything appears gorgeous, everyone appears lovely.    
But guess what? Real life ain’t like that. Real life is located not in a resort east of Paris but back in those beechwoods I explored as a child – or in Snowdonia, or the Cairngorms. Yes, it can be damp, and yes, you have to make new friends and deal with the bullies or the bloke who snores. Out in the howling gale, you discover the tent leaks, and someone repeatedly rolls over you in their sleeping bag. It can be ghastly – or it can be unimaginably amazing. And maybe you’ll surprise yourself with how good you are when thrown into adversity. 
It’s called learning to be resilient. And this new lot, by all accounts, needs more of that, not less. 
Just last week, my little girl, Beatrice, signed up. She skipped along to join the Beavers – the entry level for Scouting. And now she, too, has been introduced to the activity badges she might earn. These days, they include everything from “money skills” to “disability awareness” and “my faith”. Great. Nothing wrong with that. Brilliant, in fact. There is, though, something very wrong with Donald Duck.