To mark this week’s 85th anniversary of the 1939 International Rover Scout Moot at Monzie, Rob McInroy, whose latest novel is set against this huge gathering, looks back on a celebration of worldwide friendship just weeks before the Second World War broke out — causing many of these young men to end up fighting on opposite sides.
In July, 1939, 3,500 young men gathered at the grounds of Monzie Castle, outside Crieff, for the Third International Rover Scout Moot. A moot is a camp for the oldest age group of Scouts, aged 18 to 24, and these Rovers would spend a week in Monzie before moving to Edinburgh for a final three days of celebrations.
The majority of Rovers were British but they also came from 42 different countries, including Thailand, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, South Africa, Rhodesia and most European countries. All were dressed in their national uniforms. Jamaican Rovers were resplendent in tartan neckerchiefs, while the Hungarians had plumes of prairie grass adorning their hats and the Rhodesians were apparently notable for their very short shorts!
The Rover Scout movement celebrates ‘open air and service’ and, during the week at Monzie, 147 different guided walking tours were organised to places such as St Fillans, Amulree, Auchnafree, Loch Turret and Ben Chonzie.
200 Rovers climbed Ben Nevis, with one unfortunate lad being stretchered off the mountain after falling from a boulder 300 feet from the summit.
Although they were expected to fend for themselves there were comforts on-site, such as restaurants, a barber, a chemist and a number of milk bars. Laundry, dry-cleaning and mending services were also available, along with a bank, mobile post office and even a reading room.
It is clear the Rovers took advantage of these facilities. Over the course of the Moot, 5,000 letters were received and 13,000 sent, along with 700 telegrams. For the Crieff postie who delivered the mail by bicycle, it must have been a long and arduous week.
The camp was no small operation. The camp ordered 20,000 lbs of potatoes, 7,000 feet of sausages, 18,000 eggs, 20,000 pints of milk and 25,000 lbs of bread.
On the final day, two highland bullocks were roasted over a huge camp fire in the grounds of Monzie Castle and each Rover was given a slice at the final celebration.
The camp seemed to have been very good-natured, with lots of pranks such as pinching the signs that marked each town or country’s area of the camp.
Monzie Castle’s pipers played at 6.30 am each morning, leading to a mock protest by 1700 English Rovers, who marched against this ‘barbaric custom’ wearing blankets for kilts and sponge bags or towels for sporrans, with imitation pipes made from rolled up newspaper and tin plates for drums.
An information bureau was established in the camp and some of the enquiries they received suggest a degree of naivete among the Rovers. “If I buy a radio set, can I get Indian radio?” one asked, while another queried whether there was an excursion arranged to the New York World Fair.
The BBC broadcast live from the camp five times, and covered the final rally which took place at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. The event caught the imagination of locals and folks further afield, with 20,000 attending the Sunday open day, causing a two hour tailback on the road to Crieff.
Crieff warmly embraced the Rovers, with the town bedecked in bunting and flags. Coloured lights decorated the Murray Fountain in James Square. The canny managers of Scrimgeour’s delayed their annual sale by a week to take advantage of the large number of visitors.
The locals joined in the celebrations, too. A combined Crieff, Moot Camp and Eirean pipe band marched through the town one evening and played in MacRosty Park.
After a week, the entire Moot decamped to Edinburgh, via a series of chartered trains departing from Crieff Railway Station. In Edinburgh, they marched down Princes Street and performed one final time in Murrayfield Stadium.
For us, with the benefit of hindsight, it is poignant to think of those young men engaging in this international celebration of brotherhood, living together in peace and harmony, sharing experiences and making friendships.
Within six weeks, Germany would invade Poland and the Second World War would commence. Many of those young men would find themselves on opposite sides, forced to confront a deadly binary – kill or be killed. Of course, everyone knew by July 1939 that war was inevitable, but they couldn’t have believed it would come quite so soon.
It is tempting, then, to think of the Moot as the last gasp of civilisation before the world degenerated into six years of horror.
When I was planning my third novel in the Bob Kelty historical crime fiction series, my initial thought was to set it during the war, but when I read about the Moot Camp I knew this had to be the setting. The juxtaposition of this celebration of friendship with what we knew was coming down the line was too powerful to resist.
I find it inconceivable that Nazi Germany would not have taken advantage of this huge influx of young foreign men into Scotland to infiltrate the country with their own agents. We know that the SS were actively recruiting foreign spies, particularly in Scandinavia which, of course, was a very early theatre of war in the conflict.
That gave me the basis for my story, with two – at least – agents infiltrating the Moot camp. Who are they? What are they doing? Why? And for whom?
Moot is a story about truth and lies, honour and decency.
As well as meaning a camp, moot also means something that is uncertain, open to question, something which cannot really be debated. The tagline for my novel Moot is: when is a murder not a murder?
And the answer, of course, may be moot.
Moot by Rob McInroy is published on 26 April, 2024.
See more about Moot.
Rob McInroy is the author of Cuddies Strip and Barossa Street. His novels are set in Perthshire and aim to recreate Scottish rural working class life from the 1930s to the 1980s.
You may also be interested in reading:
The Scottish Radical Rising of 1820 by Maggie Craig
Two strands of lost history from Scotland by Elisabeth Gifford
Images (all kindly supplied by Rob McInroy):
- Overlooking the International Rover Scout Moot campsite
- Some of the nations represented: Egypt, Rhodesia, England, Scotland, Armenia, Iraq, Norway, Australia
- Rovers having a break on a hike
- Each area or country had their own enclosure
- The opening ceremony
- London Rovers make a Be Pals arrangement at Murrayfield Stadium
