5WSS: The Early Years
As part of 5th Woodbridge Sea Scouts 50th celebrations in 2022, Graham Bills & Richard Jennings, two of the first group of young people to join 5WSS, kindly detailed the history of the Group and provided us with some wonderful recollections of their time as 5WSS members.
“The 5th Woodbridge Sea Scout Group was founded by Bill Thomas in October 1972.
Bill taught Technology at Woodbridge School where he was initially leader of the school Sea Scout troop. He considered it important for local Sea Scouts to be available to all, with the River Deben a resource to be enjoyed and explored by anyone from the town. So the 5WSS was born.
Bill was married to Glen and they had three sons - David, Andrew and Richard, who were all quickly recruited. Glen as Cub Leader, with the boys into the Scouts and Cubs
A group of us, some ex Woodbridge School Sea Scouts, all aged about 14, were recruited by Bill to became Venture Scouts , these included Paul Norman, Mike Field, Graham Bills, Richard Jennings, Paul Turner, Alan Potter, Chris Hobson and Steve Ash
Bill persuaded (he was a hard man to say no to) Mike Woods to be Venture Leader and Dave Turner to be Scout Leader.
The first Scout troop was the generation below us and included Bill’s son David, Graham’s brother Patrick, Bruce Allen, Mike Shadforth, Chris Sanderson, Sebastian Jones, Rick Hobson and Nick Hughes
The first headquarters was a cottage (1, Tide Mill Way) that he somehow borrowed on the town side of the railway line, on the approach road to the current headquarters. Soon after the Customs house and land of the current headquarters were purchased for a nominal sum from a lady who also owned the grain store beside the Tide Mill.
Fundraising started to build the current hall. This included collecting hundreds of tons of newspapers for recycling. Temporarily stored in the customs house – nobody considered it a fire hazard!
Various boats were acquired including Red Dragon, a clinker built fast dingy which, having been out of the water for so long and badly dried out, required constant bailing for 48hrs when launched. Then nearly capsized when first sailed, as we did not realise the two chunks of metal that came with it were needed as ballast. We had some canoes, again given to Bill by somebody he met, probably in a pub. Also a plan was made to build two open sailing boats, I do not know if they were ever finished.
Early adventures included:
Trying to find the source of the Deben, by canoe in Winter; we inadvertently camped in somebody’s garden and nearly froze on the way back.
Building a monkey bridge across the Deben at Kyson point to the island on our first Admiralty inspection
Summer camps both at Longleat, the Scout boating centre at Marlow and at Butley Ferry Farm.
A summer camp on a Thames Barge sailed round to the Ramsholt Rocks from Pinmill, where infamously Bruce managed to sail his mirror dinghy between a water skier and the tow boat.
Cooking Christmas dinner for old lonely people in Woodbridge
Bill had a small yacht called Genbara, moored at Kyson point. His love of sailing led us to some of our most memorable adventures when chartering yachts to sail across the Channel. The first two from Lymington to Cherbourg. Followed by the Isle of Wight and finally from Levington Marina to Holland. This was a ‘double crossing’ requiring a two week charter to accommodate as many venture scout crew as possible. Unfortunately both steering and gear box failed on first crossing. However this wasn’t going to stop Bill. Hurried repairs were to no avail, with an uncomfortable jerry rigged system adopted for the entire second crossing
Such adventures led some of us to keep sailing together some 50 years later.
By the late 70s the first generation of us had moved on and some away to University. Bill had had to retire early due to ill health. The second generation had moved on to be Venture scouts led by Steve Ash when he returned from being in the Army. The Scouts were then led by John Double & the Cubs by Chris Sanderson”.