Ging Gang Goolie

Are you good with knots, great with numbers or skilled at pitching tents? Then the 1st Cuckfield Scout Troop needs your help!

The Troop is looking for more volunteers to help run its 3 sections - Beavers (age 6 to 8), Cubs (age 8 to 10) and Scouts (age 10 to 14). “We have a great team of volunteers helping to run the different sections and also an executive committee working hard behind the scenes to ensure the group has enough funds,” said leader Mike Schlup. “But the group currently has a long waiting list of children wishing to join and the more volunteers we have then the more chance there is for the boys and girls on the waiting list to be able to join the group.” 

Mike is particularly keen to hear from former scouts or parents whose children have benefitted from joining the scouts. “Many readers of Cuckfield Life will have children who are currently in or have been through one of the Cuckfield Scout sections. Some of you were no doubt Scouts or Guides in your youth (remember the smell of baked beans over the camp fire to the sounds of Ging Gang Goolie?!).

“1st Cuckfield Scouts depends entirely on volunteer helpers to keep going and we are always looking for new faces to get involved. Whether you’re good with knots, great with numbers or know how to pitch a tent, if you’d like to find out more about helping out then please get in touch.”

The group needs fundraisers, quartermasters, a group secretary and helpers to assist each section. Although the roles are voluntary, anyone who helps with the Group will receive a discount on their child’s membership if they join. 

To find out more about joining the 1st Cuckfield Scouts, or if your son or daughter wants to be part of the group then visit http://1stcuckfield.org.uk, email exce1stcukfield@yahoo.co.uk or call Guy Thornett on 07976 081011.

Geoffrey Dennis | Village People

Cuckfield resident Geoffrey Dennis had an epiphany while working in the Bangladeshi capital as he saw hundreds of families rushing up the railway embankment one evening. It was the rainy season in Dakar and he was working on a two month consultancy project with the World Bank. As he walked back to the hotel where he was staying, the mass movement of people caught his attention. 

After a few days observing this practice Geoffrey decided to follow them and see where they were heading. When he did so he discovered they were building makeshift shelters under plastic sheets on the railway tracks. He began talking to some of the families and learned that these were folk who live in shanty towns below but that they had been flooded. As soon as the last train of the day left the station the rush was on to set up camp for the night. 

Over the remaining weeks of his trip he struck up a friendship with two such families and visited them regularly. On Geoffrey’s last visit before leaving Dakar he was greeted with a cake they had made for him. “I was so touched and humbled,” he said. He went back to the hotel immediately to buy up all the cakes he could find and returned to what became a party. “I realised what generous people these were, even though they had so little. I announced to my colleague on the plane home: ‘I want to work in the charity sector one day’.”

An excerpt from the full article by David Tingley published in the July/Aug 2013 issue of Cuckfield Life

Care International helping to help others start new businesses in developing countries: www.lendwithcare.org

Nuclear bunker re-opened

By David Tingley

It was a sunny afternoon in quiet Cuckfield when I took my first trip underground and into a nuclear bunker. Lovingly restored by Mark Russell over a 12 month period (assisted by Ed Combes) it is now back to its working state as it was shortly before it was officially decommissioned in 1991. 

The bunker was part of the Royal Observer Corps and was Post No. 50 of over 1500 originally built in the UK in the 1960s. The nearest other posts were in Brighton and Lewes; Cuckfield completing the local area triangulation.

Once down the vertical ladder visitors can hear the constant beeping of the “4 minute warning system” and see the official paperwork and recordings of the three-man volunteer workforce that were once in place in the village. The government documents on nuclear attack, also on show in the bunker, are both fascinating and very sobering. 

Since restoration in 2009, Mark and a small team of volunteers have opened the Cuckfield Nuclear Bunker for a few weekends over the summer. The remaining open dates this year are: 27-28th July, 24-25th August & 28-29th September. Contact can be made for booking your visit via the website www.rocremembered.com or by talking to Phillipa Malins at The Cuckfield Museum.