A Yesterday's Witness programme In July 1907 a soldier took 20 boys of different social backgrounds to camp on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset. For them it was just a holiday of a special sort; for the soldier it was an important experiment. He was Lieutenant General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, and the boys, although they didn't realise it at the time, were prototype boy scouts.
For the film, three of those Brownsea Island boys met together for the first time since 1907 and returned to the site of the camp. Some of the first boy scouts remember their pioneering days. The only woman scoutmaster in the country recalls her days in 1908 as an unofficial ' girl scout '; and Olave, Lady Baden-Powell - now world Chief Guide - tells of marrying the boys' hero in 1912. Produced by STEPHEN PEET Directed by TIM BYFORD