Keynsham Scouts celebrate 100th birthday today

Scouts in Keynsham are celebrating their group's 100th anniversary today.

Organisers are holding an open day at the Scout headquarters in Ashton Way with items of memorabilia lent by present and past members on display.

It will be followed by a centenary reunion and celebration evening.

The group was founded in 1909, two years after the legendary Lord Baden Powell founded the Scout movement with his first camp on Brownsea Island off Poole Harbour, in Dorset.

The memorabilia includes rare pictures of Baden Powell when he came to Corston, near Keynsham, to open the West Country Jamboree in 1932.

Assistant Scout leader, Paul Benn, 45, has been collecting the items. He said: "We have Scout Gazettes from 1912 which feature requests for help for the Titanic Relief Fund.

"I also have been given pictures of Keynsham's 1921 Scout leader Mr Down along with the concert programme and play script from 1930."

Other items include pictures of Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers both past and present along with uniforms from the 1960s and 70s.

Current young members will be demonstrating Scout skills and there will be the opportunity for former members to try their hand.

The Keynsham group first met in an orchard off Bristol Road and then in an old school house in Station Road before moving to the Lower Drill Hall in Bristol Road.

It was a local businessman Vivian Turner, the Scout master for many years from the late 1920s, who left the group the land he owned in Ashton Way which is still their headquarters.

The open day on November 7 is from 10am to 4pm while the reunion and celebration evening 7.30pm (admission by ticket only).