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ETHNOGRAPHY 85

in that way. There were tacit assumptions behind his remark which came out in
the course of the camp, the purpose of the remark being to inform an outsider of
the basic parameters of camp relations.
Boys would come up for information or advice in a casual way while we were
engaged on some task of our own, such as cooking or cleaning. In a culture
which stresses the participation of leaders and boys in common activities,
however, it is the function of boundary maintenance to ‘hold the line’ against
incursions which might undermine the ultimate responsibility and control of the
leaders. The participation of leaders in the life of the boys was for the most part
utilitarian (finding out about something, sorting out a problem) and always
directly connected with the programme of the camp and its activities. So a social
boundary remained between the two groups. This is the reason why the leaders
remain leaders, and it is up to them to see that they do not deviate from the line of
patterned interaction except in certain negotiated circumstances. Pat, Bruce and
Tim seemed to constitute a leadership group because they constructed their own
separation from the boys by the maintenance of physical and social boundaries.
The status and role of the PLs was partially evident at the camp, in terms of
certain special responsibilities accorded to them. But these responsibilities were
here marked by their subordination to the central planning and regulating
function of the adult leadership. For instance, the three PLs were given the task of
arranging clues on a ‘treasure hunt’ by concealing messages at various points
around the grounds of the farm. The part played by the PLs in actually initiating
formal activities was clearly a very small one. Older boys were typically likely to
shape the pattern of long-running games once the leaders had started them; for
example, one morning a marathon game of football went on after the leaders had
lost interest. On an excursion I noticed that it was Wyn, an extrovert PL, who
seemed to hold a pre-eminent position; he independently started a stalking game
on the grass by the pond, in which all the younger ones joined. Wyn, I later
found, was one of the most popular of the PLs with both lads and leaders. Even
before the camp I noticed Pat take Wyn aside to tell him to look after one of the
boys in his patrol. Pat’s action signified their mutual understanding of the
‘paternal’ responsibilities of leadership. The need for such a role stemmed from
the inexperience of the younger lads, quite a number of whom had not camped
before.
The members of the camp took part, as usual, in a continuous patrol
competition over the weekend. This competition was based on the leaders’
evaluation of the patrol’s performance in all relevant activities of the camp; in
the first place, the competition revolved around the turn-out of kit and the
cleanliness of the patrol’s site and equipment at morning inspection. Full

*This is an extract from Roger Grimshaw’s unpublished Ph.D thesis, ‘The Social
Meaning of Scouting: Ethnographic and Contextual Analysis Relating to a Midlands
Industrial City’.