Boss And His Boys Of 1st Hampton 1914-1984
Australian History Local History Biography & Autobiography Scouting Memoir Youth Organisation History Pacific/Australiana Collectibles World War I & II Home Front 20th-Century Social History
Boss and His Boys of 1st Hampton 1914-1984 is a rare first-edition Australian memoir that captures seventy years of Scouting life in one of Victoria’s oldest continuously operating troops. Norman J. James—known simply as “Boss” to three generations of Scouts—tells the story of 1st Hampton Scout Group from its founding on the eve of World War I through the Depression, World War II, the baby-boom expansion of the 1950s-60s, and the bush-fire-tested 1970s. Printed in 1984 and never re-issued, this 240-page paperback is packed with black-and-white photographs of jamborees, honour guards, bush camps along the Bay, and the original timber scout hall that became a second home to thousands of boys. Collectors prize it as one of the few unit histories that documents Australian Scouting from the inside rather than through official headquarters records.
What makes the book special is its voice: affectionate, humorous and deeply local. Readers learn how Hampton Scouts kept the lights on during the Great War by staging “mock battles” for paying audiences on the beach, how they salvaged timber from dismantled tram depots to build boats, and how the troop’s 1940s “Rover Crew” helped patrol the coastline for enemy submarines. James lists every Queen’s Scout, every district leader, every campfire song—and still manages to read like a fireside yarn rather than a roll-call. For former members it is a ready-made family tree; for historians it is a primary source on Melbourne’s suburban development, youth culture and wartime home-front life.
The physical copy offered here is a clean, tight first edition with no writing, no ex-library stamps and no dog-eared pages—only honest edge wear from being thumbed at troop reunions. It sits at the intersection of Australiana, Boy Scout memorabilia and local Bayside history, so it is searched under keywords such as “1st Hampton Scouts,” “Australian Scout history,” “Norman James Boss,” “rare Scout book,” and “Victoria jamboree 1930s.” Whether you are patching together a troop archive, completing a run of Scout badges, or hunting for a unique Father’s Day gift for an old Hampton boy, this volume delivers the authentic campfire smell in purely literary form.
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