How Cubbing started
Once there was a boy who loved to sleep out in a tent with his four brothers on weekends. They could climb trees, sail boats and they loved to play sports. When this boy grew up, he joined the army and became a Major General. His name was Robert Baden-Powell. He was a great hero in Mafeking from an attack which lasted 217 days. He had so few soldiers with him that he had to use boys to help with first aid, to carry messages and do other jobs. He was pleased to see that they could be relied on.
When Baden-Powell returned to England, he found that boys were reading the books he had written to help army scouts. So he took some boys camping on Brownsea Island where they tried out his ideas, and later wrote them a book of their own called Scouting for Boys.
There were lots of other boys who wanted to be Scouts too, but they were too young. Baden-Powell started a new branch for them and called them Wolf Cubs, using ideas he got from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. He wrote a book for the Cubs too, called The Wolf Cub's Handbook. Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell died in 1941 but each year on Founder's Day – his birthday, 22 February – we remember how he started the Scout Movement. Today, millions of boys and girls, in over 100 countries around the world are Scouts and Cubs.