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Please submit tributes in memory of former Leaders to: eastbelfast@yahoo.com |
Other Archived Information on East District
Joan Hayhurst
There are many former Cubs of the 10th Belfast who will never think of Bagheera as a black panther. No, Bagheera was an English lady who used to live off the Earlswood Road. She spoke with a strange accent and had more energy than all the Cubs put together.
Joan Hayhurst arrived at the Tenth in 1966, the Group’s first female Scouter in living memory. Her twin sons Geoffrey and Gordon were among her first Cubs. Wolf Cubs, as they were then, remained Joan’s first love for the next twenty years, but she also established the Tenth’s Beaver Colony in 1968 and led it through its first four years. Her gregariousness extended to the Boys’ Brigade as a leader with the ‘Robins’ of a local Company.
Joan’s strong, impulsive character - which could be exasperating! - was balanced by a warm and lively sense of humour. Her infectious zest for life and her compassion for young and old alike made a lasting impresssion on all who came within her orbit. She faced her final illness with a courage that came as no surprise. Her untimely death from cancer in January 1986, at the age of 53, robbed the Tenth and wider east Belfast of a generous and truly lovely human being.
Contributed by Andrew Totten, former ACSL 10th
John McCay
Our District has been saddened at the passing of John McCay, one of our long serving and very special people. This tribute is penned in the name of all of us who had the privilege of knowing him.
John’s Scouting trail started with 1st Portstewart Group where he was a King’s Scout in 1940. His leadership years in East Belfast District were with 30th (Gilnahirk Presbyterian) where he will be remembered with great esteem. Here he was Scout Leader and then Group Scout Leader over a period of 34 years.
Following active leadership he became District Badge Secretary, a post he was to discharge with courtesy and great efficiency from 1980 to 2001, often combining it with involvement in other District sporting events. A long-serving member of the District Executive Committee, he became a District Vice-President in 2003.
John’s exceptional service to Scouting brought well earned official recognition in the form of the award of the Medal of Merit (1975), of the Bar to the Medal of Merit (1987), of the Silver Acorn (1997). Equally it earned him the esteem and respect of those of us who shared those Scouting years with him.
My description of John McCay as one of our District’s ‘very special people’ is not based on his Scouting attributes alone. He was special simply by virtue of being a very decent, kindly and genuine person or, as we say, in these parts ‘one of nature’s gentlemen’. He was unassuming and unpretentious but had, at the same time, a mischievous sense of humour. I was often to savour this in the craic we would share each month as he would punctually deliver to my home his Badge Secretary notes for Scouting East. I shall indeed feel his loss, as we all will, in a very personal way.
In his latter years, life was very unkind to him and he endured much suffering with courage and fortitude. Scouting in this District was enriched by the years of John McCay and will be the poorer for his passing. We remember him with warm affection and gratitude.
Taken from a tribute written by Ernie Sharp, Scouting East Issue 245, November 2003
David Harrison
Northern Ireland Scouting has lost a revered and respected figure with the sad passing of David Harrison and nowhere more than in this District has this loss been felt. His long association with East was at many levels but beyond that were the personal friendships he forged as a neighbour living amongst us.
David’s dedication to Scouting and its ideals reflected in his relationships with others. In this he could be forthright when needed but always courteous and supportive of those who sought his guidance. To have been involved in Scouting throughout the David Harrison era is to remember him as a good and sincere man and to feel his loss in a uniquely personal way.
He and I first met as young Rover Scouts when we were in our 20s stewarding at classical concerts in Belfast and progressed over the years through many shared events and occasions including very early working parties at the ’Burn where he could wield a spade with the best of them.
This tribute to David Harrison and the kind thoughts to the lovely Nance and her family is at the behest of our District Leadership. I would like however if I may to end with a little personal anecdote.
At the conclusion of the service on the occasion of the passing of my dear friend Bill Elliott I stood feeling terribly sad. Came a gentle hand on my shoulder and I was drawn quietly to one side by David Harrison. His words to me were ‘just think how great it has been to have had him as your friend for all those years.’
What lovely words to use! And how aptly David’s many friends could now address them to each other.
Taken from a tribute written by Ernie Sharp, Scouting East Issue 244, October 2003
Bill Elliott
Long-serving people in East, both Leaders and administrators, will have fond recollections of former DC, Bill Elliott, and will have been saddened at his recent sudden passing.
Bill entered Scouting as an 8 year old Cub when he joined 28th (followed shortly afterwards by this writer) and it was to be the beginning of a life-long involvement which saw him achieve responsible office and earn recognition for outstanding service. Concurrent with his Leadership years in 28th, as SL and GSL, he also served this District, first as ADC and then DC through the years 1949-1965. He later became Secretary to the NI Scout Council and the Belfast County Scout Council. His years of varied service to Scouting were acknowledged by the awards of the Medal of Merit and later Bar to the Medal of Merit and subsequently the Silver Acorn. In 1953, he was awarded the Gilt Cross for Gallantry for the rescue of a boy from the Connswater River.
But it is not for these reasons alone that his contemporaries in NI Scouting will remember Bill, - they will remember him rather as a thoroughly decent and reliable person for whom Scouting really was a way of life. It was my privilege to have shared his Scouting endeavours when, together and with others, we sought to bring the joys of Scouting to successive generations of kids in the very heart of our District. Together we were at the centre of everything going on in 28th- competitions, camping, fund-raising, Group Gang Shows, hall maintenance and all the things that helped sustain the Group as something of a Scouting citadel in inner East. A good camper, Bill Elliot was taking his Troop to cross-channel sites in the days when transport and communication were more difficult than it currently is and many former boys from Ballymacarratt remember him as the person who widened their horizons.
When his Scouting days ended, he devoted much time to unassuming work in St.Patrick’s (Ballymacarratt) as a member of the Select Vestry. He is remembered there, and further afield, for his caring concern for the sick and the elderly. Our shared years and experiences-literally from boyhood- resulted in an almost brother-like relationship which Rhoda later came to share. It was poignant then, and perhaps fitting, that Bill’s closing hours were spent with us in our home. A good man, he will be remembered by the community he served and sadly missed by those who were closest to him.
Taken from a tribute written by Ernie Sharp, Scouting East Issue 201, May 1999
Dr Donald Brownlie, OBE
It is with great sadness that we record the passing of Dr. Donald Brownlie who died on Sunday 29th August, 2004. A former Scout Leader with 30th Troop from 1958-1962, for most of his adult life Donald lived in Africa where he served faithfully and with distinction as a medical missionary at the David Gordon Memorial (DGM) hospital in Livingstonia in Northern Malawi from 1969-80, then in South Africa and latterly Uganda from 1980-1999. In the spring of 1999, Donald responded to an urgent call for medical assistance, and travelled to Albania to work among the refugees made homeless by the crisis in Kosovo, before returning once more to his beloved Livingstonia later that summer where he did much in his last stint of service with the Overseas Board of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland to encourage and build up the work at the hospital before finally and with great reluctance retiring through ill health in May. It was a fitting tribute that he was awarded an OBE for services to healthcare and rural development in Africa in the New Year’s Honours list earlier this year.
Donald remained a true and loyal friend of the Scout and Guide Movements throughout his life, encouraging the development of Scouting and Guiding in Northern Malawi, and taking a keen interest in his old Scout Group in Gilnahirk whenever he had opportunities to return home to Belfast. Donald was a committed Christian and one of life’s gentlemen, self-sacrificing and a friend to all, who wasn’t afraid to roll up his sleeves and simply get on with the work even when the going got very tough, as it inevitably did in some of the most impoverished regions of central Africa. In mourning his passing, we take comfort in the words ‘Blessed are they who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours and their deeds follow them’ and give thanks for his life dedicated to the service of others and the example he set to us all,
David (Editor, Scouting East)
Taken from an appreciation which appeared in Scouting East Issue 254, October 2004
