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Within weeks of war being declared, the Boy Scouts of Great Britain had begun to play an important role at home while men went off to the war to fight.

In Leicestershire a thousand scouts were mobilised for non-combat service within a week, and they performed important roles from guarding the railways, coast watching duty and bringing in the harvests to paper and bottle collecting and acting as orderlies at Glen Parva Barracks.

In the village of Nanpantan, school friends and fellow scouts Howard Moss and William Jelly were 18 at the start of the war. They became assistant scoutmaster and scoutmaster in Nanpantan, but then went off to war.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Leicester’s Bridget Blair follows their story and those of the thousands of scouts in Leicestershire who ‘did their bit’ for their county and country.

Location: Nanpantan, Leicestershire LE11 3YE
Image: Leicestershire Scouts in 1914, courtesy of Johny Kitching