Everyone probably remembers the first time they met Doc… For me it was one evening at Medway Heritage Centre in 1995, when my son Ian was an 8 year old Cub with 41st Medway and my daughter Martine was 5. I had gone along with Ian’s Cub Pack (Akela was Ev Tatum), as a casual parent helper. As many will know, Doc and his wife Win were curators of the Medway Heritage Centre for a number of years, and with this job came accommodation in the form of a small cottage at the rear of the former church it was housed in, so the Centre was also their home. The Heritage Centre is now closed but was opposite Fort Amherst on Dock Road Chatham.

As we were taken round by this jovial man I later came to know and love as “Doc”, he chatted to all of us and teased the Cubs in his own special way - that way enjoyed so much by all young people in Scouting and also by many of the not-so-young-people. I mentioned to him that Ian’s Scout Group were all boys, so my daughter couldn’t join. He told me how he had initially thought that “letting girls in” was a terrible idea and wouldn’t work, but had quickly come to realise that it made no difference at all to Scouting and its functioning. In fact, he said, if you asked him afterwards whether he had taken a group of boys round on a particular evening, or a mixed group, he would have had a job to tell you. They were all young people.

This exemplifies one of Doc’s greatest attributes– the ability to accept change and adapt his ways. How else could he have continued his fantastic contribution to the movement through more than 60 years of Scouting, with all the changes those years have brought? He did often resist innovations and even argue vehemently against them (and could, as we all know, be extremely stubborn! Heaven help anyone who engaged in an argument with him in a meeting), but he had the intelligence to let himself be persuaded by cogent arguments and the humility to admit when he had changed his opinion and to go forward positively with the new regime.

A year later when, on my daughter’s insistence, I had to find a Scout Group for her that did accept girls (12th Medway), and at the same time became Assistant Beaver Leader there myself, I realised that the friendly elderly chap I remembered from the Heritage Centre was actually also the cornerstone of Medway Scout District. I went to the Warrants Board and he was there; I went to the Beaver events and he was there; I attended the District events and he was there; I went to events my group organised and he was there. He had a smile and a joke for everyone, could tame any Beaver and teach them to tie a reef knot, was a talented camp fire leader, knew everything there was to know about Scouting skills and would patiently and clearly explain or show them to anyone who wanted to know. His love for it all just shone through and that kind of enthusiasm is infectious. What is more, this was when Scouting still had an official retirement age and he was already well past it. He told me “I’m meant to be retired you know, but I don’t take any notice; I just keep turning up”. And I have to say that I have met people of 30 who are “older” than Doc was when he died at 79.

If you have had anything at all to do with Doc, you will remember the times when he has helped you or just been there at the right time. When you add up how many of us feel that way - that he helped us as individuals - the extent of his enormous contribution starts to become apparent. That’s without including the thousands of young people he has taught and encouraged, probably without them even knowing his name.

One of those “right times” for me was at the Millennium Camp at Buckmore Park. By then I was Group Scout Leader of the 12th and responsible for a group of Cubs, Scouts and adults who were trying to camp on one of the bottom-of-the-hill campsites, in the diluvian rain of that never to be forgotten weekend. At one point on the Friday evening I was alone in a Stormhaven, valiantly trying to dig a trench down the middle with a spade, having abandoned my sodden footwear completely and with a torrent of water pouring in one end of the tent, flowing around my ankles and then out of the other end without ceasing. Suddenly, amid all this worry and wetness, a bright light shone in my face and there was Doc, a man in his seventieth year, who could have had his feet up cosy and warm in front of the TV on a Friday night, out in the deluge, gallantly doing the rounds and offering support and help where others feared to tread. He seemed amazed to see what I was up to and never actually let me forget it. He would frequently recall to me right up until recently, what a soggy but determined apparition he saw that evening when he shone that torch in on me!

Perhaps from that moment or thereabouts we became firm friends on a personal basis as well as in Scouts. Again, I think many of us can say that same thing of Doc. This was a loyal man with a capital L, and so he was privileged to have many friends in his life and they were privileged to have him. So many times over these past nine years he and I have helped each other with a listening ear, a kind deed, a shared cup of coffee - or something a little stronger -, a meal together, listened to music (often his beloved Furies or similar groups), and had long and wide ranging conversations to put the world to rights. When Win died four years ago, Doc had lost his soul mate, social secretary and companion. He bore her loss bravely but needed his friends even more.

I moved to Devon a year ago but have still visited Doc whenever I could and phoned him often, because he is up there on my mental “roll of honour” of those people who have most influenced me and helped me in my life and who I hold most dear. I know I’m not the only one who will say that either. We drove up to Bobbing from Devon to join the hundred plus other friends and family who had come to say “go well and safely” to Doc last Thursday, then drove all the way back the same day. We made that long journey because, as I said to Clare his daughter, “he’s worth it.” There were others who came further I know. My daughter joined us there too. She met Doc at Medway Heritage Centre that evening when she was 5 and she is now an adult of 19 and a Scout Leader herself. Scouting has brought her enormous enjoyment. Doc has been a constant presence in every part of that.

Sometimes Doc would say to me with a twinkle in his eye “Kim there are people who don’t like me you know”. I think the twinkle was there because he knew in his heart of hearts that there were very few. How could there be? To me Doc’s life was the most shining example there could be of how to keep that promise all of us in Scouting have made: “I Promise That I Will Do My Best”. He promised to do his best, and he went ahead and did it.

Kim Paynter