I'm sure they are stil around only now they drive scooters.

What is most interesting about this story, as is more fully reported in today's papers, is the obvious sympathy Lord Baden-Powell had for the Nazis and his hostility to 'socialists' who had objected to British scouts wearing their uniforms when visiting Hitler Youth events in Germany.

Baden-Powel's attitudes were not unusual in 1930's Britain, when many people, from press barons to members of the Aristocricy, the royal family, the motoring press and retired Admirals all thought that fascism was 'the best thing since sliced bread', and the ideal way to counter the supposed threats of trade-unionism and other left wing movements. Of course, most of this has now been airbrushed from history...

P.s. To give a few examples of the pro-Nazi views that existed in Britain in the 1930’s… C.G Grey, editor of Jane's ‘All the Worlds Aircraft’ and ‘The Aeroplane’ wrote in March 1936 of how, under the Nazis, Germany was ruled by "sensible middle-class men of real intelligence" who had "freed Germany from Communism". He also praised Hitler's system of concentration camps writing: "I cannot imagine anything better for the morale of a nation than that all the discontented grousers and grumblers and agitators should be carted off to isolated places where they can grouse at one another until they are sick of grousing."

The ‘Motor ‘of June 29 1937 argued that "Germany to-day is the nearest approach to Utopia, with a single political creed, whole-hearted worship of the Fatherland." The ‘Motor’ went on to note that "cycle tracks (only 2 ft. wide) are to be found alongside the main roads and are used instead of the roadway by cyclists", concluding that "Germany was a motoring paradise".

Motoring publications were particularly impressed by Hitler's attitude to speed. For example, on July 12, 1938 the editor of the ‘Motor’ railed against the "fatuity" of MP. R.W. Sorensen who had asked the Minister of Transport whether he was aware that motoring publications were openly boasting of doing as much as 109 Mph on the public road when ‘testing’ cars for their readers. The editor’s view was: "If a similar question had been asked in Germany, where they are motor-minded, the questioner by now would have been speeding himself towards a concentration camp!"

The story was much the same in the USA with Prescott Bush, George W. Bush’s grandfather being implicated in a plot to establish a fascist dictatorship in the USA and the motor-magnet Henry Ford helping to fund Hitler, with Hitler showing Ford his gratitude by awarding him the highest possible German civil honour that he could bestow.

The culture of the motoring ‘ubermenschen’ and cycling ‘untermenschen’ that is so apparent in Britain today is an expression of the same essentially fascist ideologies. It’s no coincidence that ‘The Daily Mail’, notorious for its attacks on cyclists and other ‘out groups’ today, in the 1930’s ran headlines such as “Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’

Print media has always been a bit bi-polar, falling either far right or left. It is a little known secret that Hitler survived and is currently on the board of Future Publishing, kept alive on a heady cocktail of marlborough lights and lager.

Do you think there's a possibility that the Pope has been to Britain before - in his youth?