On the occasion of World Scout Day, singer Richard Gotainer talks about his time with the Pathfinders on Europe 1 when he was around ten years old.

Between discovery of nature, conviviality and nonsense, too, the artist entrusts us with memories of this period.

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February 22 is World Scout Day, or

Thinking Day

, the date of the birth of Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the movement.

On the occasion of this date, the scouts celebrate the memory of their leader BP, but also that of his wife, Olave Baden-Powell.

A movement which still has nearly 30 million followers around the world and 180,000 in France.

The singer, actor and publicist, Richard Gotainer was part of the scouts, first Cub then scout.

A passage of which he keeps "a great memory".

Uniform, color and respect for the environment

After a stint with the Cubs, first steps towards scouting, of which he retains few memories, the singer moved to the Scouts, between his 10 and 12 years old.

A period of which he keeps "great memories".

"I had fantasies when I was little: of Davy Crockett, of a trapper in the forest, who made wood fires who hunted, who made bivouacs in the mosses ... And in fact, it was a bit that ", confides the artist at the microphone of Europe 1. 

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The scout movement still has many followers in France, from all religions: Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists.

Richard Gotainer goes from Catholic Cubs to EEIF, Girl Scouts and Israelite Scouts of France.

"One thing I remembered is: the scout is good for animals and does not harm plants," he explains.

"Scouting is a bit of a military discipline. There is the uniform, there are the colors, we walk in step, but not only. And it was 'not only' that interested me."

Friendliness and nonsense 

Even more than the discipline, it is the adventure and the camaraderie which impassions the young boy of the time, of the patrol of the mongooses.

Currency ?

"Cunning and bravery", recites Richard Gotainer, who remembers with emotion a Jamboree, a meeting of scouts from around the world which he had attended in Auvergne.

"It was a kind of big party where there were great scouts, who had built bridges with tree trunks. There were patrols marching through the camp and all the nationalities." 

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Not being the king of the discipline, "not bad, but always want to make my comrades laugh", the singer remembers some adventures during his scout adventures.

"I was not a scout with the little finger on the seam of the shorts. Short, moreover, that I lost one day, the first day of the camp in Auvergne", he says.

"On the first day of setting up the tent, I lost my uniform shorts. It had gone under the groundsheet and I found something a little fossilized at the end of the camp."

"I remember that in this famous camp that we had in Auvergne, we had a bit of a slab. So one evening, we went with a friend, another scout, in the tent where there was all the food" , remembers Richard Gotainer.

"We started eating raw pasta and at one point we fell into cocoa powder. And we got stung because we choked, we coughed like unfortunate people."