Baden-Powell : a family album

'In the Beginning was God' was what it said in my Bible.

But as far as my memory carried me back, the Beginning was 'Bear'.

My father had just rescued me, aged three, from a huge 'German' who had come to the door of the old farmhouse in which we were living, Little Mynthurst in Surrey.

A great bear-like man, dressed in furry flying suit, helmet and leather boots, occupied the whole of the doorway ...' So begins the story of one of the world's most remarkable father-figures, as told by his own daughter.

Quietly, and little affected by the continual hero-worship which surrounded him, Robert Baden-Powell is introduced.

The father of the scouting movement, swept along in a rapid succession of public events, jamborees and world tours, is well-known.

The pages that follow record this public life with many of the fascinating extra details that only a daughter could provide, but the unique quality of this account is its insight into the other Baden-Powell, the father of Peter, Heather and Betty, devoted to his family. His elder daughter draws on her meticulously kept diaries and a regiment of heavy, green-bound scrap-books to show snapshots, superbly illustrated letters, contributions to the family sketch club, private moments of quiet and tranquility, flashed of sudden humour, special family occasions, and the many events, both great and small which go to make up this friendly, paternalistic man.

Often humourous and touching, spanning more than half the globe, this is both a family story and a public one, uniquely told and extensively illustrated with material never previously available to any biographer.