Baden-Powell by Tim Jeal

Published by Pimlico, 1991, softcover, illustrated, index, 670 pages, 15.4 cms x 23.3 cms x 4.6 cms, condition: new.

Extremely detailed, pretty slow going at the beginning, but great for breaking down the mythology. Even without the myth, Baden-Powell was a real pioneer, an army officer founding a boy-run, peace-oriented youth organization to compete with the Boy's Brigade and other military-oriented youth groups.

The book is especially good about the siege of Mafeking. B-P may have embellished a few things, but he was an authentic hero at Mafeking.

And no, the book does not say that B-P was gay. It says that he spent so long in all-male company (boarding school and the army) that his only truly close friends were men. He didn't seem to know how to relate to women as closely as to men.

Inspired soldier, actor, artist, hoaxer, spy sportsman and female impersonator Baden-Powell also wrote one of the worlds biggest bestsellers and invented the Boy Scouts. Tim Jeal strips away the saintly public mask, showing us for the first time a man whose dazzling talents coexisted with crippling secret fears. Thanks to an immense range of previously undiscovered private papers, recent accusations of fraudulence and mass murder are now revealed for what they truly are. The Baden-Powell who emerges in this powerful book is one of our countrys greatest figures, but far funnier, sadder and more life-enhancing than the worthy hero of Scouting legend.