A CHANCE meeting with Baden-Powell launched a career in Scouting which spanned 85 years for Ernest Oates.

And this week, local Scouters paid tribute to the man who had served the movement since 1917.

Mr Oates, current president of the Radcliffe District Scout Council, died in Bankfield Nursing Home on August 28, aged 93. A funeral service on Tuesday (Sept 10) at Radcliffe United Reformed Church, where he worshipped, was followed by a cremation at Blackley.

Mr Oates came to Radcliffe in 1961. His work later took him to Rochdale but when he finally retired in 1979, he returned to Radcliffe and lived in Lowton Street until 1999 when he went to Bankfield.

In a full and varied life, he showed a great deal of loyalty to the organisations he joined. He was a member of the Scout Association for 85 years and he was a Freemason for 50 years, during which he was accorded Provincial Honours.

His links to Scouting go back to a day in 1917 in his birthplace of Nottingham. Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouts, was using a landing stage to take a boat to some Sea Scouts camping on an island in the River Trent and it was the eight-year-old Ernest's job to unlock the gate to the landing stage.

On finding that Mr Oates was not a Scout, Baden-Powell gruffly said: "Put him in uniform", and he stayed that way, becoming District Commissioner in Fylde, then in Radcliffe and, for a temporary spell, in Rochdale.

He served as Deputy County Commissioner to Sir Geoffrey Hulton in East Lancashire Scout County and was a holder of Scouting's Silver Acorn, awarded for exceptionally-distinguished service over many years.

His final position was as president of Radcliffe District Scout Council, a post he held until his death.

Mr Oates was an accomplished sportsman; on the rugby field as an uncompromising forward, as a fearsome fast bowler in club cricket, playing competitive tennis, representing Nottingham at badminton and Lancashire at bowls.

In 1933, he married Hilda and in 1935 they had a son, Mick. Hilda died in 1990.

They shared an interest scouting, in dog breeding and showing long-haired dachshunds, as well as being active members of the RSPCA.

Ernest retired as financial director of British Road Services (NW) in 1979, having started work as a butcher's boy, studied and qualified as an accountant, diverted to become an auxiliary firefighter and joined Rolls Royce during the war procuring materials for special projects (one of which was the manufacture of the casing of bouncing bombs used by the Dambusters).

Former District Commissioner for Radcliffe Scouts, Brian Rushton, said: "Ernest's passing will be mourned by many, but most who came in contact with him will rejoice that they knew him and were able to share his acute insight and his impish sense of humour."