Ajax founder member and first Group Scout Master, Donald ‘Doc’ Stone, died prematurely as a result of a blood clot following a fall whilst walking with Scouts on Ranmore Common in 1949.
Roy ‘Chiefy’ Sharman (ex RN Lt. Commander) took over as GSM, a position that he held until his retirement in 1988.
George Barber then became Group Scout Leader. He was “interviewed” (it was very formal then) and accepted into Ajax by Chiefy as a lad of eleven in 1953.
George retired in 2012 after 52 years as a leader and formally handed over the GSLship to his long standing colleague and friend Mark Marriott whose organisational and leadership skills steered Ajax to new levels of achievement.
On the Groups’ 70th anniversary in 2018, Mark handed over the baton to the next generation with Assistant Group Scout Leader Chris West becoming only the 5th GSL in 70 years.
This is an edited excerpt of George Barber’s “70 Years of Ajax and 65 Years an Ajaccio”, first published in the 2018 Ajax Group Annual Report