Frank Drake (Skip) our first Group Scout Master (1959 to 1961).

Lived with his family at Priory Farm now T E Hughes, in Great Sutton Village. Ran a TV aerial installation business and an electrical appliance shop in the village on the left just before the Bull. Ivor Davies (Chippy’s son) recalls Skip telling him that he flew Spitfires during WW2. Troop meetings were sometimes held in the outbuildings at the back of the farm which was great fun to explore and the farmyard ideal for games. In the summer holidays Scouts were trusted to go and play table tennis and darts unsupervised in the outbuildings, it can be recalled by one of those Scouts that a fire lit in an old grate got a bit out of control fortunately it was extinguished very quickly. Great Sutton Village Hall was the main location for Troop meetings. The field which now houses the Medical Centre and also a field behind a farm (at the top of Green Lane) where Glencoe Road is now were used for camping the odd nights and over weekends. This may seem a little unadventurous however in the early 1960’s personal motorised transport was not universal and these locations were easily got to on foot carrying the necessary kit and equipment. Skip was very generous in that as the Troop had no equipment of their own spent his own money on essential camping gear. David Sydney Evans moved to the village and was the Scout Master and between the two of them Frank and David (soon to be referred to as Monty) started to develop the Scout Group. 

Skip in the Village hall presenting a proficiency badge.

On a hike Skip and some of the Scouts found and rescued a young crow.

1961 summer camp party all packed for Forest Camp Sandiway.

1965 District camp Skip with fellow Leaders and some of the original Scouts at Picton Gorse, not forgetting ‘Prince’.