Roger Figg

CD
Those days in the 1950s that I spent with CD (I can never get used to calling him Roger!) and with many others in the 1st Croxley Green Scouts group were incredibly important for me. That camping trip to Ben Nevis in 1953; the trek around Wales by motorbike a year later; the abortive one around the UK the next year in Lofty, the refurbished 1938 lorry that blew up; a more successful adventure in The Beetle Crusher in 1956 in a rehabilitated Ford V8 van to Denmark through northern Europe, in all of which CD was an essential part. All of these ventures are indelibly etched in my memory. We were a close-knit group of youngsters, with each of us trying to find out our relationship to our environment and society in general, and CD was such an integral part of the group. His quiet but measured contribution, with his own special brand of humour that we all shared, and his honesty, reliability and strong moral ethics were all such important ingredients.
After those formative and developing times, we each inevitably went our separate ways, pursuing our personal ambitions and vocations or professions, subsequently creating families of our own and establishing roots, sometimes in foreign lands….. and over the decades, many of us lost contact with each other.
The reunion of our scout group in 2003 at CD’s and Pat’s home was a brilliant and memorable occasion, and did so much to reconnect us all. I really valued the continual and enlightening contact with CD after that unique occasion.
When folks meet each other after a period of time, it is always wonderful to reminisce about the days we spent together; but sometimes that is all there is. With CD, though, the several occasions when I subsequently met with him again whenever I was in the UK, and our continued contact by letter and email, added so much to our enjoyment of each other and the new things we learnt about each other and our families – his beloved coppice that he tended; the growth of each of our families and the