Malta was the first country overseas to clone the very British scouting movement in 1908 and those healthy ideals still assert their presence to this day.

Robert Baden-Powell, founder and guru, could recall very significant connections with the island.

Official postcard of the Malta scout contingent to the 1991 World Jamboree held in South Korea.

Official postcard of the Malta scouts during the 1967 World Jamboree held in the US.

He had lived here between 1890 and 1893 as aide-de-camp to his uncle, Sir Henry Augustus Smyth, governor of the colony. He later visited again, more than once, on his honeymoon in 1912 and, then, on scouting duties.

Scout Joseph Panzavecchia receives a medal from Governor Lord Gort on May 2, 1943.

Scouts honour the Great Siege Monument in the 1920s. Postcard by the Grand Studio.

Totalitarians have often promoted the herding and indoctrination of youngsters. An urge to catch ’em young runs through most authoritarian ideologies – Mussolini’s Balillas, the Nazi Hitlerjugend, Stalin’s Komsomol, Franco’s youth Falanges, Cuba’s Juventud Socialista and, to some extent, even Mintoff’s Brigata, all served to condition young minds to hero worship a leader and to bond with his philosophy.

Malta scouts attend the state funeral of Mgr Enrico Dandria on July 5,1932.

Baden-Powell, a devout believer in the redemptive powers of British colonialism, saw the boy scout and girl guide movements as conveyors of patriotism, civic virtue, character forging and, also, as promoters of empire.

"They propped colonialism in parallel with fashioning good citizens"

A 1918 Chretien postcard showing scouts on Palace Square.

Malta scouts on parade during Empire Day, May 1918, before Governor Lord Methuen.

The scouts, to their credit, strove for the high ideals programmed by their founder. They also propped colonialism, in parallel with fashioning good citizens. The latter accounts for their success and survival worldwide.

Scouts in Malta rehearse the gymnastic reproduction on the Union Jack for the 1929 World Jamboree, under the direction of Dominic Gruppetta.

Not everyone shared unbounded admiration. A scathing description reduces them to bambini vestiti da cretini guidati da cretini vestiti da bambini. I believe it is merciful to leave that untranslated.

A 1930s group of Malta land and sea scouts.

Postcards issued in the pre-war years prove generous with images of boy scouts, sea scouts and their activities – rarely of girl guides. They took part in athletics and other sports, state funerals, camping, celebrations, national festivities, international jamborees.

Mabel Strickland at the September 1917 enrolment of the Attard-Lija-Balzan scout group at San Anton Palace. A rare postcard published by the Birkirkara photographer Alessandro Maria Niceforo about whom nothing is known.

John A. Mizzi, in 1989, published an excellently illustrated history of scouting in Malta.

All postcards from the author’s collection.