Is it time for me to leave the ABC?

While I’ve been at the ABC for 35 years, I feel another premature resignation coming on, writes Phillip Adams. Picture: NCA NewsWire

I must be one of the few Australians to have been expelled from both the Communist Party and the Boy Scouts, though not in that order. I joined the former shortly after being booted from the latter. I went from Baden-Powell’s “broomstick warriors” to post-Stalin Bolshevism.

Having joined the Australian Communist Party at 15 (bemused comrades at the Eltham branch waived the minimum-age requirement), it’s debatable whether I was pushed or jumped. The Party was imploding and if you were a rat jumping ship you were evicted. Perhaps it’s in my ASIO file. I’m proud that I was the youngest to have one! Having finally got it from the National Archives, albeit heavily redacted, it’s one of my proudest possessions.

But today I want to revisit the story of my drumhead court martial from the Scouts, one of the greatest miscarriages of justice since the Dreyfus Affair or the defeat of Scott Morrison.

I’d been a Cub at East Kew, but after moving to East Melbourne joined a troop that met in the basement of a bluestone Anglican Church in that more gentrified suburb. There I learned to tie knots – difficult for a left-hander – while chanting “DYB” or “Do your best”, one of the many Lodge-like rituals demanded by the movement’s imperialistic founder Robert Baden-Powell. The organisation was made up of Brownies and Guides (girls) and Cubs, Scouts and Rangers (boys).

My night of the long knives occurred when I and my fellow scouts were having a furtive fag – as I recall, sharing a packet of Turf – when we heard the dread tread of the Scoutmaster coming down the stairs. Obedient to the scouting motto of “Be prepared”, I rounded up the smouldering evidence and shoved the butts into a desk drawer. Then, during inspection, when the Scoutmaster was checking our woggles (Google the term for details) the papers in the drawer caught fire and ignited the desk.

Who was responsible for this conflagration? Although Arthur Hodges had stolen the ciggies from his father, he pointed the finger at me. No brave chorus of “I’m Spartacus” from the other pubescent gladiators. I was arrested, charged, denied legal representation and found guilty. Forced to hand over my woggle and leave. Cast into outer darkness and eternal ignominy. Now, 70 years later, I’m thinking of suing for defamation and damages, and demanding the return of my woggle.

Did the Scouting movement survive? Are there still Cubs, Scouts and Rangers? Is there still a troop in the church basement? Is there still a Chief Scout from whom I can demand a belated apology? I recall something about the US Scouts filing for bankruptcy following allegations of rampant paedophilia second only to the Vatican’s. Fortunately I saw no evidence of that at East Melbourne, but I must ask my betrayer Hodges. Still around, Arthur?

But even without sexual shenanigans you can see, beloved readers, that I’ve suffered long-term psychological damage – and have been unable to remain long in any organisation since. I usually attribute my leaving the Commos to ideology, or my more recent resignation from the ALP to the coup against comrade Kevin. But I now blame the Scouts. Yes, I’ve been at the ABC for 35 years – but I feel another premature resignation coming on.