I was a beaver who loved every second of my time there, but the moment I aged up, out troops Cubs and scouts were mixed and held on the same day in the same place, with a cross over.

I had family connections to the scouts but not in my troop and I was very excited to continue this tradition.

The scout leader was mother to three of the boys, and their dad was also heavily involved. There were other leaders also, but the main leader was the mother.

The boys were known bullies, who picked on anyone they felt like.

I was punched, kicked on numerous occasions, but I did and said nothing because I wanted to stay involved with the fun activities. The final straw happened one day when they asked their mum to make sure I was in their group, and when we were together and unsupervised, they pretended to whisper a secret in my ear and spat into my ear. Which meant I lashed out.

It was 3 against 1 and two of them were older than I was. They punched me and then told their mum I attacked them un-provoked.

I was not the only person who had issues with the boys, and the leaders knew they were the ones responsible.

I was kicked out because of this and the bottom line was the bullies got away with it because their parents were in charge and they protected them at the expense of other children in the group.

This experience stuck with me my entire life and I have always had trouble with trust and friendship because of it.

The fact that these people, parents and the children who grew up to be volunteers, continued for decades after these events to be involved with scouting resulted in me not wanting to allow my children to be involved.