As the granddaughter of the founder of the Boys Scouts Movement, Gill Clay has had “so many wonderful adventures” in her lifetime.

Her latest adventure was a trip to Rhode Island, visiting Yawgoog’s 100th Anniversary celebration this past weekend, but before that she took the time to speak at a joint meeting of the East Greenwich and Warwick Rotary Clubs on Wednesday afternoon.

She shared the life story of her grandfather, Lieutenant General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts Association and first Chief Scout

Having been a Scout leader the majority of her life, Clay believed she has gained more than she has ever given and apologized if her telling sounded more like a children’s story, but she more often than not is addressing children.

As all good tales go, she started this one with “once upon a time.”

Baden-Powell was born in 1857, the son of an Oxford professor who would go on to pass when he was very young. Throughout his early life, Baden-Powell often went on numerous adventures with his elder siblings.

Clay noted that throughout his schooling, teachers often remarked that Baden-Powell was uninterested in school, had “given up,” as he often fell asleep in class. The truth was that throughout the night the young boy was tracking, hunting and cooking rabbits.

“He wasn’t an intellectual like his father, but with his honed skills he passed quite easily in the army,” Clay said.

A talented actor, author and horseman, Baden-Powell would rise in the ranks to a lieutenant general and even served some time as a spy, pretending to be a “mad butterfly catcher.” He would draw “butterflies” but in the spots on their wings create discrete maps to enemy camps.

While training recruits Baden-Powell realized many of the young men had never taken care of themselves.

“Who had made their meals? Mummy. Who had done their laundry? Mummy. Things had always been done for them,” said Clay.

It was then that Baden-Powell began writing a book, what would become Aids to Scouting, to prepare recruits. It was then that the general was sent to Makefing, a small South African town he successfully defended during a siege.

According to Clay, it was her grandfather’s “grand imagination” that made his military career so successful.

In 1900 Baden-Powell was surprised to be considered a national hero upon his return to England, as well as to see his manual, Aids to Scouting, become a best-seller used by teachers, nannies and youth organizations across the country.

One day while walking, a young boy tucked up in the trees shouted, “got you” at Baden-Powell, because as in the book “no one ever looks up.”

Clay explained that it was then her grandfather began fostering this idea of a camp for young boys. In 1907 he took young boys “from all walks of life, rich and poor, town and country, and mixed them up like “plums in a pudding” to teach them wilderness skills through different games and activities on Brownsea Island.

Clay said, “It was a huge success, and so began the Scouting Movement.”

Baden-Powell began publishing Aids to Scouting for a younger audience in a weekly youth magazine; boys across the country began creating their own patrols, their own squads, finding themselves their own leaders while reaching out to Baden-Powell for uniforms and badges.

Baden-Powell wanted to see “just how many scouts there were” and hosted the first rally in 1909 at The Crystal Palace. He was surprised to find not only were there thousands of Scouts, but there were also Girl Scouts who had followed in the footsteps of their brothers.

Clay told the story of how her grandfather told the girls there was no such thing as a Girl Scout, but one, whom Clay had met later in life, had responded that there has to be because they were there after all, weren’t they?

“They were invited to walk at the back of the parade,” Clay said. “This woman told me, ‘That’s when we knew we were in.’”

After this experience, Baden-Powell’s sister, Agnes Baden-Powell, would go on to write How Girls Can Help the Empire, starting the Girl Guides Movement.

Baden Powell would marry Olave St. Clair Soames, and they would move to Nyeri, Kenya and the family continued to enthusiastically spread the Scouting Movement. Their three children, Peter, Heather and Betty, Clay’s mother, would all travel the world themselves, helping to expand the movement themselves.

Clay herself spent the first 27 years of her life living in Africa, in the country of Zambia. She traveled the world with her family for the scouting movement, visiting England. She currently lives in Wales with her husband.

She explained that scouting is the largest youth movement in the world, and in the time she has been a scout leader alone the number of scouts has more than doubled globally. Currently, nearly every country in the world has a scouting program, and the movement continues to grow.

“From small acorns grow big oak trees,” Clay said. “I feel privileged and blessed to be invited to Scout events across the world. Scouting gives so much to so many people, and as it continues to grow scouts can travel to meet their brothers and sisters in countries all over the world.”

At the end of her presentation, Clay was presented with a $10,000 “honorarium” check made out to the Friends of Gillwell Park. The donation is in hopes to see improvements made to one of the original scouting camps just outside of London.