{"alias":"blogEntry","byline":"","standfirst":"In 2007, an extraordinary discovery was made in a disused Scout hut in the grounds of a school in Brussels. On the chipped and peeling walls were a series of murals: muddy-brown figures of Scouts, life-like and skilfully drawn. But this was no graffiti \u2013 it was some of the earliest ever known work by Herg\u00E9, creator of Tintin.","content":{"layouts":[{"type":"mediaBlock","areas":[{"items":[{"gridType":"gridImageBlock","gtmId":"gtmId","gtmClass":"gtmClass","image":"/media/5040/scouts_tintin_image_.jpeg","width":4032,"height":3024,"altText":"","caption":"","link":null}]}],"config":null},{"type":"singleColumn","areas":[{"items":[{"gridType":"RichTextBlock","content":"\u003Cp\u003EThe year 1907 saw the birth of two cultural phenomena, both of which went on to capture the imagination of the world. One of course, was the Scout Movement. The other was a man: Herg\u00E9, the brilliant graphic artist whose documentary style propelled him to the sort of fame never before enjoyed by a \u2018mere cartoonist.\u2019 But this date wasn\u2019t the only thing they shared.\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch4\u003EAn inquisitive child\u003C/h4\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile Baden-Powell was running his experimental Scout camp on Brownsea Island, Herg\u00E9 (or George Remi as he was christened \u2013 the penname comes from the French pronunciation of his initials in reverse) was just starting out in his native Belgium.\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBy his own admission, George was a quiet child, \u2018sometimes reserved but always shrewd.\u2019 These qualities stood him in good stead at school, where he was well liked without being the centre of attention. \u2018My childhood seemed to me very grey,\u2019 he said in 1973. \u2018Of course I have memories, but these do not begin to brighten, to become coloured, until the moment I discovered Scouts.\u2019 It is clear that the adventure he found in the Movement - still barely a decade old - brought out something wonderful in the young artist.\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch4\u003EHerg\u00E9\u2019s first adventures \u00A0\u003C/h4\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHerg\u00E9\u2019s Scouts story began when he joined the Scouts of Belgium in 1919, where his talent for observation, love of wildlife and the outdoors first had an outlet. He only really came into his own when, at the age of 13, he joined his school Troop at St. Boniface\u2019s. The Troop was ahead of its time, in that it encouraged Scouts to cross borders and strike up international friendships.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHis new friends in Scouts were impressed by his grasp of traditional skills, such as knot-tying and pioneering and he took great delight in sharing them. Such skills came in useful for their regular trips into the country and beyond. George and his fellow Scouts spent three weeks in 1921 travelling through Switzerland, Italy and Austria, affording him his first glimpse of foreign cultures and contrasting political situations.\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch4\u003EA habit for art \u00A0\u00A0\u003C/h4\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBefore long, George never left for camp without first packing his notebook. In it, he would record the sort of observations that would become the source material for the Tintin adventures. It\u2019s also early evidence of Herg\u00E9\u2019s lifelong habit of squirreling away details for later use.\u00A0 A sketch of the St. Boniface Scouts roped together on a 1923 expedition climbing in the Pyrenees for example, would later be transformed into an illustration for the 1959 adventure Tintin in Tibet. \u2018The Pyrenees,\u2019 he said many years later, \u2018discovered with the St. Boniface Scouts, was the Tibet of my youth.\u2019\u00A0\u00A0\u00A0\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch4\u003EHis first break as an artist\u003C/h4\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs well as providing Herg\u00E9 with a love of the outdoors and a practical primer in geography and politics, Scouting was also responsible for his first break as a professional artist. Known to be an accomplished cartoonist, he was coerced by his fellow Scouts into providing illustrations for Never Enough, the St. Boniface Scouts\u2019 magazine. It was around this time that he also completed the now famous murals.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESo impressive were the results that they caught the eye of Rene Weverbergh, the Scouter responsible for the Brussels Scout District. Before he knew it, at the age of 17, George had landed himself a job on Le Boy Scout (later the Le Boy Scout Belge) - the national magazine.\u00A0\u00A0\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch4\u003EHerg\u00E9, \u2018the Curious Fox\u2019\u003C/h4\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs his career as an artist was finally taking off, George\u2019s skills were also gaining recognition in his Scout Troop. In 1923 he became Patrol Leader of Squirrel Patrol, assuming the name Curious Fox. It was a fitting moniker for a young man with such a tireless interest in the world around him.\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ERemi was a natural leader, with a quick sense of humour, a gift for inspiring younger Scouts and an insatiable appetite for adventure. As a measure of how much he savoured his new role, he began signing off his cartoons with \u2018the Patrol Leader Curious Fox.\u2019 At this point of course, Tintin himself was still a little way off and it was the quirks of Scouting life that populated his strips, but Herg\u00E9 was about to take a step closer to the famous reporter with the introduction of a brand new character.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch4\u003ETotor: the prototype for Tintin\u003C/h4\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETotor, an adventurous Scout Patrol Leader was clearly modelled on Remi\u2019s own experiences and was to be the prototype for Tintin. Not only did he bear a passing resemblance to the young reporter, he was also accompanied by a faithful canine companion. Totor was a great success with adults and young people alike and was to run until 1931 when for a time, he and Tintin existed side by side.\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile illustrating for Le Boy Scout Belge was a prestigious slot, it was not a living.\u00A0 Now, having completed his diploma it was time for Remi to find himself a paying job. Again, his patron Rene Weverbergh stepped him and recommended him to the daily newspaper Le Vingtieme Siecle (\u2018The Twentieth Century\u2019). Like many graduates, he found his first job to be far from glamorous - working in the subscriptions department. It was not until he returned to the paper after a spell of national service that his career as an illustrator really began.\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch4\u003EAn international phenomenon \u00A0\u003C/h4\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBy the time Tintin made his first appearance in the paper\u2019s supplement, Le Petit Vingtieme on 4th January 1929, Herg\u00E9 had served his apprenticeship. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was the first of 24 adventures that would take the reporter to South America, Tibet, Egypt and even the Moon. By his last, incomplete adventure \u2013 Tintin and Alpha Art \u2013 Herg\u00E9 was published in 60 languages.\u00A0\u00A0\u00A0\u00A0\u00A0\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETintin is the archetypal Scout. He is practical, resourceful and has a hundred skills up his sleeve, from improvising a sling to locating water. He is a master of disguise, an excellent swimmer and even on one occasion uses his knowledge of astronomy to get himself out of a particularly difficult fix in Prisoners of the Sun. \u2018Take care of that newspaper,\u2019 he says to the Captain in the same adventure, \u2018we might need it to light a fire.\u2019 Above all, it\u2019s his firm sense of moral purpose, championing the cause of the weak, as well as being a loyal friend, which marks him out as the ideal Scout.\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Ch4\u003EFond memories\u00A0\u003C/h4\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Tintin adventures would go on to sell 120 million copies, making Herg\u00E9 a wealthy man, but he never forgot his days as the intrepid Patrol Leader, Curious Fox. Even in old age, Herg\u00E9 retained his affection for the movement, allowing Scouts and Guides to camp in the grounds of his Belgium mansion - impossible to imagine as anything but Marlinspike Hall, the country seat of Captain Haddock. He would wander down to the camp, ask questions about the activities and share his own Scout memories.\u00A0\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u2018As a young man, Scouts was Herg\u00E9\u2019s main preoccupation; even passion,\u2019 says Michael Farr, a world authority on Tintin. \u2018Its code, principles and enthusiasm were his and were to be embodied in Tintin, as much a Scout as a reporter.\u2019\u003C/p\u003E","gtmId":"","gtmClass":""}]}],"config":null}]},"searchDescription":null,"pageType":null,"location":null,"versionDate":"03 January 2020","reviewDate":null,"furtherReading":[],"relatedLinks":[],"id":50757,"nodeName":"The story of Tintin, Scouts and the lost murals","title":"The story of Tintin, Scouts and the lost murals","type":"blogEntry","image":{"url":"/media/5040/scouts_tintin_image_.jpeg?width=800\u0026height=450\u0026v=1d9becd05d29440","caption":"Scouts Tintin Image","type":"jpeg","size":2284603,"width":4032,"height":3024,"altText":""},"assets":null,"headerOptions":{"headerTitle":"The story of Tintin, Scouts and the lost murals","headerSubTitle":null,"headerCta":null,"headerCtaText":null,"headerCtaLink":null,"headerBackgroundColour":null,"showSEOImage":false,"headerBackgroundImage":null,"quickLinks":null},"subHeader":"","browserTitle":null,"silktide":"eyJjbXMiOiJVbWJyYWNvIiwiZWRpdG9yVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9wcm9kLWNtcy5zY291dHMub3JnLnVrLy91bWJyYWNvIy9jb250ZW50L2NvbnRlbnQvZWRpdC81MDc1NyJ9","canonicalUrl":"https://www.scouts.org.uk/news/2020/january/the-story-of-tintin-scouts-and-the-lost-murals/"}