From Scouting To Panto

With his derring-do spirit in Duncan Dares to leading the Scouts centenary celebrations on Brownsea, Peter Duncan is ready for anything, including a trip to pantoland.

- Jeremy Miles

ACTOR, presenter, producer and director Peter Duncan enjoys a varied career which has included some quite frankly bizarre experiences. After years of being Blue Peter action man and risking life and limb on its spin-off TV show Duncan Dares not much fazes him.

He’s flown through the air on a flying trapeze and once washed the face of Big Ben without the aid of a safety harness. But even he seemed a little nonplussed to find himself standing on Poole Quay discussing the plight of the Great Bustard with a company of Brownies.

Peter was in Poole for a meeting about the pantomime, Cinderella, which he is co-producing at Lighthouse this Christmas. As his extensive CV includes a five year stint as Chief Scout, it was perhaps inevitable that he should take a lunchtime break on the Quay and, standing beside the statue of Scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell, stare wistfully across the water to Brownsea.

The island holds a special place in Peter’s heart. Not only was it the birthplace of the Scouting movement in 1907 but it was also where, as Chief Scout a century later, Peter presided over the organisation’s centenary celebrations attended by scouts from more than 200 countries. “Brownsea holds special memories for me. The intensity of the Scouting centenary there was extraordinary.”

Peter was chosen as Chief Scout in 2004 when the movement was actively trying to promote a new image and needed a charismatic figurehead. “The Scouts needed someone to front the centenary,” says Peter. “I’d made all these documentaries, going round the world, and obviously I’d been a Blue Peter presenter so I ended up on their list, eventually it was kind of the last person standing.”