LESLIE Hardiman, known to his friends as Topper, has died aged 87 after a long heart illness.

Born in Trowbridge in 1920, Mr Hardiman was well known around the town because of his long-term involvement with the Scouting movement.

For almost 10 years he contributed Scouting news to the Wiltshire Times as the author of the popular column Woodsmoke Whispers.

He had joined the Wolf Cubs when he was eight years old and never looked back, only ending his association with the local movement in 1977 when his work took him to Gloucester.

During his Scouting career he met the famous founder Robert Baden-Powell several times at camps and jamborees and later became a district commissioner with the older boys, known then as the Rovers.

He was a regular at the Trowbridge Scout headquarters, which used to be behind a bank in Stallard Street and helped set up a Scout group in the old schoolhouse next to Holy Trinity Church, also in Stallard Street, in the 1970s.

His length of service was officially recognised when he received a silver acorn badge.

After studying at Margaret Stancomb Infants and the old Adcroft Boys' School Mr Hardiman left at 14 and got a job as an office junior with cloth manufacturer Colliers in Duke Street.

There he rose up the ranks, learning shorthand and typing, to become the company secretary and then director.

He also enjoyed playing hockey for Trowbridge and played for Westbury Hockey Club until he was 40.

His daughter Lynette Taylor said: "He was a generous man, full of enthusiasm and with a wickedly dry sense of humour.

"He set up a CLIC Sargent branch in Gloucester, inspired largely by my sister Julie Nelson, who was born with a form of eye cancer and died in 1999. He raised thousands of pounds for charity."

Mr Hardiman leaves his wife Doreen, 86. The couple had two children, Lynette and Julie, and four grandchildren.

2:38pm Thursday 17th April 2008

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