Ah, it takes me back.....When I was in the Guides we sang this in a round as described above, but I seem to recall if we were at some jamboree type thing where there were scouts AND guides, the guides sang the hayla shayala bit and the scouts didn't?.

As for a lving oral tradition, we did swap songs...We guides learnt the 'Quartermasters Stores' from the scouts and they learnt 'Kookaburra' and 'You'll never get to heaven' from us (a good one for big groups because we'd sing line 1 then they'd repeat it, etc, until the chorus which was sung all together...) I don't know why certain songs were identified with the male and some with the female side of the movement though!. But yes, a lot of them were very daft...:o)