A former Royal Marines drum major has been reunited with his special mace almost 40 years after he loaned it to a Boy Scout troop.

Former bandsman Jack Kennelly (80) joined the Royal Marines as a 14-year-old drummer boy in 1936, and served for 28 years with the Royal Marines Commandos, including Atlantic convoys and spells in HMS Devonshire and HMS Newcastle.

While in the latter, Jack was asked to lead the ship's band, and crew mates created a mace from a boat's oar, complete with silver mount decorated with Royal Marines cap badges and decorative knotwork and braiding.

Jack kept the mace when the band dispersed, and lent it to his nephew David Allcock in the 1960s, for use in the 3rd Allerton Scouts' drum and bugle band, which were attached to St Peter's parish church, Woolton.

When David died in a climbing accident in the Swiss Alps in 1978, Jack lost contact with the Scouts, but his memories were revived when retired RSM Jack attended the ceremonies on Plymouth Hoe at which the Duke of Edinburgh presented new colours to the Royal Marines Commandos.

Working on the recollection that the mace was with "South Liverpool scouts", the hunt was on, with Jack's son Malcolm, a sales director with a Kirkby-based chipboard manufacturer, helping out.

Staff at the London HQ of the Scout Association put the family on to District Commissioner Brenda Hope in Allerton, and with the help of scout leaders past and present in Woolton, the mace was discovered forgotten in a cupboard in the village scout hall, used by the Scout troop which formed more than 80 years ago.

Group scout leader Ann Pope restored the mace to its former glory with liberal amounts of metal polish, furniture wax and elbow grease, and a handing-back ceremony was arranged.

The only hitch came on the big day, when Jack was 'confined to barracks' by a heavy cold, leaving son Malcolm and grandson Ian to travel from North Wales to Liverpool, where the 3rd Allerton Scouts' newest recruit, John Siddall, proudly handed the mace back to the Kennelly family.

In return, the Kennellys left the Scouts with the Mace Trophy, to be awarded each year to the member best upholding the Scout Movement traditions.