Any ex-Girl Guides on here?

Do tell Luckygirl why did you get thrown out ? Were you a sinner like me ?

I did manage to become a Red Cross cadet without getting into trouble.

Yes I loved guides and went for 5 years getting my Queens Guide badge in the end. We had the most brilliant Captain. She was a school teacher and unmarried and hated camping but we went every year for a week.

Slept in Bell tents we had to erect and also the toilet block. We had smallish oil cans with a wooden seat on that we emptied in the 'lats' every day. We cooked everything on an open fire too.

I was head of the For-get-me-not patrol. We had to make porridge every morning for breakfast and dinners were then done by a selected team every evening. If you wanted a potato for dinner then you peeled one- no peeling no potato.

I look back on the whole experience with real fondness.

Sea Rangers - I wanted to be one of them, but lived as far inland as it was possible to be! Was Brownie, Guide, Land Ranger and helped out with a Guide company. Son tried cubs, but found that it was a pretty uncouth troop - totally ignored the law and promise and the language was choice, to say the least. I got cooks, writers, readers, first aid, music lover and singer's badges. I went to an international camp at Malvern in 1961 and the weather was horrendous - makes Glasto look dry - one night all the tents blew down and we were moved into the marquee.

Blinko - re Thrift badge. There doesn't seem to be one for UK guides. But I found one for Singapore guides
"1. Having a savings account of at least 3 months’ standing and show that she has added to it regularly from her savings or pocket money.

2. Bring a certificate from her parents stating that she is not wasteful in the home and is keeping her belongings in good condition.

3. Bring to the test an article that proves that she is thrifty. E.g. repairing toys or equivalent.
Answer questions on the real meaning of thrift and keep a notebook over a period of at least a month of ways in which she is able to put thrift into practice."
Maybe that's why Singapore is so prosperous!

I was never at Brownie as there werent any in my village, but I was a keen guide and eventually patrol leader of the swallows. I absolutely loved going to camp - we had those bell tents someone else has mentioned and our own groundsheets and wrapped up bankets with blanket pins to make sleeping bags. We had to clear it all off the floor onto home-made gadgets (remember them?) in the daytime and Braille the tents to let the grass air. I had an armful of badges including thrift I think, and got to First Class but not to Queens Guide. Later I was a cadet and helped with a Brownie Pack and much later after having children I became a Guide Captain for a year or two, until we moved away. Loved the campfires and the singing too.
You had to do a reef knot behind your neck to do up your tie (which doubled as a triangular bandage for a sling ) in those days! I think as well as the whistle and penknife on our belts.we had a bit of whipped string .
Guides these days are a pale imitation of all this!

Hello Tricia.
Yes I was a guide 1956-59. I loved the meetings, camping, the lot. I was seconder of Thistle patrol. 2nd Alnwick.
Alnwick then was a very quiet little town not much doing for young people, so I really enjoyed my thursday guide nights.
We had great fun camping, so did our Captain's dog.
Happy days.

Emily Harburn - Similar memories to me about taking the patrol out to cook over a fire. My best friend and I were both patrol leaders - Daffodils and RedRoses. We all went together on the bus to the nearest woods.
Must have taken some organising, we would only be early teens, because I think we left in the buildup to O levels.
That kind of training is excellent for learning to take responsibility etc.

(hence his annoyance at my Granny Knots

DH was a Scout leader years ago.
He is still much more practical than me

I too was a brownie, Guide, Ranger and Guider. Now a member of the Trefoil Guild. I was a member of the 61st Greyfriars Church Coy. in Aberdeen and we still meet annually for a get-together. There are 42 of us still in touch and we have fond memories of our Guider the late Miss Vera Anderson MBE who was an inspiration to us all. Any other ex 61st girls on Gransnet? You are welcome to join us !!! Get in touch via Facebook.

I was a Brownie but after that, as a forces child, we never seemed to stay anywhere long enough to establish that sort of continuity. I wonder what constitutes 'thrift' nowadays? To get your badge, I mean.

It is heartening to me that there are others who were not welcome in the guides/brownies!!

i was a brownie [a sixer too] and flew up to guides where i got to the dizzying heights of patrol leader before i discovered boys! that was it then as i was too self concious of all the stuff in my blouse pockets plus my rather large natural "boobs" and i gave up.
my daughter went to brownies but a can't remember if she ever went to guides. my son was a cub and then went on to sea scouts for a while.
my second grandaughter decided she wanted to be a cub and joined a couple of years ago - she went up to scouts last summer and thoroughly enjoys her outings .......... the last one was a "shooting day" where they were taught to shoot air rifles!!!
however i can't remember what badges i got in either brownies or guides or which six/patrol group i was in.

No, was never a Brownie or Guide ( I think I would have liked it though)
One of our DD's was a Brownie and a Guide and loved it, the other DD ( a rebellious one ) wanted to be a Brownie but only lasted for three meetings, and our boy was in Beavers Cubs but wasn't keen enough to carry on for more than six months.
So I guess only one of our DC could build a fire in the woods.

We didn't have Guides in our village, but our neighbour's mum started a Junior Red Cross troupe where we did similar things, with certificates for First Aid and Child Care. We went to camps and learned the appropriate skills (although we camped as a family anyway)

Later I became a Guider and had a lovely time with that - both in the Red Cross and later in the Guides we had to do a regular session of square-bashing (which has stood me in good stead ever since!)

When I came to Germany to do au pairing, I contacted the local American military community and spent a year as a Group Leader in the Girl Scouts with them. Camping was a very different matter, but still great fun. The older Leaders could tell tales of their camping experiences in the States with bears and wolves strolling through the camp.

I was a Brownie. I had fire lighting skills as a kid anyway, because gran still used the range for heat, hot water and cooking and parents had open fires, however, I now find it all a struggle and am currently using more firelighters than logs (well that's what it feels like) and daily failures are getting me down.

I really don't know how arsonists cope with it all.

I enjoyed being a girl guide patrol leader and taking my patrol to the local gravel pits to light fires and cook dampers and bake eggs suspended by safety pins. all great fun.

I also had a lovely sheath knife in a leather case I could slip onto my belt and wear behind me if we were going to light a fire in a field because you had to use it to cut the turf which must be replaced at the end to make the site of the fire invisible. I kept 'punk' in my breast pocket so that it was dry at all times. If one did not have punk with one in wet weather one looked under a Hawthorne hedge to find dry twigs. Lovely times and we weren't arsonists and did not misuse the knives.

Camping we carried water etc. and we painted the billy cans with whitewash before we started because it was easier to wash the soot off afterwards.

1957 I attended the Baden Powell Centenary Camp in Windsor Great Park and made many friends from Norway and other countries.

I also had a part in a Ralph Reader show in London.

all great fun. Thak you to the Girl Guides Association.

I was a Brownie, a Guide and a Ranger and a Queens Guide. When I was 16 (having been in the Rangers for a couple of years) I joined the Venture Scouts for two reasons, I was a bit bored with Rangers (though I did both for a while) and Ventures had boys. One of my funniest memories from that time is I was still helping out at one of the local Brownie Packs after I joined Ventures and as 'Vents' and Brownies was on the same night, the shock on the face of the spinster lady who ran the Brownies when she saw me being picked up from Brownies by my then boyfriend on his Norton (I was 16!)

Are Guides still allowed to carry knives? We had hooks on our belts for knives and whistles, but I wonder if current laws against knives have made it impossible now. However, one of my GSs has acquired a rather imposing Scout knife which I think looks quite dangerous! Four GC have come up through the BP organisations: the boys through Beavers, Cubs and Scouts; GD through Rainbows, Brownies and...Scouts and is now a Cub leader which she took on as her community work for Duke of Edinburgh Award she's also an Army cadet). She loves 'her little cubs'! Sorry there are no Guides in that generation, but the spirit is still there.

I was a brownie and 'flew up' to the guides and became a Queen's Guide and enjoyed wearing the old uniforms, complete with the lanyard. We were very lucky in our village to have a lady who was dedicated to the guiding movement and we were all encouraged to take as many badges, attend camps, jamborees etc. Not long after I left we had to merge with the neighbouring village due to the fall in numbers and it eventually closed down. I always made and cooked scotch eggs over the open fire whenever my patrol went out for the day or when camping out! Happy memories and definitely a positive factor in my childhood and teenage years.

3 generations in our family of brownies, guides and rangers with the littlest GD on waiting list for rainbows.
My first trips abroad were with the guides (and DS attended a scout jamboree in Denmark).
I have only happy memories of my time in guides.

A queens guide here! Looking back was not the uniform awful, but I did not know any better then.

When at college in London I stayed in 'Olave' house, Earls court for my last year as all cooking was done for us. Also quite a few of the patrons had tickets to the Albert Hall and if they did not use them, they were stuck on the notice board for anyone to use. I read today that a box, seating 12 is for sale in excess of 2 million. I did enjoy these concerts.

Not a chance!
I was thrown out of the Brownies after my first visit!
I refused to dance round a papier mache toadstool & said it was 'soppy'.
They told my mother they didn't need subversive girls like me & asked her not to bring me back.

I was delighted as I never wanted to go anyway.
I can't say I've changed much TBH.

I was a Guide in the 60s and loved it. Still involved with Guiding - Brown Owl for 30 years! There are nationwide groups for retired and/or supporters of Guiding, called the Trefoil Guild. I belong to a local one that is quite 'young and active', and have made good friends there.

I was a fairly indifferent Brownie and Guide, but DD was keen on both. We were very amused when she got her Jester's Badge in Brownies, so a double triumph! She also managed to catch chicken-pox on Brownie pack holiday.