World Thinking Day

Hello, thank you for dropping in, as always, it's lovely to see you here.  Today is World Thinking Day, the day when Girl Guides and Girl Scouts all over the world celebrate their membership of this international organisation.  When I was a Brownie Guide, we were allowed to wear our Brownie uniforms to school on Thinking Day, as it was called then, because it was the most important date in our Brownie calendar, and our pack meeting that week would focus on thinking about Brownies in other countries and lighting candles (guiding lights?) for them. 

 

Thinking Day dates from 1926 and 22nd February was chosen because it was the birthday of both Lord Robert Baden-Powell, who founded the Movement in 1910, and his wife, Lady Olave, who was still World Chief Guide when I was a child. 

 

The Girl Guide Movement was a huge part of my life when I was growing up: I joined the Brownie Guides when I was seven years old, became a Girl Guide when I was eleven, became a Ranger Guide when I was fourteen and left the Movement when I went to university at the age of eighteen.  Along the way, I spent time helping to lead a Cub Scout pack (as a Girl Guide) and a Brownie pack (as a Ranger) in order to earn my service badges, so it would be strange if "Thinking Day" didn't flash up in my mind on 22nd February every year, wouldn't it?  And it would be strange if I hadn't kept a memento or two from those years, wouldn't it?

 

 

I still have my Brownie Handbook. It's quite fragile now as it was very well-used, so the cover has become detached, but here it is.  This is the book which taught me how to wash up: glassware first, then cutlery, crockery and pots and pans, in that order.  As I opened its pages yesterday for the first time in many years, so many of them were familiar.  I also have a few of the badges which were sewn onto my uniform - I suppose they were taken off when the dress was passed down to a younger sister.  You can see that I was a Seconder in the Kelpies - actually, you can probably only work that out if you were a member of a Scottish Brownie pack as they didn't have Kelpies in England.  I started off as an English Pixie but after we moved to Scotland, I became a Kelpie.  And as a sideline, can I just say that Kelpies are not very nice and would be a very bad influence on impressionable young Brownies?  It's probably the worst possible name for a Brownie Six.   I should also like to add that I am not of the beret-wearing Brownie generation shown on the cover but very firmly a brown-woolly-bobble-hat Brownie.  I am disappointed that I only have two of my interest badges: Hostess and Musician.  I was definitely more interesting than that, although I didn't achieve my Knitter's Badge, I am quite sure of that because according to the Handbook, you had to knit a pair of socks or a pair of gloves or mittens, using two or four needles!  Before the age of twelve?????  I couldn't knit a pair of socks until I was forty-eight and I have never knitted a pair of mittens.  Brownies were obviously cut from a different cloth in the olden days.  So, shall we move on to my Girl Guiding years? -

  

I don't have my Handbook but I do have a small number of Guide Annuals, one of my era and the rest dating from before I was born.  I acquired the older ones at jumble sales and fetes because I found them fascinating. 

 

 Yes, I still have my tunic - although sadly, not my hat, which was navy blue and, in my mind, made me look like an air hostess, in the days when we had air hostesses and they were glamorous and appeared to live exciting, romantic lives.  In those pockets I always carried the six essential items which every keen Guide carried if she obeyed the exhortation to Be Prepared for emergencies: a safety pin, a piece of string, a pencil, a notebook, a clean handkerchief (inside an envelope, to keep it clean) and a 2p piece.  The 2p piece was to use to make a telephone call from a public call box.  You would have to do this to call for help if your friend was injured, after you had bandaged her up with the clean handkerchief and the safety pin and left your other friend looking after her, because you only went out in threes.  It's no wonder I'm so risk averse, and that I need such a large handbag.  I enjoyed being a Guide and I learnt a great deal: first aid, camping (if you need to make a stand for your washing-up bowl out of sticks, I'm your woman), building fires, caring about other people, commitment, service, working as a team, leadership - you may have noticed my Nightingale Patrol Leader's stripes.  Would you like to take a closer look at my interest badges? 

  

Ah yes, the Little House Emblem which shows that I achieved all the badges in that group: Cook, Child Nurse, Knitter, Laundress, Homemaker and Hostess.  I am wincing as I type this because it doesn't seem very, you know, empowering for girls, does it?  I would like to think that the presence of Backwoodsman and Camper may go some way towards balance, and there are also writer, cyclist and local history badges there; perhaps it was not just when I was growing up that Guiding was a huge part of my life?  So, shall we move on to the 1980s and my Ranger Guide years? -

 

 

This is all I seem to have kept, my Handbook and an old novel I picked up in a second hand bookshop.  No uniform (navy blue skirt, aqua shirt and navy forage cap), no badges.  I do remember a grand day out at the Palace of Westminster where we met our local MP and were taken up Big Ben.  I was always one of three in the colour party at events but I never actually carried the colours because Louise was 6' tall and we would have looked ridiculous if she hadn't been in the middle.  We did quite a lot of activities with the local Venture Scout group (moving swiftly on) and quite a lot without our leader, who didn't like camping.  A Ranger Guide Unit was a safe place for a teenage girl to be in a scary world. 

So I may light a candle this evening, and I wish all former and current Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers around the world Happy World Thinking Day.

See you soon,

 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x