Guiding memories: exploring Guiding history through personal experiences

Hello again! Inspired by my last post, I thought I’d explore guiding history within my family and my unit. I spoke to my mother, grandmother and leader of our Ranger unit Gemma about their experiences as guides.

An example of 50's Guide uniform

 My Grandma was a guide in 1956, her uniform was a ‘Royal blue skirt and navy skirt. It was unheard
of to wear trousers or sweatshirts. We had a neckerchief and woggle to hold it in place.’ She attended a unit in Bradford, she said that her leader was ‘awful, really strict and no sense of humour!’. Her favourite Guiding memory was her first Guide camp in the Yorkshire Dales; ‘We went on a bus from Bradford for a week. It was the first time I had ever been away from home and I remember being woken up by noisy crows. Coming from a town I had never experienced birds building nests or lambs in fields. It was quite a shock!  Also, each morning we had to visit the farm dairy and get fresh milk from the cows!’ 

Guiding Magazine 1988

My Mother was also a girl guide, she was a guide in the early 80’s. Her unit met in the hall of her primary school, which was close enough for her to walk.  Her uniform was ‘Blue! Bright blue blouse. Very yellow necker and leather woggle. I think a navy skirt and some sort of odd belt. There was a hat
but I don’t remember having one’. As part of her unit activities ‘I remember doing a first aid badge and having a sling on for the whole meeting and I decided I would try going to the toilet which was rather problematic!’ Her favourite guiding memory was ‘Always making sure I had a 5p and a 2p coin so that I could make a call from a phone box if we needed to. I also loved how many things you can get in a matchbox competition we had. Finding lots of tiny things and cramming them all in was fascinating’.

A page from guiding magazine showing the new uniform 

 I also interviewed one of our Ranger Unit leaders, Gemma. She was a guide from 1995-99 and attended the 2nd Birstall Guides at our Guide hut in Birstall. She was in the white roses patrol and eventually became the patrol leader. In her unit she worked on ‘trefoil awards (yellow, green, red then blue) and then ultimately the Baden-Powell award’.  Her uniform ‘was the ‘new’ Jeff Banks design and we had a blue and white Necker. I usually wore culottes as they were a mix of shorts and skirt so easy to move in’. Her favourite guiding memory was ‘going to Switzerland on a district trip. I had my Baden-Powell award presented whilst at Our Chalet!!’

In these difficult times it’s important to come together and sharing memories of Guiding is a great way to come together. Thank you all for reading and don’t forget to share your favourite guiding memory in the comments below!