How the Girl Guides Won the War

2 Brownies and Bluebirds

Younger girls had not been forgotten, and ‘Brownies’, for girls aged from seven to eleven, were formed in July 1914, just before war broke out. Each Brownie pack was divided into ‘Sixes’ of up to six girls, named after Fairies, Goblins and other phantasmagoria. From the age of about eight a Brownie could assume responsibility as a Seconder, second-in-command of her Six, and then work her way up to lead it as a Sixer. The pack’s leaders were called Brown Owl, assisted by Tawny Owl, to continue the woodland theme.

Baden-Powell had always been keen on small people. ‘In our army we have a battalion of very small men called Bantams who were not big enough for the ordinary regiments,’ he wrote in The Handbook for Brownies. ‘They very soon showed that at fighting they were as good as anybody else. A small man can have a big heart and plenty of pluck in him. So even though a Brownie is small, she too can be just as brave and strong as a bigger girl if she likes to make herself so. The Brownies are little people who do good to Big people. Boggarts are little people who do no good — they are ugly and noisy and dirty and selfish — so we have no use for Boggarts among the Brownies.’

Baden-Powell realised that the name Brownies ‘might be incongruous in some parts of the Empire’, and suggested the alternative ‘Bluebirds’ in parts of the world where girls had darker skin. However, in southern Africa they were called Brownies, whatever their race.

Baden-Powell suggested that each Brownie pack make a toadstool as their totem. ‘Like true fairies, Brownies can make their ring anywhere, not only in the woods or out on the grass, but even in the town and in a room.’ Toadstools were easy to make out of papier-mâché, and could be stored in a cupboard. ‘We all joined hands round the toadstool and danced around it singing,’ remembered Mary Allingham, a former Brownie. ‘“We’re the Brownies. Here’s our Aim: Lend a hand and Play the Game.” Then everyone shouted LAH, LAH, LAH, and saluted. It all seemed magic to me.’

Baden-Powell took on the important job of writing The Handbook for Brownies himself. His understanding of tracking animals was better than his knowledge of biology, and he was very worried about germs: ‘There are little beasts floating about in the air called Germs. They are squirmy-looking little beggars, and very dangerous, because if they get inside you they will give you an illness of one kind or another.’ These squirmy-looking little beggars were more likely to attack Brownies who breathed with their mouths: ‘Nose Breathing, with real cold fresh air out of doors, alone will help you to grow and to be strong.’

Brownies were encouraged to exercise their imaginations, but only within limits — too much imagination might lead them astray. Good Brown Owls had read Esterel Pelly’s Brownie Games: ‘Brown Owl must keep the games going and never for a minute let the pack come back to earth with a bump,’ she wrote. ‘Brown Owl must lead her Brownies from one excitement to another, and they will follow her blissfully, and she will keep the right atmosphere to the very end of the game.’

At her enrolment, each new Brownie makes the Brownie promise while saluting with her right hand vertical, the palm facing outwards. Pointing to the sky, the two middle fingers represent the two promises. ‘The first law is that Brownies give in to Older Folk,’ said Baden-Powell. ‘The second is that a Brownie does not give in to Herself.’ This two-fingered salute came long before Churchill’s V-for-victory sign, and many Brownies confused it with the ruder version with the palm facing inwards.

Each Six then danced round the toadstool singing its own special song. The Pixies sing: ‘Look out! We’re the jolly Pixies, Helping people when in fixes.’ The Imps: ‘We’re the ever helpful Imps, Quick and quiet as any shrimps.’ There were also Welsh fairies: ‘We’re the Bwbachod from Wales, Filling farmers’ milking pails.’

For great occasions, such as visits from the District Commissioner, there was a Grand Salute. ‘The Brownies form a circle and squat on their heels,’ wrote Baden-Powell, ‘with both hands on the ground between their feet. When the important person comes in, they howl very gently all together. “Tu-whit-to-who-oo-ooo. Tu-whit-to-who-oo-ooo,” the second time raising the voice and gradually rising to a standing position. “Tu-whit-to-who-oo-ooo.” The third time it is louder and the forefinger of the right hand is placed to the lips and made to revolve, the noise getting louder and louder until it ends in a shriek, a leap in the air, and a clap of the hands. The clap comes as the feet reach the ground. This action will slay the Boggarts. Then the Brownies are absolutely silent, and raise their right hands to the full salute.’ The Baden-Powells advised Brown Owls that a pack was ‘not a family, but a happy family’, and that ‘laughter counteracts most of the evils of the very young and makes for cheery companionship and open-mindedness. The one who laughs much, lies little.’

Once enrolled, a Brownie began her Second-Class Test, for which she was expected to know the history of the Union Jack, tie four complicated knots, make a useful article with a hem and decorative tacking, sew on two types of buttons, understand the importance of clean teeth, bowl a hoop, skip twenty times backwards, catch a ball six times and lay a table for dinner. Quite an accomplishment for an eight-year-old.

To attain First-Class standard, a Brownie had to understand semaphore, have grown a bulb, tie up a parcel, knit a jumper, lay and light a fire, cook a milk pudding, make tea, memorise a message, fold clothes neatly, skip with her feet crossing, bandage a grazed knee, know how to put out a person on fire, throw a ball accurately overarm and sing ‘God Save the King’.

From the start, all Brownies wore the same basic uniform, wherever they were in the world, so that they could be ‘One Sisterhood’. Brownie uniform included a knitted beret or woven rush hat, brown leather belt, brown shoes, brown hair ribbons and brown cotton knickers. The brown cotton shift-dress was designed to accommodate the growth of both the legs and bosom. In India, ‘Bluebirds’ wore thick black stockings and white sola topees. Taking into account the fact that many families had little money, girls were allowed to wear their Brownie uniforms for up to a year after becoming Guides. Brownies were often photographed in their uniform — the only presentable outfit they owned.

Not everyone approved of Brownie uniforms. ‘In the pack, no element of individuality was entertained,’ wrote Kate Adie in Corsets to Camouflage, a history of women in uniform. ‘All Brownies wore turd-coloured bag-like shifts, with a leather belt and custard-yellow tie. Fatter Brownies looked like hamsters feeding permanently on bananas. The outfit was surmounted by a chocolate-coloured knitted Thing, which slid off your head the moment you had to do some Brownie ritual, usually involving imaginary toadstools. If you were diligent your sleeve was peppered with weird symbols, proclaiming your status as a girl well-versed in raffia craft or whatever. The good aspect of the uniform was that it blended into the dust and dirt which was swirled up by Brownie games in dingy huts. In other words, it worked, but did nothing for you.’

Many Brownies loved their yellow triangular ties. ‘Learning how to make a yellow triangle into a tie was an art that, once achieved, felt unique,’ recalled Mary Allingham. ‘First there was the folding, to make it as thin as possible. Then that special knot that could look like a messy bunch if you weren’t careful, then you had to tie it with a reef knot. This was an extraordinary piece of manual engineering — done at the back of your neck, without being able to see it. Brown Owl always checked for granny knots, which were somehow rather immoral. Why grannies were given this insult, I never knew.’ The Brownie tie was designed to do many things. ‘It was comforting to know that at any time, around your neck was an arm sling, a bandage for cut legs, a sieve for dirty water; you could even carry your rabbit in it or boil up a pudding.’

In August 1914, only a month after Brownies began, Miss Richenda Gurney set up a Brownie pack for her many nieces and cousins holidaying in north Norfolk. She wore a uniform made for her by Stones & Sons, the Norwich military tailor. The day after their first meeting, war with Germany was declared and the 1st Northrepps Brownie Pack practised bandaging their uncles and the gardener, using their triangular ties as slings. During the General Strike of 1926, Brownies collected clothes for striking miners, and they would later knit blankets in squares for families hit by the Great Depression. Christine Hinkley, the daughter of a Scoutmaster in Ruislip, Middlesex, became a Brownie when she was eight: ‘I joined the Little People Six. We sang as we danced around our toadstool: “We though known as little people, aim as high as any steeple.” We played feet-off-ground games, Kim’s game, stepping-stones with newspaper. We learned how to make cups of tea and set a table for our Hostess Badge. For Homemaker Badge we kept our rooms tidy, dusted, swept, washed a tea towel and washed up. We had an annual get-together in Ruislip called Brownie Revels, held in the gardens of a very large house, with woodland around; about a hundred of us. We played lots of games in the woods, culminating in a wonderful picnic tea.’

The transition from Brownies to Guides was marked at the ‘Flying-Up’ ceremony, at which eleven-year-old Brownies who had achieved the First Class Test jumped off a bench to ‘fly up’ to Guides. The Chorlton-cum-Hardy pack had a Fly-Up on 1 November 1926. ‘Had any strangers peeped into our clubroom they would have watched one of the nicest of all ceremonies, a “Brownie Fly-Up”,’ reported their log book. ‘While the Brownie Pack stand in the Fairy Ring round their Totem, and the Guide company in Horse-shoe formation, four Brownies leave the pack and fly to Guides. Brown Owl fastens on their wings, then bids them go forward and do well. Then each Brownie gives the salute and handshake, and the whole pack give the Grand Howl.’ Less-qualified Brownies were only allowed to walk up to Guides. Christine Hinkley remembered: ‘I tried to get my Brownie Wings, but could not get enough badges. Much to my father’s disappointment, I failed my Semaphore Badge. So I could not fly up to Guides with that special ceremony.’ Christine would have been less downhearted if she had known that Baden-Powell once said, ‘It is a greater thing to try without succeeding than to succeed without trying.’

In 1920 the Princess Royal, Princess Mary, only daughter of George V, became President of the Girl Guide Association. This was no nominal title — she insisted on being properly enrolled by Olave Baden-Powell and making her Guide Promise, and she took her role seriously, travelling all over the country visiting Brownies and Guides. On May Day 1930 she found herself in a field in Kingston Maurward, Dorset, inspecting several thousand Brownies. Each pack had to welcome the Princess into a ‘Brownie Land Flower Garden’. The 1st Swanage chose to be delphiniums and poppies, with nine-year-old Irene Makin as one of two raindrops, wearing a gauze veil over her head. ‘Irene was so excited she couldn’t keep still,’ wrote her friend Audrey Pembroke. ‘Not many little girls got to meet a real live princess. Irene kept jumping about in her headdress in the hallway, and singing until her father had had enough. “If you don’t dry up,” he told her, “this little raindrop won’t be going!”’ Irene went with her pack in a charabanc. After a grand march-past, accompanied by the Dorchester town band, the Brownies danced up to the Princess Royal to the tune of ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’. They were led by the ‘Spirit of the Garden’, a sixteen-year-old Ranger dressed in white, and when each Brownie reached the princess, she had to stop and curtsey. ‘Irene found herself gazing down at a smart pair of brown lace-up shoes. Shyly she lifted her eyes, to look up through her veil at the tall figure of the Princess.’ Princess Mary was wearing her navy-blue uniform, belted at the waist, the white cords of office held up with the Guide badge on her lapel, and on her felt hat was a gold cockade. She smiled at Irene and whispered, ‘Hello.’

When Irene got home her mother asked her if she had seen the Princess.

‘Oh yes,’ said Irene, ‘she looked just like Brown Owl.’

When the girls of Herstmonceux village in East Sussex wanted to start a Brownie pack in 1934, a notice was read out in church that the first meeting would be held at the rectory the following Saturday morning. ‘Twenty little girls turned up mostly with their mothers who, when told about the uniform, shook their heads,’ remembered their Brown Owl. ‘“All right then,” I said, “we will start the pack without uniforms and think of a way of raising the funds.”’ So the would-be Brownies organised a concert, and charged a penny a peep to look at The Brownie magazine. With the proceeds, they bought a paper dressmaking pattern for sixpence and brown cotton curtain material at 9d a yard. ‘Already a dab hand at making my sisters’ party dresses from Woolworth patterns, I set about cutting out and machining twenty little uniforms. The most expensive parts were the Brownie belts, and these we persuaded the saddler to cut up out of old but well-polished leading reins. After a pathetic attempt to embroider the badges myself, we had to buy them from Guide Headquarters.’ The toadstool was made of papier mâché from old copies of The Times donated by the local rector.

Not all Brown Owls were perfect. Carol Snape was seven years old when she became a Brownie in Albrighton, near Wolverhampton. ‘My Brownie uniform was handed down from my elder sister — everything was, in spite of her being smaller than me,’ she recalls. ‘As it was rather short it showed my large brown inter-lock knickers. My brown beret soon got lost. I was always being told off by Brown Owl, who was Doctor’s wife — a very bossy lady. We assembled in the yard outside the surgery. One day she was very cross indeed because I had got ice-cream all down my front. She held me under the pump because we were going on parade in the village.’ Despite these horrors, Carol was enrolled as a Girl Guide twice. ‘I liked the enrolment ceremony so much that when we moved house, I never let on I had done it before.’

Some Brownies, such as Lucy Worthing from Sussex, felt the pressure to do Good Deeds could be too strong:

Before I was enrolled as a Brownie, my fellow candidates and I were each given a paper cat with a string tail about six inches long. We had to tie a knot in the string every time we did a Good Deed. One Good Deed a day was the recommended aim. A week later we brought our crumpled cats to the Brownie meeting and we compared knotted cats’ tails. I was proud to show Brown Owl that I’d achieved six deeds, mostly on my grandmother who lived next door. She had happily accepted my tepid cups of tea and efforts to untangle her knitting bag. I even picked her a fistful of buttercups from the verge. But one girl had surpassed us all. Molly had added an arm’s length of string to her cat’s tail, all tightly knotted. ‘How did you do it?’ we asked in awe. ‘Mummy helped me,’ she gloated. ‘She found me lots of good deeds to do, like cleaning the silver napkin rings, and tidying the fish fork drawer. Daddy gave me his best shoes to polish.’ I felt that this did not count — you had to spot your own Good Deeds, and anyway being quite so competitive annulled them altogether.

From the start, Baden-Powell made it clear that in addition to doing Good Deeds, it was the duty of every Brownie and Guide to ‘Keep Smiling’. To illustrate this, he told the story of Francis Palmer. ‘He was a very young boy belonging to the Wolf Cubs of the 18th Bristol troop, who was knocked down by a motor-car. His left leg was broken in two places, and the side of his face badly cut. The boy was naturally in great pain; but to the astonishment of the doctors and nurses, never cried or complained. One of the doctors asked him why he was so brave, and his answer was: “I am a Wolf Cub, and so must not cry.” So whenever you break your leg just smile if you can. If you cannot — well — then grin!’

Although Baden-Powell had emphasised the importance of adaptability, and that a Brownie pack could meet anywhere, and under any circumstances, by the late 1930s rules had crept in. The outbreak of war changed everything. ‘We used to think you need a hall or roomy headquarters, we now know that anywhere will do, even Brown Owl’s home, or sitting under a tree,’ wrote Violet Smith, the Chief Brown Owl, in 1940. ‘Recipe for being a Brown Owl: Take the Brownie Handbook, a limited number of girls aged 7 to 10 years old, consider their needs and, using your own commonsense, carry on. Your Commissioner will back you up, but will not always be available.’

3 Marching in Gas Masks

As Neville Chamberlain attempted to negotiate with Hitler in September 1938 to prevent the outbreak of war, the real possibility of hostilities was brought home to ordinary British people when ‘respirators’ or gas masks were made available to the public. Despite Chamberlain’s promise of ‘peace in our time’, the government began to plan ‘Operation Pied Piper’ to evacuate children from cities. It was expected that the Germans would attack from the air with bombs and biological or poison gas, so as soon as war seemed imminent, the plans were put into action.

In church halls, Guides began to learn how to put on and march in gas masks, and what to do during an air raid. ‘Guide meetings were dominated by putting our gas masks on with our eyes shut, in case it was dark when the time came,’ said Lucy Worthing. ‘Our Captain seemed to be obsessed with our houses catching fire. We were always rolling each other up in hearth rugs or blankets.’ Guides also helped to distribute gas masks. As well as adjusting the devices to fit correctly, they had to reassure anxious mothers who feared that the masks would introduce head lice into their homes, and frightened children who believed that the smell of Izal disinfectant was poison gas. The number of mothers who appeared with previously unregistered illegitimate children surprised the Guides. They also noticed that some Christians were reluctant to use masks that might have been touched by Jews.

Iris O’Dell was a Brownie living at Hitchin, Hertfordshire, with her younger brothers Bill and Bob. ‘At St John’s Hall gas masks were allotted — it was chaos! We each had to be fitted and tested. Bill had a Mickey Mouse gas mask, which used to send Mum off into peels of laughter, and baby Bob had a huge contraption to put him in. School was strict about bringing one’s gas mask and you were sent home to get it if forgotten. All of them started off in very smart boxes, but the original boxes in pretty covers gave way to all manner of new covers including those which looked like a horse’s nose-bag. At school we were given gas-mask drill where we were timed to see how quickly they could be put on. The teachers came around the desks with a piece of paper and you breathed in and hoped the paper stuck on the end of the mask.’

Guides and Rangers across the country also offered their services to the newly formed city Air-Raid Precautions (ARP) organisation. When the North Berkshire Rangers joined the ARP, their canvas latrine cubicles were commandeered as ‘Decontamination Cubicles’ in case of gas attacks. The Rangers Decontamination Squad had to be prepared to erect them in two minutes. ‘At the practice sessions,’ wrote one Ranger, ‘we each put on a huge overall, rubber gloves, Wellington boots and a gas mask.’ They had to stand inside the cubicle armed with a bucket of whitewash and a massive decorating brush. They were not told what real casualties would have been painted with, though they knew it would not be whitewash. ‘As each mock casualty arrived, we had to instruct him (they were all men) to strip off his clothing, which was bagged up and would have been burnt in a real attack. Then we had to cover the “casualty” from head to foot with whitewash.’ One Ranger was horrified to find that her first ‘casualty’ was the local curate. She reported, ‘He kept his underpants on but I was scarlet with embarrassment. Goodness knows how I would have coped had we done it in earnest on naked bodies.’

In September 1938, Guiders working at headquarters in Buckingham Palace Road started to dig bomb shelters in nearby St James’s and Green Park. ‘Everyone did two hours’ digging a day,’ remembered Verily Anderson. ‘One hour came out of our lunch break.’ As a Guide in Sussex working for the Authoress Badge which had been introduced in 1920, she had followed the rules set out in Hints on Girl Guide Badges: ‘Know what you’ve driving at; mean what you say; never use a long word where a short one will do.’ Having ‘successfully written a dramatic sketch’, ‘expressed her own personal thoughts in an essay’ and ‘written an account of an event in her life’ she had passed the badge, which featured an inkstand, and was now employed as sub-editor of The Guide. As a Girl Guide Association employee Verily had to wear uniform at all times. She even wore it to meet her boyfriend in the pub for a beer after work.

‘Christian names were forbidden but nicknames were acceptable,’ she remembered. ‘The editor, a large, dark-haired woman called Miss Christian, decided that because my maiden name was Bruce, I should be called “Spider”. The senior editors were romantic novelists. Their salaries were so low that it was written into their contracts that, if time lay heavy, they could write their novels in the office.’

Like many Guiders in early 1939, Verily decided to graduate to a more adult uniformed service. She joined the First-Aid Nursing Yeomanry, or FANYs, as a part-time trainee ambulance driver. ‘Once a week I scrambled out of the blue Guide uniform and into khaki. We had to march up and down Birdcage Walk beside Wellington Barracks, overseen by a Guards Sergeant.’ The FANYs had begun in the Boer War, consisting of young ladies who drove horse-drawn ambulances. ‘Our training was more like a debutante’s tea-party,’ said Verily, who soon discovered that FANYs who had been Guides were at a distinct advantage. ‘We met in an Eaton Square drawing room, where those of us who had passed our Second-Class Guide Badge could advise on first-aid. We were told that the Cyclist’s Badge would come in handy for mending punctures on ambulances. A cabby was brought in from the local taxi rank to enlighten us further over inflating flat tyres. “Yer sticks a li’ll nozzle in yer nipp’ll and wiv one o’yer plates o’meat in yer strr’p, yer keeps at it.” When it came to training under canvas at Aldershot, those of us who were former Guides beat the rest in tent jargon — we tossed off our brailing strings and fouled our guys as we pitched and struck the Bells. We were all treated as officers, and wore Sam Browne belts, which we were told to take off when we went out dancing.’

At the end of August 1939 Verily Anderson took her first annual holiday from The Guide. She and two girlfriends, and their brothers who were on leave from the navy, went on a cycling tour of Brittany. As soon as they heard on the French news that war was imminent, they phoned home. Their parents told them that telegrams had already arrived demanding that they join their units forthwith. ‘After a night sleeping on the beach at St Malo, we boarded an overladen ferry, all ready to use our Life-Saving Guide Badge. Back in London I struggled into my Guider’s uniform to hand in my resignation at Guide HQ. Then I changed my mind and put on my FANY uniform, feeling that khaki would be more dramatic for the romantic novelists.’