How the Girl Guides Won the War. Janie Hampton

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.’

      The 1st Eynsham Brownie Pack also went on holiday in August 1939 — to Swanage in Dorset. ‘We went down on the shore and we dug. We ate some ices,’ wrote Sheila Harris in their Pack Holiday Log Book. She practised semaphore with Sonia Horwood for their Golden Hand Badge, while Brown Owl, a teacher called Miss Mary Oakley, held a skipping rope for their friends Joan and Audrey to jump over for their Athlete’s Badge, their uniforms tucked into their knickers. ‘Then we had our tea and played on the hill and went to bed.’ The Brownies were accompanied by Mrs Perkins, Miss Gibbons and Miss Betterton, who wore their coats on the beach as they watched the girls swimming in their knitted woollen costumes.

      On Monday, 28 August, Gwyneth Batts of the Gnome Six wrote: ‘We went in the sea. It was nice and wet and we tried to swim. We went to the top of a long hill to see a monument. It was a very long way and we became very hot.’

      On Tuesday, 29 August, Patsy Harling of the Fairy Six wrote: ‘We went to buy our presents. I got a vase for mummy, a shaving stick for daddy and a stick of rock for grandpa. When we got back we had Diana to tea. We met her on the beach in the morning. We did not like her much. She did not say thank you for her tea.’

      On Wednesday, 30 August, Joan Brookes of the Gnome Six wrote: ‘It was a nasty morning and the sea was so rough we could not bathe. We found a lot of seaweed. We saw two funny poodles.’ Doreen Bray of the Fairy Six wrote: ‘After dinner we got ready to go down to the beach. We had a sandcastle competition which was won by Sylvia. We had a lovely bathe because it was so rough. It was fun jumping the waves. We played hide and seek and we sang God Save are [sic] King.’

      On Thursday, 31 August, Joyce Betterton of the Elf Six wrote: ‘The sea was calm and we went on a boat. We had sausages for dinner and apple and custard. Then we did handstands.’ Sonia Horwood of the Sprite Six added: ‘The boat rocked. We picked some blackberries to eat. We sang in the boat coming home.’ Joan Winterbourne of the Sprite Six was the last Brownie to write, on Friday, 1 September: ‘While we were having our breakfast Brown Owl told us we were going home. We packed all our clothes and emptied all our beds.’

      The Brownies spent the four-hour bus journey home singing songs such as ‘Rolling Down to Rio’ and ‘The Jolly Waggoner’. ‘We arrived back in Eynsham late on Saturday night,’ Brown Owl wrote in the log book. ‘Everyone was very glad to see us and we were only sorry we had missed one day of such a lovely holiday. The next day war broke out.’ Even so, some of the mothers complained that by coming home a day early, their daughters did not get their full fifteen shillings’ worth of holiday.

      During the last week of August the 1st Kennington Girl Guide Company in Oxfordshire were looking forward to camping in the New Forest. ‘Our Captain, Miss Gandy, was excited too,’ said Sylvia Rivers, then aged thirteen. ‘She had cooked a ham for our first meal.’ However, just as they were about to set off Miss Gandy received a telegram advising them not to go because of the possibility of war: ‘She was almost in tears.’ Instead, the Guides took their packed lunches to nearby Bagley Wood and practised tracking. Then they set up camp in a field next to the Captain’s house in Kennington.

      On Friday, 1 September, Germany invaded Poland, and it appeared inevitable that Britain would declare war on Germany. ‘By the Friday,’ said Sylvia, ‘as things were beginning to look dark in the Country, we were asked if some of us would go to Abingdon to help run messages to people preparing to take in evacuees.’ She and her patrol cycled the five miles to help prepare for children being evacuated to Abingdon from London: ‘We delivered notes to the families who were to care for the children.’ On the night of 2 September, trains travelled with no lights in the carriages, and families with relations in the country began to leave the capital. The following morning Britons sat by their radios waiting to hear Chamberlain’s broadcast on the BBC Home Service at 11.15 a.m.

      Mary Yates was a Guide, a leader of her local Brownie pack and a choirgirl in a village in Oxfordshire. The vicar asked her to sit in his rectory and listen to the wireless. ‘I then had to hurry to church and hand to the vicar one or other order of service, depending on the news.’ Mary heard the tired voice of Chamberlain speaking to Britain: ‘This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would