(As per, all names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved). 

When I was 6, my nan showed me a picture of my mother from her childhood in Belgium. She was sat in formation with about 30 other girls, dressed in immaculate blue uniforms with white neckties, and a perfect scale model of the Taj Mahal between them. Later that evening, my mother would tell me that this photo was from her time as part of the girl guiding troupe known as the Brownies. As a celebration in the 1970s, each Brownies troupe had been given a different country to learn about and study. My mother’s troupe had gotten India, and the celebration culminated with a meeting of all the Brownies from across the world. 

I was fascinated, mainly that a club existed where you didn’t have to do anything except turn up, learn about a vast range of topics, have fun, and leave. I thought all after-school societies had to be about dance or football or aikido, and I wasn’t very good at all that stuff. Plus, the fact that it was just for girls, and had been since the 1910s, was bound to draw me in. My little magpie brain also jumped at the concept of collecting neat woven badges to sew on my sash too, because I’d never been a good enough swimmer to get the Kellogg’s ones for my bathing suit. 

So, it was settled. I was going to be a Brownie as soon as I turned 7 years old.  

Our Man in Mafeking – A History of Guiding 

POV: As a British lieutenant general, you have been charged with defending the town of Mafeking from siege by the Afrikaner colonies. For the foreseeable future, you and the troops at your command must protect the people of Mafeking from the attack. Among these civilians are the prime-minister’s son and aunt. But your troops are dejected. They know they’re losing this war, and they’re only worsening their self-fulfilling prophecy by lazing around waiting for a hazy death. What do you do to keep the town running with only the resources you have? 

Was your answer child labour? Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!

In order to outlast the 217 day siege of Mafeking that began in October 1899, Lieutenant General Robert Baden Powell enlisted the help of the local children. Young boys were put to work in jobs that grown soldiers should have been doing, and they did them admirably. They waited it out until 2000 extra British troops could fight their way inside and relieve the town. That day much maffiking was to be done in Mafeking (aside from, y’know, the 212 civillians who died), and the outcome of the siege created a national hero of Lord Baden Powell, credited with turning the tide of the Boer war in Britain’s favour.  

Aside from the moral and ethical implications of what Baden-Powell did, as well as with Britain’s involvement in the Boer colonies in general, this experience had given the now retired army man an idea. The boys of Britain, who would be the nation’s future defenders, could benefit from the experiences gained by the boys in Mafeking. Don’t get me wrong, Baden-Powell didn’t want to throw a load of 10 year olds into a vicious fight for their lives. He wanted to teach them the tactics and techniques that had proved so helpful from within the barricade. He wanted them to have adequate preparation, just in case they should ever find themselves in the same situation as he. 

The scout motto would later become ‘Be Prepared’. 

Get it? Be Prepared, BP, Baden Powell. Everybody give him a clap. 

By 1907, Baden-Powell had put his plan into action, taking 20 boys to Brownsea Island to teach them knots and stuff. It was, arguably, more of a success than Mafeking. Only a year later Baden-powell released his book on the affair, titled ‘Scouting for Boys’. After reading the book, thousands of young men up and down Great Britain began to form patrols, teaching themselves the same things Baden-Powell had taught the original 20. By 1912, scouting had so quickly become one of the most popular past-times for young British boys that even King George V had to take notice. Scouting was officially sworn in by Royal Charter. 

The 100 Year Old Girl Guide

It’s often believed, and oddly enough touted by the girl guide’s official history (at least from when I was there), that girl-guiding came long after boy scouts and we really had to fight for it. In fact, as soon as news started to spread about the scouting trend, girls were setting up their own troupes. With their requests to Baden-Powell and the great amount of promise girl-guiding showed, in 1910 he officially founded the Girl Guides Association AT THE SAME TIME as the Scouts Association. His sister, Agnes, was put in charge in girlguiding’s infancy, and then Olave Baden-Powell (his new wifey) was made head guide in 1918. I’m not particularly sure what Olave’s duties included, but she was without doubt our Xenu.    

The divisions of girlguiding troupes are done by age, and Guides were actually the patrols with girls ages 10-14. If you were 4-7 you could join Rainbows. From what I could understand from watching them leave the hall before the Brownies went in at 7pm on a Wednesday, Rainbows usually functioned sort of like a nursery school. Then you have Brownies, that’s where you go from 7-10. Then, if you’re still into it, you can go to Rangers (although I swear they were called Sixers), from ages 14-18. 

I started at Brownies in 2007. When I was there, the uniform was a yellow and brown t-shirt with Brownies written on it, and the most awful brown trousers. My god, those things were so restrictive. Talk about a 217 day siege – the clothing ration was running a bit low, if you know what I mean. You also had to wear a little brown neckerchief that was tied in the front with a woggle. What’s a woggle? That’s a girlguiding secret. Oh, and you wore your sash, which was impossible to put on the right way first time. You did have a lot of variety in your uniform, like some girls had these awesome yellow duffel coats, but I never got one of them. Anyway, in the very same uniform catalogue they had a load of other Brownie themed stuff, that my dad would refer to as tat. Among them was the Brownie badges book. This book detailed all the different badges it was possible to get, and how to get them. 

I. wanted. them. all. 

Microwaveable Brownies 

But, not to worry, because as a child I was highly-motivated. I had already become used to the fact that I was going to have to be cut-throat in order to reach the top. In reality, this translated as a tendency to take advantage of everyone around me, because I knew as a minor I had a free-pass out of serious repercussions. I was always a fabulous fake-crier, and while I’ve had to grow past this deplorable manipulation as I’ve matured, I can’t help but feel a little bit proud of my evil, 8 year old self. Anyway, in this quest for achievement and attention, the elderly were the perfect targets. 

The leader of a Brownie troupe is called a Brown Owl. My Brown Owl’s name was Marge, she was possibly about 80, and walked at the speed of a tortoise with much the same horizontal sway. I was her favourite, due to my being an expert in brown-nosing. I used to convince her that I’d done the required activities to get badges even when I hadn’t, and one time I straight up just stole the agility badge from the box because I knew I was never going to land a cartwheel. 

I was a hedgehog in Brownies. I was infested with lice and twice as prickly, but that’s not what I mean. Within the Brownie groups of about 30 girls, you’re split into groups of around 5. Each of these has a group name based on a common theme. Ours was woodland animals, and I was a hedgehog. A hedgehog with a fuck load of badges. 

When you’d done your induction, you were assigned a group and given 3 pins. One was your girlguiding logo in the Brownie colours, a small ceramic circle with a yellow 3 lear clover in the centre. The second was your group badge, the most adorable little image of a hedgehog straight out of a Beatrix Potter book. The third was the long Brownie badge. It just said BROWNIES, and you had to pin your sash together by your hip with it. If you came in without one of your pins, you were done for. You could never lose any of your stuff because, not only would you receive a heaping of shame from your Brown Owl, you’d have to wait for 3 months for her to mail-order some new troupe pins in. 

Comrades in Crime 

Aside from fraudulent behaviour and theft, our Brownies actually committed a lot of illegal doings. Since Marge was pretty old and immobile, we never really got up to anything exciting in sessions. They were usually just a chance to run around and talk to the people from school in the evenings. It was held in our local community centre – a huge square building cut down the centre into two halls, one with a stage, and one with a plastic dining table. In the middle, another square had been cut out to house the kitchen, complete with the perfect rugby-club style serving hatches. One time I straight up put three chipolatas in foil into the microwave and it didn’t blow up. For 3 minutes! That microwave contained a nuclear blast and kept on trucking. 

My best friend in Brownies was Katie, who was a year younger than me and one time didn’t come into Brownies for a few weeks. I found out later from my dad it was because she’d been caught throwing stones over her back wall onto a car and done £14,000 worth of damage. Awesome. Through Marge, I was also introduced to a young and, now that I look back on it, definitely troubled girl called Tara. She was 14, so wasn’t one of the Brownies, but I think Marge had offered her the chance to help out to have something extra-curricular to put on her CV. I used to hang out with her outside of Brownies because my dad thought she was a good influence. She taught me how to steal crisps from our local Londis. Double-awesome. 

Remember when I said we didn’t really do anything exciting? Well, one time we went to the local park. Ooooooh. It was very fun though, like probably the most fun session, even if we did completely send the youngest girl into space by spinning on the roundabout too fast. She cracked her skull and her mother had to pay £200 to replace her prescription glasses. The helper took her home crying and we kept playing until the session was over. The next day when I got on the school bus, one of the older boys who had been in the park with his friends taunted me about being in Brownies.

Little did he know I had thus far partaken in: fraudulent behaviour, theft and actual theft, destruction of property (I didn’t actually do this one but I’m counting it), grievous bodily harm, and intent to blow up a microwave. Hell yea, would we have been useful at Mafeking! Ironically, Brownies probably introduced me to more bad influences than I would’ve had if I didn’t go, but I was also very happy to be there. 

Strap in Kid, This is Where the Real Fun is 

I went to Brownies for 4 years straight, and at the end of my time there Caitlin replaced Marge as Brown Owl. She was certified to take us on camping trips, but the first one wasn’t scheduled until after I’d be leaving. However, she did introduce me to one of the Guide leaders, Elena, who was willing to let me join her Guides. This happened at the girlguiding centenary celebration in my valley, which was held in a leisure centre and so strongly resembled dashcon that when I first saw that ballpit picture it took me straight back to this very day. But, it was still pretty existential. My mother had lived through the World Day celebrations, and I had lived through the Girl Guiding Centenary celebrations. I got a special ‘100’ pin to put on my sash. 

Joining Guides at the age of 10, I was now a little fish in one behemoth of a pond. Most of the girls in my new group, the Roses, were in year 7 at big school. Eek. While I was merely a stuttering child, they would spend our planning and activity sessions talking about kissing boys and other stuff that I found wholly fascinating. As a result, our group was always the worst at performances, but I didn’t much mind being a part of the shit ones. I get the feeling now that their parents had pushed them into it to give them some structure, but they were truly bad-gals at heart. They stopped coming to sessions pretty soon after I joined. 

I really wanted to be in the Daffodils because that was where the funny girls were. One time we broke into the chapel that joined onto the hall we attended Guides in, and naturally, we pretended to baptise each other. Another time we were in the store cupboard backstage and decided to hide from the leaders among the buckets of old costumes. We got told off in front of everyone and then laughed about it when we were released into the night. Another girl I loved was Holly, who was like what would happen if you took a stereotypical floral-curtains, pie-on-the-windowsill, American grandmother and crammed her into the body of a 12 year old ginger girl from South Wales. Holly invited me apple picking for her birthday one year in school. I didn’t go and I really, really should have. In guides she introduced me to her friend Sophia, who had maddeningly beautiful curly hair. Later on, after we’d all left Guides, the two of them were the first and only people to intervene when I developed an eating disorder. 

Guides kind of did that a lot for me. Brought me into the real world, shall we say. I learned that there were people who actually did care about me, for no other reason than we were existing at the same time, in the same place. We were Guides. It’s in the promise you know, the one you have to say at the end of every guiding session. You have to hold 3 fingers up (think Katniss’s mockingjay salute), and getting my fingers into that position was impossible for me as a child. Of course, the leaders used to rag on me about not saluting properly, until eventually they just told me to hold up 2 fingers instead. Then, you say: 

I promise to do my best, 

to do my duty to God, 

to serve my Queen & my country, 

to help other people 

and to keep the guide law 

Or, at the time that’s what you had to say, but now I don’t think the god bit is in there anymore. Anyway, I’m not entirely sure if I kept that promise. 

All the Girls, All the Girls, All the Girls, All the Girls, Camping Camping Camping Camping Camping Camping Camping Ging Gang Gooli-

In the west of Wales, there’s a small town called Llangranog. As a child growing up anywhere around Llangranog, in the last year of primary school you’d take a trip to the Urdd Gobaith Cymru. This is an activity centre that all the kids just call Llangranog because it’s so much easier. You get to stay away from home for 2 whole nights and take part in all sorts of different activities, like archery and dry-slope skiing. There was even a myth that the whole place was haunted by a spirit known as the Black Nun. However, when I was in year 6, we were disallowed from going to Llangranog. That year, they decided only to fund the students who were going to a specific high school, and I was not one of them. It still angers me even now.   

Well, here comes girl guiding to save the day. I’d wanted to go on guide camps for so long. It was so mature, to go on holiday with a group of your best girls? How could you not want that as a 10 year old? Anyway, after the first one I never wanted to go on one again. We went to a big field in west Wales known as Gorwellion, and the bus ride was honestly the most enjoyable part. Everyone was tingling with anticipation, and when you’re in such a small space as we were, the conversation covers the whole coach. We also used to do that cheesy singing on the bus thing, for real. It was awesome, I don’t know, just to be a part of something. 

Once we got there however, it rained non-stop for 3 days straight. I shared a tent with Sophia and Holly, the latter who by the last day was literally sleeping in a puddle. Since we were camping on a slanted field, all the rainwater just ran straight into her corner. We had to hike up a hill in the rain to refill our water supplies, shower, or go to the toilet, and since I was so lazy I literally gave myself my first ever water infection by not pissing or drinking for 3 days.

But, at the end of the day we’d all gather round a massive campfire, roast marshmallows, and sing songs. I didn’t do that many activities, I was a bit shit at archery, and when I made a t-shirt the lady didn’t give mine to me because I’d made two (we were only allowed to make one each although that was displayed uhhhhh nowhere), even though the first one had been destroyed by the printer. The leaders were often the worst part about guides. But the girls were 100% the best bit about that camp, and every other camp I went on. The funniest part was when Elizabeth drowned a wasp in the sink. Oh, and it was this guide camp where I made friends with the Daffodil girls for the first time, and we remained friends throughout high school. On the final morning, my dad picked me up and I was wearing every single piece of clothing I had taken with me. I was shaken, but not in shock, more like I had experienced a rebirth of some kind. And given myself a chronic disposition to UTIs. 

We camped at Alton towers once, which was as much a deep search of the self as it was incredibly enjoyable. Most guide camps imbibe an existential feeling of simultaneous contentment and dread onto a newly teenage girl. We were mostly allowed to run ragged, and the leaders just rounded us up every few hours to check we were alright. I found a nail in one of my hotdogs there, and the leaders actually followed it up with the staff. That was nice, but an odd choice of thing to defend me over. They were all nice to me except one, Sarah, whom I disliked immensely. I called her out for it on a World War II themed camp when we were giving the leaders nicknames. For her, I suggested ‘the mean one’. Not very creative, but she never picked on me again after that. Even when they thought it would be fun to play an air-raid siren at random times and have us all ‘evacuate’ outside. I got so fed up of it I ran out into the rain in my socks. They just laughed at me, but I ask you this Baden Powell, is it better to be alive with no shoes than dead with dry socks? 

Goodbye Girlguiding, You’ve Been…Superlative 

As usual, I took Guides for granted, just like I did with most of the other things I did and had as a child. When I first started Brownies, I had the dream of being a sixer. By the time I was 13 though, guides just wasn’t ‘cool’ enough for me. This was a tendency of mine to think that I somehow deserved better, and it ruined a ton of my childhood friendships. I quit to go to acting school with my other friends, which was a pointless choice as I had left that place within the year. I should have stayed in guides and become a sixer.

That amount of young girls in one place was a fabulous experience filled with mischief, but it was not always the nicest environment to be in. Interestingly, this was especially true when the older women got involved. It undeniably shaped me though – I found out what cool girls were in guides, and I became one. I really felt welcomed like I didn’t in any other club, and I’m glad I went for as long as I did. 

In many ways, my time in guides went completely against the original aims of Lord Baden Powell, and probably of my own leaders, too. However, I would not have it any other way. An 100 year old institution is going to be changed completely by the modern women who now inhabit it and choose how to push it forward. In our case, it was a bunch of feral tweens who were left to their own minimal devices and made bags of fun out of them. 

But, you know what? To this day, I am always prepared.