How the Girl Guides Won the War. Janie Hampton

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СКАЧАТЬ young ladies. Years later Olave wrote, ‘Guiding opened up new and appealing vistas to young females, visions of a life where women could face the world on equal terms with men, where they would be trained and equipped to cope with whatever emergencies might arise.’ The idea chimed perfectly with the growing demand for women’s suffrage. After centuries as second-class citizens, women were beginning to dream of freedom and equality with men.

      The First World War provided girls with an opportunity to show that they could be as good as, if not better than, boys. At the start of the war, Boy Scouts were employed as messengers at the London headquarters of Military Intelligence, MI5. But they were soon found to be ‘very troublesome. The considerable periods of inactivity which fell to their share usually resulted in their getting into mischief,’ stated MI5 report KV/49. On 15 September 1915, MI5 replaced the Scouts with Girl Guides, aged between fourteen and sixteen, who were entrusted to carry secret counter-espionage memoranda and reports. ‘They proved more amenable and their methods of getting into mischief were on the whole less distressing to those who had to deal with them than were those of the boys,’ MI5 reported.

      Within just a few months of the outbreak of war, silent films were made with such titles as The German Spy Peril, Guarding Britain’s Secrets and The Kaiser’s Spies. These featured rather stupid German villains, overcome by clever Girl Guides who trick them into giving themselves up, or falling off cliffs. Spy-mania was rife, with people looking under their beds or in woodsheds, and turning against anyone with a whiff of German ancestry.

      Before a Guide could start work at MI5, she had to sign a contract confirming that she had permission from both of her parents and the Guide Captain who had recommended her. She pledged with her honour not to read the papers she carried, and was paid ten shillings a week for fifty hours of work, with only a short lunch break. The Guides’ working day began at 9 a.m. and finished at 7 p.m., and as well as carrying messages they were responsible for keeping inkpots filled. Some were also trained to clean and repair typewriters. By January 1917 these select girls had been formed into a special MI5 Guide Company with its own Captain, with each Patrol assigned to a separate floor of the Military Intelligence headquarters. Every Monday afternoon they paraded across the roof of Waterloo House for inspection.

      Their enthusiasm could sometimes be too much, as Miss M.S. Aslin of MI5 Registry reported after working with Guides for several days. Commenting on one of the MI5 Guides, she described how ‘She speeds from floor to floor, bearing messages of good will, and no obstacle is too great for her to fall over in her devotion to this happy task. Released for the moment, she retires to her attractive little sitting room, where she reads and writes or converses quietly (?) on high topics with her friends.’

      All the women employed by MI5, of whatever age, education or competence, had to fight to be recognised as colleagues rather than regarded as mere skivvies. In ‘H Branch’, women were employed as secretaries (a new idea), to run the photographic section and to staff the switchboard. They also cleaned, cooked and drove cars. The Guides became so much a part of the fabric of the organisation that the journal edited by its female employees, The Nameless Magazine, featured a cartoon of four Guides sitting in their uniforms in a corridor captioned, ‘The Electric Bells having broken, the GGs (not the Grenadier Guards) sit outside Maj. D’s door in case he wants them.’ From 1915 to 1918, Girl Guides even took over from Scouts in the Postal Censorship office. In less than ten years since their formation, Guides had demonstrated to the establishment that girls were reliable members of society who could play useful roles beyond the purely domestic.

      It didn’t take long for other employers to realise that Guides were honest, trustworthy and loyal, and soon many factories only employed them. In some munitions factories, where safety was paramount, all the workers were Guides aged from fourteen up. During their lunch hour they would assemble in the factory yard and remove their working overalls and caps to reveal their Guide uniforms and their hair in long, single plaits. Their Captain wore a long skirt, navy blouse and white kid gloves to go with her felt hat and lanyard. They practised first-aid on each other, and learned new skills towards more badges. When the factory whistle went they would put their overalls and caps back on, and return to making armaments. Some employers paid for the Guides’ uniforms and outings. Even after the school-leaving age was raised to fourteen in 1918, there were still many working Guides: in 1921 the 9th Oxford Guide Company was registered in the Savernake glove factory off Botley Road.

      When the First World War ended, Guides were considered so reliable by the War Office that a contingent was taken with the British delegation to France. British Guides ran errands at the Palace of Versailles for the Paris Peace Conference in June 1919, and sixteen Ranger Guides were invited to witness the signing of the treaty.

      Five months later, Baden-Powell made a speech at a Guide peace rally in a packed Albert Hall. He told the 8,000 Guides present that it was small, unselfish deeds that led to peace and greater understanding between people. ‘Each of you can go further and take a valuable part in this great work,’ he said. ‘There is no doubt that you can do this. The only question is — will you do it?’ There was a resounding cheer in response: ‘Yes we can!’

      With so many men lost during the war, the Guide movement was a blessing for many young women who had been left with little chance of finding a husband. They had to learn to support themselves, and needed all the skills they could muster for employment. Child Nurse, Toy-Maker and Gymnast Proficiency Badges were all useful for future nannies; and before the introduction of the national driving test, Mechanic and Map-Reading Badges could lead to chauffeur or taxi-driving jobs. ‘The Artist’s Badge helped me to get a job designing toffee papers,’ said former Guide Verily Anderson. Not all badges meant hard work: for the Dancer’s Badge, ‘the Irish jig should be danced with plenty of spirit and abandon’, wrote Mrs Janson Potts in Guide Badges and How to Win Them.

      Among the proposed names for older Guides, aged sixteen to twenty-one, were ‘Citizen-Guides’, ‘Torchbearers’, ‘Eagerhearts’, ‘Pilots’, ‘Pioneers’ and ‘Guide-women’. Baden-Powell had a sound sense of marketing: he pointed out that a vague name, without any historical connotations, would be best, as it could acquire its own meaning. He suggested ‘Rangers’, and ‘Sea Rangers’ for those who lived near the sea or rivers. These young women were at ‘the age of fullest sexual development’, wrote Olave Baden-Powell to new Guiders, ‘when a real love for the out-of-doors can give her many healthy interests and a wholesome tone. Beware of any tendency of allowing the idealism of the age to be fixed on ourselves [leaders] with our human failings, which must inevitably disappoint.’

      Running Brownie packs and Guide companies proved an invaluable outlet for the energies of many unmarried women at a time when they were beginning to express a desire for equality. The Guide movement filled a gaping hole in contributing to social order, education and entertainment. Badges now included Landworker and International Knowledge, the latter requiring an understanding of the League of Nations and the International Labour Office. The ‘Badge of Fortitude’ was created in honour of Nurse Edith Cavell, who had been executed by a German firing squad in October 1915 for helping British soldiers to escape. This special badge was awarded to Guides with physical disabilities who showed extra fortitude.

      By the end of the war, relations between Olave and Agnes were still strained, and there was nothing Agnes could do to prevent her young sister-in-law from appointing her own secretarial staff, taking charge of the training department and writing her own book, Training Girls as Guides. When Olave was appointed first Chief Commissioner, and then in 1918 Chief Guide, Agnes had to throw in the towel and content herself with the title ‘the Grandmother of Guiding’.

      The following year, the Baden-Powell family settled down in Hampshire, in Pax Hill, a house big enough for entertaining, run by domestic servants, many of whom were young enough to be enrolled as Guides and Scouts. It was quite normal for the Baden-Powells to have up to 150 people to a garden party, with Guides providing country dancing. The three Baden-Powell children СКАЧАТЬ