The meetings were on Friday nights, and there were four patrols - including Robin and White Heather. We played some team games and did badge work, mainly in patrols and, of course, always ended the meetings with prayers and TAPS. For outdoor activities (mainly in the summer) we had free access to the Rectory Paddock (the new Rectory occupies the area now) and spent many happy hours doing nature study, tracking and practising fire lighting and cooking (not always very successfully). There were regular church parades on the second Sunday in the month - with Brownies, Cubs and Scouts, and other groups of Guides, Scouts, Cubs and Brownies for St George's Day parade each year and for the town Remembrance Sunday parades. I think there was also an Empire Day district parade and an annual St Mary's Sunday School Parade in June or July when bunches of flowers were taken to Church and we helped to distribute them afterwards. We also helped at the Garden Fete in June each year. Normally our job was to sell ice-cream (home-made from Skinner's sweet shop) and soft drinks.

There were District competitions and a swimming gala in the summer in the open air baths in Station Road.

For some years the Guides and Brownies put on an annual concert in the Institute in Robinson Road. The main organiser of this was Brown Owl (Nora?).

At one stage in the war (1944 - flying bomb time?) we were asked to help when evacuees from London were brought to Rushden. They arrived in coaches and were taken to Newton Road School. Our job was to help them with make-shift beds on the floor in the classrooms and help distribute drinks and food. More permanent billets were arranged later.

Because it was war-time there were no camps until 1945 or 1946, but I did go to one week-end District camp at Castle Ashby. There was a big Guide hut there in one field and we were allowed to camp there and in the field above the lake and use the woodland there as well. The camp was run by the District Commissioner, Mrs Tarrant, who ran Irthlingborough Guides and six of us from St Mary's attended. We slept in bell tents on straw palliasses which we had to fill ourselves when we arrived. Of course, cooking was over an open fire, so collecting wood figured largely in our activities.

Just after the war - in 1947 - there was an International Camp at Nottingham and I was fortunate enough to be asked to go to represent our District (Higham Ferrers District). It was a great experience to meet Guides from other areas and countries (diary enclosed).

Saturday 19th July Left home en route for camp at 11.30, plus kit-bag and ruck-sack. Linked up with four other Guides from Northamptonshire. After a two-hours wait in Nottingham, we arrived at Elton at 6.0pm and were met and taken to the camp by Miss Musson. After checking in I trotted off to Group III – alone as my companions were all in Group IV. I was met by a Guide – Elizabeth – and taken to a tent, and afterwards helped to erect more tents, and the marquee. Then supper – salad, bread and jam, and tea. Patrol leaders were chosen, and patrols arranged. In this group were Guides from Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, as well as myself, and a Peterborough Guide, from this county. I acquired my camp name – Katy – as there was already a Kathleen, and a Mary. We then had a camp-fire with group IV, to learn new songs and practise old – I certainly learned a good many! This was interrupted by the spectacle of a cow doing its best to get into Lofty’s tent. Final damages proved to be a tablet of soap, and half the container. We ended the camp-fire with ‘Taps’ and retired to our tents to prepare for bed. By twelve o’clock, the entire camp was asleep, but not snoriong!

The page from her diary

St Mary's Guides - 1952-1965

I was invited to become Captain of the company when I came back to Rushden to start teaching. The company still met in the stone building on the corner of Coffee Tavern Lane, and we still used the paddock for outdoor activities. Much of the Guide programme, badges, parades, competitions, etc. was the same as when I had been a Guide myself.

St Peter's Guides and Brownies were still active, the Guides under Mrs Joan Gibbard and the Brownies under Margaret Shelton. Both of them continued to lead for some years after I retired, and Mrs Gibbard was also District Commissioner for a long time, and Margaret Shelton was County Secretary.

In 1952 (or 1953?) Miss Jackson, the County Camp Advisor, decided to get more leaders licensed to run camps, and so three local companies, ours, St Peter's and Finedon, all went to the Guide Camping Centre in Sussex - Blacklands Farm - to camp for a week under Miss Jackson's supervision. The next year we each ran a camp independently, but were closely inspected before being awarded our licences. After that, we at St Mary's camped regularly each summer, and sometimes for a weekend or so at different times. There were not many local Guides who could spare their holiday time for week long camps, so I was lucky that a colleague at school - Gill Rattray - was a keen Guider, and had a friend who was also keen to join us at camp - Jean Baldwin. Jean qualified as a QM and Gill as First Aider/Life saver.

We usually chose to camp on farms, tucked away from main roads and towns, where we were really "away from it all".

I attach a list of camps, but am not now certain of the order in which they came - Blacklands Farm - definitely No. 1, Overstrand in Norfolk - definitely No. 2

August 1957. Derbyshire near Bakewell (Cronkstone Grange) (we had torrential rain for the first few days and the farmer allowed some Guides to sleep in his hay loft, and let us do some cooking in the farm kitchen)

August 1959. Malvern Hills
August 1958. Williton in Somerset
near Tetbury, Gloucestershire
near Nailsea
NOHS, Kingston-on-Soar,
Hampshire
Oxfordshire
Northamptonshire, near the Banbury Lanes

Most camps involved days out, camp fires and for the patrol Leaders/seniors a midnight hike! There were also some week-end or short breaks, mainly for Patrol Leaders and other senior Guides at Castle Ashby, near Ludlow on the Welsh border and at Barn well. Also we joined an International Camp at Castle Ashby with other Guides from the District and county. Our section linked up with some Dutch Guides. At first we had to borrow tents and other equipment, and the Scouts were very kind in lending these. Later, we managed to buy our own - raising money mainly through Jumble Sales and Beetle Drives with the help of a very good Parents' Committee. Mr Bates, a carpenter, father of Elizabeth, a Guide, made us some good toilet cubicles. A great many Guides' names come to mind - many of them gained First Class and Queen's Guide badges. The first Queen's Guide (fairly soon after the introduction of the badge) was Mary Chisholm, who went on be a Cadet. There were so many others including: Joy Clayson (also a Cadet for a while), Linda Miles, Gillian Wilce, Victoria Maidwell, Dorothy and Megan Morris, Ann Haddon, Mary Ekins, Gill Hardwick, Janet Peasgood, Gillian Tattersall, Jane Crawley, Christine White, Josie White, Yvonne Travill and Sue Cumberpatch (Eagles).

Many now moved away, I think. Other names - very active - first class: Judy Perkins, Pat Ferguson. Margaret Cook, Paula Nunley, Judy Gell, Kathleen Giles, Ann Haddon, Marilyn Bloor, Sheila Chettle (who became Lieutenant while I was still Captain, and stayed with the company for some time after I retired), Janet Pipes, Rosemary McVarish, Daphne Tear and Maureen Groome (Dickens, married name, I think she died). St Peter's leaders still living locally: Guides, Pam Rawlins (nee Knight) and sister Joan Palmer. Brownies, Margaret Whiting.