feather_ghyll

Diana Takes a Chance: Catherine Christian Blackie
'First appeared a a serial in The Guide under the title of ‘London Venture’.

I actually prefer the title ‘London Venture’ to the more generic and not strictly accurate ‘Diana Takes a Chance.’ Diana Tremaine is ( Read more... )


For the purposes of tagging, I'm counting the Rangers as coming under the Girl Guides.

The Redheaded Patrol: Mrs A.C. Osborn Hann The Girl’s Own Paper (published before 31 July 1938)

I don’t do this often, but I’ll quote the opening and closing lines of this book:

It really was a most extraordinary coincidence. All the girls in the Scarlet Pimpernel Patrol had red hair! And nobody could manage them! Leader after leader had tried and given it up in despair! (p.9)

Now, whether my readers wish to hear any more of Judy and Gladys, and the other members of the Redheaded Patrol, depends entirely on the reception given to this book. (p. 176)

On the first, that’s three exclamation marks and on the second, that’s shilling for a sequel. (This reminds me that the next Oldmeadow that I intend to read is The Pimpernel Patrol.)

One of the greatest strengths of this book, ( Read more... )

How the Girl Guides Won the War: Janie Hampton Harper Press 2010
Read over July and August 2011

The war in question is the second world war, and while the book itself doesn’t really bear out the claim of the title, it does show the extremely important role that Guiding played during that period in Great Britain, the Channel Islands, Continental resistance movements, internment camps on the other side of the world and afterwards. It’s woven together from all kinds of sources – the most gripping are usually the words of the girls and women themselves, either recorded at the time or speaking with hindsight. ( Read more... )

I just watched the hour-long documentary 100 Years of the Girl Guides, which aired on BBC4 on Sunday on iPlayer, where it can still be watched by residents of the UK until Sunday night. Past experience suggests that it will be repeated on BBC2 at some point.

I was never a Brownie, Guide or Ranger, but read about them from enthusiastic proponents like Mrs Osborn-Hann, Ethel Talbot and Catherine Christian (or is it Christine Chaundler? perhaps both). The programme, a mixture of history with talking heads: former Brownies or Guides all, but some being celebrities or notables talking about their experienc/view of what they learned or women talking about certain experiences that they'd been through. It made me tear up, to be honest, ( Read more... ) Anyway, if you were/are one of the huge numbers who were/are involved in the Guiding movement, or just a reader like me, I'm sure you'd find it fascinating. There was no mention of guiding books, although they used clips of Guides' footage.

Of course, I always seem to come across Ethel Talbot, Bessie Marchant and Angela Brazil books because there are so many of them. I had some preconcieved ideas based on the title, Peggy's Last Term, that it would be about a prefect saying goodbye to her school and setting some young'uns right. But that wasn't the story at all. As I've reread Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince recently, ( Read more... ) I didn't need to read that story anyway. And that's the sort of story you'd get in a series, not as a stand-alone.

Peggy's Last Term: Ethel Talbot. Nelson

( Read more... )

Edited for typos and punctuation 7/6/10.