To ask if you were a brownie or a guide?

[Pavementworrier]

Apparently 1/3 of British women have been at one point

I LOVED Brownies

So many of my adult life skills are thanks to those badges

I was in the opposition....the Girls brigade 😅 i liked it till I was about 12, then had massive arguments with my mum cos I didnt want to go anymore. She finally relented when I was 13.
Once my 2 much younger sisters came along I think my mother (and father) seemed to stop bothering to actively parent, so they didn't have to do anything they didnt want to 😡

I was a Brownie, a Guide, a Young Leader and a Ranger. My sister pipped me to the post being a Queen's Guide. I used to do all of the random badges in Guides like Back Woodsman which challenged my leader quite a lot to find someone to test me. My camp name was Kookaburra because apparently I laughed a lot. I have an amazing memory for campfire songs (but little else) and my sister will phone and ask me about songs which I then relay over the phone with actions included, even though she cannot see me (Bumblebee, Aunty Monica etc etc). I loved camp, making "gadgets" from wood and string, the huge belltents, sitting in a ring and peeling potatoes, hanging Lietenants bra from the colours on the flag pole.

I was a Brownie and loved it. I remember I had the brown dress uniform and just a few months before I was leaving the new yellow jumper and brown culottes uniform came in and I really wanted it! Mum said no as I was leaving soon and had no younger sister to pass it on to. I was only one of two girls who still had to wear the brown dress by the end of my time there and I was mortified!

I went to Guides for a bit but not long enough for my mum to invest in the uniform. Aside from my ongoing uniform woes, my residing memory is watching a really scary video warning us not to drink too much alcohol and being terrified of hangovers for a very very long time.

I was a Guide briefly- first as a Canary and then I joined the school group as a Blue Tit. I was looking forward to the guide camp we were promised and my DM had got as far as buying me an enamel mug for the great event. However, just before camp, the Guide Leader, (our very eccentric Biology teacher), couldn’t go, so that was that!

I had enough of Guides after the same teacher insisted that one of us went to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday to represent the group and I was the one who cracked first. She also insisted that I went without a hat, coat, scarf or gloves, so I did, (although no one would have known if I had gone in a coat as she didn’t bother going herself!)

It was a bitterly cold day, freakishly so even for where I lived, and I fainted with the cold during the Two Minutes Silence, (something I didn’t actually know was possible!) I came to in an ambulance whilst being shouted at by a paramedic and a police officer for being a ‘stupid little girl to come out without your coat!’ It was in vain that I tearfully said my teacher had told me not to wear one.

That was it for me - I left!

I don’t think anyone’s quoted this one yet:

‘Twist me and turn me and show me the elf, I looked in the water and there saw…myself’ (That was when you were enrolled I think).

And the songs…

‘Oh you’ll never get to heaven in Brown Owl’s bra, ‘cause Brown Owl’s bra won’t stretch that far’

(We changed it to ‘would stretch too far’ because our Brown Owl was very buxom)

Loved brownies but hated guides - so stayed on as a helper with younger brownies
Later on when my DC were young I helped out with cubs and scouts

I was a Brownie. We bought our house from the Brown Owl when we moved towns and I think she enlisted my mum as she became Tawny Owl and me and my sister joined.

I was in both, but only because my mother made me go. I was a deeply unsociable, shy child who just wanted to be left alone to read and she thought it would be good for me. It wasn't, I hated it. I did learn some useful skills though. Eventually I got brave and told the Guide leader I wouldn't be coming again and my mother was furious. At least she never tried to force an activity on me again.

Attended brownies in the mid-late 80s and loved it, I was sixer of the pixies!
I have often spoken of some of my best childhood memories being at brownies, particularly when we camped for the weekend (in bunk bedded huts). My Dad was an alcoholic plus I had a toddler brother die so home life wasn’t particularly happy and brownies then guides gave me many happy childhood memories which I am very grateful for! I think I left guides when I was 14 as I was starting to go out (aka hanging on street corners or fields!) with friends.

My son has just finished beavers and is now at cubs and I attend as his 121 (he’s autistic and adhd) so am thoroughly enjoying the experience all over again with him.

I went to Brownies but didn't like it. I thought it was old-fashioned and sexist back then (80s). All we did was crafts and learn things like housework - how to iron, how to polish silver FFS.

My brother was a cub and went camping and learnt how to build a bivouac which looked more fun.

I dont know if it was just our pack that was like this?

The waiting list for Brownies was so long I didn't get in until about a term before I was too old and had to move up to Guides, who met immediately after on the same evening. I got to the first Guides meeting at the right time and the leader said 'Are you flying up or coming up?' and I hadn't a clue what she was on about. Totally baffled. As Brown Owl was leaving, she walked past and said she'd been really annoyed I hadn't come to my 'flying up' ceremony. I had apparently committed some awful faux-pas and because I'd scorned this important tradition, the guide leader was cross with me as well.

WTF? It upset me quite a lot, to be honest. Soured the whole thing.

My brother was a cub and went camping and learnt how to build a bivouac which looked more fun.

We did that at guide camp.

I loved camping with the guides.

Nah our was too (early 80s) - it's so easy to forget how sexist life was just a few decades ago.

I was a Brownie (a Pixie, a Sprite and a Gnome because I changed packs when we moved house) then a Guide (patrol leader of the Robins).

After a long gap, I then spent ten very long years as a Brown Owl.

The first (and only!) time I have ever pulled a sickie was when it was knot tying badge day at brownies. I found them really tricky, and my mum didn’t know it was a badge day, so I told
her I was too poorly to go…

The other week at Forest School with my toddler I had to ask for help doing square lashing and confessed this to the group leader who laughed in my face and showed me, very patiently, how to do it.

I still have my brown dress.

I went up to London to model the new uniform on a catwalk/runway in front of Princess Margaret. It was filmed for the Clothes Show. I thought I was the bees knees.

My 7yo DD has recently joined Brownies. She seems to enjoy it

I was a brownie. Never lasted long enough to go guides as I never stuck at anything

Never made it to Guides as I quit Brownies due to it being so lame!

Both Brownies and Guides for me. I loved collecting badges. Not entirely sure I remember anything I learned for the badges though, beyond polishing pennies for some reason!

Sixer of the Kelpies, patrol leader of the Wrens checking in. I loved it but I wanted to do a gazillion badges and the leaders never wanted to do that many.

We had a deaf girl in our Girl Guides pack so we all learned the BSL alphabet and some basic sign language. That was 4 decades ago and I still remember it all.

My daughter did Brownies and loved it. She did many badges and got her gold award. She had to give up guides as basically it was a bunch of young teenage girls running riot and she always ended up just chatting to the leaders cleaning and tidying everyone’s mess.

You'd be welcome back as a leader

I was a Brownie. Went to St John Ambulabce cadets rather than guides.

I was sixer in the gnomes as well!

I was a Kelpie. I really liked that part, and the rhymes, and the songs. But our brownies was so lame. I was fully expecting swallows and amazons camping, knot tying, midnight feasts, learning of skills, building fires, filling kettles carefully from lakes. But there was none of that at our one. They rationed the fun games to once a month as we’d all get too giddy. The hostess badge was lame enough, but we used boxed cake mix to make the toxic looking little fairy cakes. I was so embarrassed.

I finished brownies and never went on to guides. My younger sister went to scouts instead - they did much better things like kayaking. I am sure there were loads of great brownie groups but ours wasn’t one of them! At least I got to wear brownie uniform on st George’s day at school.

Our kids have done scouting all the way through, and it’s been fantastic. They don’t have to put their letters in their socks at the start of the evening “so they don’t forget to give them to their parents”. Grr.

In Ireland so brownie, bridgín (pronounced bridgeen) and guide, left guides after a short while as we had a lot of ‘Mean Girls’ in our patrol. (Shudders)