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Original poster

To ask if you were a brownie or a guide?

204 replies

Pavementworrier · 08/12/2025 22:32

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

OP posts:
Itsallsostressful · 09/12/2025 08:14

Yip was in both...Sixer in the Brownies (Pixies) and Patrol Leader in the Guides (Red Rose) 😊

BestIsWest · 09/12/2025 08:16

Pixies sixer and Snowdrop guide here. Loved it until it was moved to Thursday night and clashed with TOTP. Absolutely hated camping though.
DD did both too.
I agree with pp, scouts pace very useful when running for the bus.

LadyMacbethssweetArabianhand · 09/12/2025 08:17

I was a Brownie and a Guide. I enjoyed Brownies and guides until I was 14 then didn't get on with the leader so left. I don't think I learned any skills I used in later life.

TheGreatBugsy · 09/12/2025 08:20

Loved Brownies and was a Sixer. Loved Guides until we moved to a new town. The girls in the new pack were horribly bitchy and I left after a few months. I really missed it.

museumum · 09/12/2025 08:20

Brownie guide and ranger. (Rainbows didn’t exist back then). My first trip abroad was with rangers. I got my queens guide. As a poor kid from a poor area my guiding experiences really helped me fit in better at my posh uni where everyone seemed to have had a gap year and be so well travelled.

DanceWithYourBalloon · 09/12/2025 08:25

I was a Brownie just as they ditched the brown dress and bought in the yellow jumper and khaki culottes. I was gutted as I wanted the brown dress.

I was a Scottish Kelpie and still have my sash.

The hostess badge was earned by serving my Nan a cup of tea and putting some flowers in a vase.
also the life saving badge was earned by pretending to swim across the hall floor with a rope over my shoulder! 😂

I also remember dancing around a toadstool, making salt dough Christmas decorations, and creating pictures by glueing beans and lentils to paper.

I’d love to get my hands on the Brownie Guide Handbook again.

Natsku · 09/12/2025 08:34

Elsvieta · 09/12/2025 07:05

I was in Girls' Brigade. Can't really remember what we actually did now, apart from military-style drill and learning to play the bugle. Are they still going?

I was in Girls' Brigade too. Enjoyed drill but my brothers were in the Boys' Brigade and they seemed to do much more interesting things. It was all rather too religious too.

My children went to/are in Scouts, which I much prefer. DS just made his Scout Promise at the weekend and they did a version without god in, instead promising to grow in their own beliefs, even though the group is run by the church so really quite religious still. But they get to do much cooler camps than I ever did in Girls' Brigade, and use proper Scout knives (not penknives, hunting knife style knives)

EBearhug · 09/12/2025 08:35

All these people talking about jumping over a toadstool - we never had thst. We didn't have songs either. We did stand in a circle and say "welcome, welcome, welcome" while alternatively clapping hands above head, hands behind back for new members, and we also did the clapping thing with "thank you, thank you, thank you," at various times.

scaredfriend · 09/12/2025 08:38

Brownie for the full 3 years, which I loved. Joined the Guides but left after a year or so.

Iloveagoodnap · 09/12/2025 09:20

Started Brownies at just turned 7 and left at 11.5 to move up to Guides. I did enjoy Brownies but didn’t like my Brown Owl. She was very particular about things and woe betide anyone who didn’t attend the monthly Church Parade service. She berated you for it in front of everyone unless you had a really good excuse. Plus to earn a badge she made you do loads of work and then had to get an independent ‘tester’ to verify you’d earned it. So none of us earned many. I found it a bit babyish by the time I moved up. In those days I think you had to be 11 and I wasn’t allowed by Brown Owl to go to Guides until 11.5. I loved Guides. The leader was much nicer and we did loads of crafts and things that to me seemed much more grown up. Then when I was coming up to 13 the rules changed to let Brownies move up to Guides at just turned 10 and when the new ‘little ones’ started coming up we started playing lots of games and things and I found it too babyish and like Brownies so left. I helped at a local Brownies pack from 16-18 and my daughter did Rainbows and is currently a Brownie. In some ways I think Brownies was better in my day. Went to daughter’s promise ceremony and there was no turning round in front of a pond or any origin story etc. And no one earning their Hostess badge by serving tea and cakes to the parents!

scalt · 09/12/2025 09:32

I mentioned it on another thread recently, but in an overnight trip with WF, my dad came as a helper, sleeping in a boys' dormitory (unthinkable now!), and suddenly took me home after only one night. He explained why, many years later: some of the teenage helpers were having sex with each other in the children's dormitories in the daytime, and some of the children knew this.

AnneElliott · 09/12/2025 09:34

Yes was both a brownie and a guide. Although joined scouts when they went co-ed

itsthetea · 09/12/2025 09:36

Did brownies for a few years
loved the uniform
disappointed in the lack of real brownies

TheNightingalesStarling · 09/12/2025 10:17

I do find it slightly amusing that Brownies dropped Hostess and similar..... but my Cubs still have to learn household skills such as making a Cup of Tea correctly if they want to achieve Chief Scout Award.

badkitty · 09/12/2025 11:32

I was a Brownie and liked it - loved the Brownie Guide Handbook, all the badges etc. My pack was a bit lame though and we never went on camps or anything, unlike a friend from a different area whose mum was Brown Owl and organised amazing themed camps each year. Then went to Guides where we did do a couple of camps but the leaders were miserable and my main memory is of that HORRID uncomfortable uniform with the nasty blue a line skirt. I think I left after a couple of years. It all depends so much on the leaders - my DD went to one session of Rainbows which was SO BAD (I know because she insisted I stay!) that she refused to have anything to do with it again, instead she (and most of her friends) followed her brother to cubs and then scouts and have had an amazing time, fantastic camps, expeditions etc. It’s a shame that round here the cubs/scouts programme seems much better - the girls are massively outnumbered by boys in their troop but still prefer it.

BiddyPopthe2nd · 09/12/2025 12:35

Yes, I was a guide. Then a Young Leader. (But not until secondary school as no group near me for primary).

I joined the Scout and Guide club at Uni, which lead to becoming a Leader in a Venturer Unit in Scouts. And later became a Leader (eventually Section Leader, and also Group Secretary) for a Cubs Unit in a different Scout Group.

I learned a LOT in Guides that I still use - and while I am supposed to be teaching these skills as a Leader, I’ve found I have kept learning as well from other scouters and also from the young people themselves and their different outlooks on life.

I am in Ireland though so we never swore allegiance to the monarch but promised on our honour to do our best to do our duty to “(my) God and my country”.

And I still have friends I made in the movement more than 30 years ago, many who I would probably not have come across otherwise.

mindutopia · 09/12/2025 12:56

I was a brownie and a guide.

Unfortunately, I had dd do two different rainbows groups and they were both absolutely rubbish. No more, we left and didn’t look back. Thankfully, or we’d be leaving now anyway.

Both mine have been very happy in Scouting instead.

topcat2014 · 09/12/2025 13:08

MsRinky · 08/12/2025 22:40

Nope, my dad is Irish, we weren’t swearing allegiance to the Queen. I went to Woodcraft Folk.

There are choices of promises in Scouts now. I'm sure Guides is similar

RaininSummer · 09/12/2025 13:10

I was a a brownie, a guide and then a venture scout. I was a brownie helper too as young mum.

florafoxtrot · 09/12/2025 13:12

A rainbow, brownie and a guide. DD recently did her brownie promises and I was able to recall all the songs and the bit with the toadstool. It made me really emotional.

I enjoyed it, and DD absolutely loves it.

Original poster
Pavementworrier · 09/12/2025 13:34

DanceWithYourBalloon · 09/12/2025 08:25

I was a Brownie just as they ditched the brown dress and bought in the yellow jumper and khaki culottes. I was gutted as I wanted the brown dress.

I was a Scottish Kelpie and still have my sash.

The hostess badge was earned by serving my Nan a cup of tea and putting some flowers in a vase.
also the life saving badge was earned by pretending to swim across the hall floor with a rope over my shoulder! 😂

I also remember dancing around a toadstool, making salt dough Christmas decorations, and creating pictures by glueing beans and lentils to paper.

I’d love to get my hands on the Brownie Guide Handbook again.

I did not like the uniform change either! Although it was apparently popular and there doing a revamp of the 1990 version now. I chose the culottes and did NOT carry them off well.

OP posts:
Serencwtch · 09/12/2025 13:37

Hated brownies, never tried guides.

Loved pony club & young farmers.

ToffeePennie · 09/12/2025 13:39

Yes, and a ranger.
I started off in roses, then rainbows, brownies, guides, ranger guides, young leader. I was going to be the scouts leader too, until it was made very clear that I was not wanted.

TreeDudette · 09/12/2025 13:40

I was a Brownie, Guide, Young Leader and briefly a Leader and Beaver Scout Leader. I went to International Camp in Austria as a teen. I still use some of the knots and rope work, the orienteering etc.. I really only dropped out of it due to the religious aspect at the time. I think it's gone much more secular these days but my DD is too old to join and I don't have the time or energy to devote to being a good leader.

Original poster
Pavementworrier · 09/12/2025 13:44

I just think it is such a good and benevolent thing. I should really make an effort and try to contribute to it somehow. Maybe when I'm retired.

🦉

OP posts: