Guiding logbook returns home after 84 years (From Knutsford Guardian)

Guiding logbook returns home after 84 years

11:50am Wednesday 18th March 2009

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AN 84-YEAR-OLD logbook written by a Girlguiding leader has been returned to the Knutsford area.

Officials from the district uncovered the document and gave it to the Jodrell Senior Section.

The logbook was written by Knutsford resident Doris Barrett during the first ever Guiding World Camp in 1924.

Jo Brown, the current section leader, said the book showed how times had changed.

“It was a lot more old-fashioned and refined then,” she said.

Officials are believed to have uncovered the logbook while they were searching through archives for material to celebrate Girlguiding’s centenary.

Mrs Brown was also shocked to discover Mrs Barrett had lived at the same house as her in Bexton Road, Knutsford.

“It’s just one of those strange coincidences,” she said.

The handwritten logbook details the experiences of the then Knutsford Rangers unit during the World Camp at Foxlease, in the New Forest.

Mrs Barrett, then a 20-year-old Brownies leader, wrote down what they did each day.

The journal also includes national newspapers’ photographs of the World Camp.

The World Camp took place just 14 years after Girlguiding began.

It was visited by Lady Olave Baden-Powell – the wife of the movement’s founder, Lord Robert Baden-Powell.

There are some similarities between that event and today’s World Camps. Members are still expected to help with cooking and other duties. But the activities were quite different. Mrs Barrett records lots of campfires, singing events and afternoon tea drinking.

The group of 14 to 25-year-olds, previously known as Rangers, meet once a month in different locations.

Girlguiding UK is preparing to celebrate its centenary next year with a camp for 10,000 members.

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