Friday, 22 February 2019

Scouting For Orcadians

When I was a child, a group of us met up every Friday night and pretended to be gnomes, pixies and elves. Some ladies were there and we all pretended they were owls. Together, we sang songs, covered things with glitter and learned how to iron the shirts of our future husbands.


Occasionally, we would go on overnight trips to learn important survival skills such as sticking chocolate biscuits together with marshmallows, decorating bookmarks with pressed flowers and dancing to the soundtrack of Fame (possibly specific to our troup.)


And there were woggles. Oh Brownies and Guides, you taught me so much...


Today, in 1857, Scouting co-founder Robert Baden-Powell was born. Below are some images of Orcadian brownies, guides and scouts from the Orkney Photographic Archive. Click to enlarge.




A dapper 1929 jamboree. Light neckerchiefs - Shetland and dark neckerchiefs - Orkney.

Orcadian Brownies and Guides meet up to celebrate centenary of Scouting Association co-founder Robert Baden-Powell.






Some Very Serious Stronsay Scouts.


A Girl Guide troup - no date. Fourth from the left, front row has just remembered that she left the oven on at home.

1 comment:

  1. Love this post, and the serious Scouts! Haha! I'd look just like that, if I had left my oven on.

    In case anyone's curious, the book "Oppressions of the Sixteenth Century in the Islands of Orkney and Zetland," by David Balfour, is in the Smooth-Reading Pool at Distributed Proofreaders. I should read it--I know my Culbert ancestors came from somewhere in Scotland, and went to Ireland in the 1700s. But no records seem to exist that will help document this. Maybe this book would. I dunno--why don't I go read it and find out? ^_^

    Sue.

    ReplyDelete

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