CURRICULUM VITAE
... in the beginning
... early years
... senior school days
... Girl Guides
... teenage friends
... the world of work
... getting married
... the Sheffield years
... on to Hertfordshire
... a change of direction
... so where are we now
... other trivial info
Girl Guides...
Around 1959, I joined the Girl Guides. The first troop I joined was at Cookridge. I think they were called the First Cookridge Guide Troop. I remember going to a camp at Knaresborough with them.
When we moved back to Headingley, I transferred to the 37th Leeds (St Michael’s) troop. I had a happy time in the St Michael’s Guides. We met at the church hall on Bennett Road — I think it was every Thursday evening. Our Captain was called Miss Bird. She and her twin sister lived at Ireland Wood. The younger Miss Bird was Brown Owl to a nearby Brownie pack. I think our Leffy was called Margaret Hails. I believe I was in Swallow Patrol. A few names I remember from Guides are Stephanie Hampson, Percy (whose real name was, I think, Jean), Mary Brown, Carol Jones, and Hilary Fenton. My patrol leader was called Elizabeth Walker. She was close friends with a girl called Maureen Whitehead.
After the weekly meeting, several of us could always be found at the chip shop, either Headingley Fisheries on North Lane, or Bryan’s Fisheries near to The Three Horse Shoes pub.
During my time as a Guide, the St Michael’s Guide troop went to an Easter indoor camp near Otley, to a summer camp at Sandsend on the Yorkshire coast, and eventually to a chalet in Switzerland just a few miles from the Girl Guides International Camp Headquarters. (This last camp was in 1963, the year of Mandy Rice-Davis and Christine Keeler. "Ah, you English; Christine Keeler — good eh", shouted the locals. We were aged about fourteen or fifteen at the time!)
Were you in, or do you know anyone who was in the Cookridge Girl Guide troop, or the St Michael’s Girl Guide troop in Headingley? Do you know any of my fellow Guides? Please e-mail me at sandramidgley1@gmail.com