Sunday 22 July 2018

Cubs, Scouts, Girl Guides.



Above is my youngest's (Wills) self portrait 'sculpture' as a Cub in Uniform (aged 8).

Lady Magnon was a Girl Guide in Washington DC, and, somewhere, we still have her badge covered sash.

Both of them learnt how to light fires, remove stones from Horses hooves, and be good citizens.

Girl Guiding in the UK has recently turned a corner. No longer will girls receive badges for being a good Hostess, Knitting, or Cooking, they have now turned their attention to Festival going, Cocktail mixing, Protesting, Media criticising, and Human rights. No doubt the girls will also be required to be card-holding members of a Guides Trade Union, aa well as the Labour Party.


Maybe The WI will no longer make Jam, and The Mother's Union will, quite naturally, become the Indeterminate Sex Parent Union. Nothing is beyond the clutches of the PC brigade.

And don't even mention Rudyard Kipling's poetry!



43 comments:

  1. My husband was a boy scout that's where he learned to make a good BBQ fire.
    Happy birthday Cro!
    Greetings Maria xx

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    Replies
    1. I have no idea how you knew it was my birthday today, but thank you very much for your kind thoughts. Cro x

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    2. I always remember friends' birthdays xx

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    3. You're much more clever than me!

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  2. Happy Birthday Cro!! Enjoy your special day! xx

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  3. Happy Birthday baby brother. Have a great day.

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    Replies
    1. Probably a quiet one, but I'll do my best.

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  4. Let There Be Cake !
    Maria remembered and we get to send good wishes.

    cheers, parsnip

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  5. After Cubs I joined the Sea Cadets and discovered how to tie knots and do semaphore and Morse code. Those who could blew bugles and beat drums. We all marched, and some of us were often out of step. We were a rum lot. Many happy returns, Cro.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Gwil. I did my training in the CCF at school; mostly I remember cleaning kit, and firing machine guns.

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    2. You just reminded me. One day we got to go somewhere and actually shoot our rifles! I thought we only had them show . . . ;-)

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  6. My girls were sea scouts here, boys and girls. Lots of camping out on the beach, hiking up mountains, learning to smoke behind the clubhouse. Don't remember them getting badges at all. It was a great social club.
    Kronia polla. Many more birthdays!

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    Replies
    1. Sea Scouts does sound like fun. Anything to do with the sea (especially where you are) sounds perfect. I bet they loved it. Thank you for your greeting. x

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  7. I was a Brownie and a Girl Guide and I got quite a few badges !!! I don’t think I stayed long in the Girl Guides though ..... too many other things to do Once you get to about 12 !!
    .... and, many happy returns of the day Cro ...... have a good one 🎉🍷🍾🎂🍰 . XXXX

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    1. Lady M had lots of badges in the USA, mostly (I suspect) because her mother was in charge!

      Thanks for your kind wishes. x

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  8. I would have thought being able to mix cocktails was a requirement of being a good hostess.
    Happy birthday. Have a wonderful day. x

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  9. I don't see why cooking was taken off. Just put it onto the Scout roll as well. After all there may be more male chefs than female.

    As for the students removing 'IF' from public display I have yet to see anything non-PC in it at all. If more people lived to that code the world would be a much better place.

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    Replies
    1. I couldn't agree more about 'If'. Having read its replacement, I'm even more convinced that it should have stayed.

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  10. Happy Birthday Cro!

    I was a Venturer in my teens, where Scouts & Guides get to hang out together. I don't remember what badges were on offer but it was where I first kissed boys & drank illicit booze on weekend camping trips. So civic minded we were back then.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. More goes on in these institutions than the parents could ever imagine. But maybe that was a good thing.

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  11. A good change has happened here with Girl Guides being that they no longer do really girly things. Even my fairly girly niece enjoys the more 'male' oriented Sea Scouts.

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    Replies
    1. Perhaps this is a move towards Unisex scouting?

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  12. The sculptor got the head and neck just right.

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    1. He was only 8. The one he did of his older brother playing Cricket is much better.

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  13. Back in my day the Scouts and my brother went to the south of France and to Switzerland 'on camp', while the Guides went to Frinton-on-sea.
    Happy Birthday!

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  14. Many happy returns Cro, my only brush with the girl guides is sewing on umpteen badges on my grand daughter's shirt, every time they visit out come the badges.

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    Replies
    1. There should be a badge for 'Sewing on Badges', n'est pas?

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  15. I left the Girl Guides after being totally unable to 'do' semaphore, I went home, thought about it and decided I really didn't need to fret over it as I was highly unlikely ever to need it. The only other thing we seemed to do was National Dancing (and we wore highly unflattering black skirts around which we had had to sew lines of different coloured ribbon. I progressed to kissing behind the bike sheds and never looked back.
    Happy Birthday!

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    Replies
    1. At one of the schools I taught at (a girls public school), they did 'Greek Dancing' in an outdoor amphitheatre. Even back in the 1970's it seemed ridiculously old fashioned.

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  16. Why do you put the word 'sculpture' in single quotation marks? What else would it be called?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Modeling? Craft-work? Handi-work? I thought 'Sculpture' for an 8 year old sounded a bit fancy.

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    2. You don't have to grow up to be a sculptor. I am the living proof of this.

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  17. I was a Brownie and quite enjoyed dancing around toadstools but gave it up in the end because learning flags and knots was just so dull! Happy birthday!

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    1. Just think; if you were a Brownie today, you could learn how to protest and mix cocktails. Thanks for your wishes.

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  18. Happy birthday from one Cancer to another, if you are into that sort of thing. (Mine was a week ago). I think it is sweet that you've kept your son's sculpture all these years. -Jenn

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    1. I have two of them! They are treasured.

      No I don't go in for stars or star signs etc; but thank you for reminding me anyway. xx

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    2. Love the sculpture! In the (Australian) Guides in Begonia or was it the Galah? patrol, I had the Cooking, Astronomer, and Map Reading badges. Learned a lot including Morse Code, Semaphore, how to survive in the bush and deal with spider bites and loved it. Mixology? Good grief.

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    3. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but your badges sound far better than the new lot.

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