Wolf Cub Scout Brownie Guide Person

A discussion with Christianne about hats dredged up some more memories, so here we go again! First, a little history for those of you who haven't read every single post I've made here.

Between the ages of three and ten, I lived with my mother in the home of two elderly, single sisters who were in their sixties at the time. The elder sister Kathleen had been my grandmother's close friend and when my mother needed a home for herself and her young daughter, she quickly offered us shelter. They had a large house, "Mayfield", half of which they had extended and converted into a nursery school/kindergarten in the 1930s, and they were still running it as a school when we lived there. The younger sister Louie also ran a Wolf Cub pack (5th Bexhill) which met weekly in the 'Big Schoolroom' downstairs (the two windows closest to the camera in the photo).

Of course, there were many activities organized for the cubs - camping trips, wilderness hikes and the annual outing to Baden-Powell House in London. I was taken along on many of these, as scouting was an important activity for Louie (pictured left). Perhaps this was when my tomboy identity was formed, as my immediate playmates tended to be "male members of the pack". I learned how to make a campfire, and cook baked potatoes overnight in the embers. I would pitch the pack's tiny tent in the back garden and pretend I was miles away in the country. I don't think I was supposed to use their equipment without asking, but I know I did on many occasions. Although I wasn't allowed off the property alone, there was threequarters of an acre of lawn, trees and vegetable plots for me to make believe I was deep in the heart of nature.

I would raid the chest where the uniforms were kept, and pick out a set for myself. The grey socks and elastic garters with the funny little protruding flag. The grey shorts and green sweater, red scarf tied with a woggle, and green peaked cap with yellow braiding. And of course, the badges. I would pick out the badges I felt I'd earned and sew them onto my sweater. I even sewed cub uniforms for my boy dolls, and embroidered badges for them, too! Sadly, I don't have actual photos any longer of myself dressed as a cub scout, but with my boyish short hair cut, at the age of 5 or 6 I didn't look very different from these boys pictured in the 1960s. No-one seemed to mind too much (as long as I put everything back undamaged) and I felt like I "fit in" when dressed that way. The pack's flag was too heavy for me to carry, but I tried my hardest!

When I was 7, I changed schools and my mother enrolled me in Brownies. Of course, everything changed. My hair grew longer, and was tied back in bunches, according to school rules. I wore a school uniform dress or skirt, in blue floral material. And of course, I had my Brownie uniform for meetings. Again, not me pictured! But this is from the year when I turned 10, and that was the uniform I wore. Brown dress that had to be ironed carefully before every meeting, and was really, really too short. Funny little yellow cross-over necktie thing. Thankfully, I had a brown beret and not the floppy hat as shown in this picture. But I felt ridiculous, and I never enjoyed myself at all. The other girls were not friendly towards me, and I was shuffled from one "Six" to another, to another (The Sprites, the Pixies, the Gnomes...) in an effort to get me socialized. I know my mother tired of replacing yet other Six badge on my uniform as it constantly changed. I did win quite a few badges for such female activities as sewing, knitting, cooking, taking care of the elderly, but there was no pleasure in it for me. I didn't "fit in" at all.

I refused to graduate into Girl Guides, and I think my mother was a little thankful that there was one less activity that she had to make sure I attended, especially as it was at this time that we moved out into a flat of our own, away from Kathleen and Louie. I know Louie was disappointed that I didn't continue in the Scouting tradition, but I was relieved. I did continue with an obsession on the details of the uniforms for each of the various Scouting branches, including those for overseas troops. But for myself, I was done.

Is there a moral, a lesson or even a point to this story? Not really. I never thought I was a little boy, or felt uncomfortable as a girl. I didn't really fall under any of the words in this post's title. (Well, I guess I was a Person. Or, as I said indignantly to my mother "I'm a people! I have brown hair and brown eyes, so I'm a People!") I just knew what I liked, and what I didn't like. And luckily for me, my mother had no problem with that at all. After all, she was very much the same...