Hilary Gavin

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How I chose to avoid following the herd as an unruly Girl Guide

CREATING CHAOS: Why do I still feel like a bull in a china shop?
PIC CREDIT: iStock Igor Zakowski
Igor Żakowski – Ilustracja | Komiks | Projektowanie graficzne

By HILARY GAVIN

NOW we’re all aware that a “dutiful” Brownie or Girl Guide should “Be Prepared” for every eventuality in life – which is why I’d like to share a secret with you, I was never an exemplary Girl Guide in the early Seventies – in fact I was the polar opposite as “they” drummed me out after a week or so of joining my troop.

When I say “they”, I mean our Brown Owl (or Tawny Owl, or whatever she called herself back then) in Donnington, West Sussex, after my friend Rosalyn, who lived nearby, and I committed a truly heinous crime.

I should say that this isn’t a cock and bull story, but we’d raced ahead of our fellow Guides on a pathfinding exercise and, for some unknown reason, we decided to send them in the wrong direction by rearranging the twigs laid out as arrows on the ground.

Of course, I’d like to think our leader might not have expelled me, at least, from our troop if we hadn’t led the Guides to a field beside the Chichester Canal at Hunston that had a warning notice on the gate, saying: “Beware of the Bull”.

After half a century, I cannot for the life of me recall whether Rosalyn or I saw the bull in question in said field, but I remember lying on a grassy bank watching our fellow Girl Guides, and our leaders, scratching their heads in bewilderment.

We weren’t far away from the pathfinders, so I’ve no idea why they couldn’t hear our stifled laughter as we spied on them as they deliberated over whether to open the gate or not.

To be honest, it didn’t take the little grey cells of Agatha Christie’s Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot to deduce that we were the guilty parties and, to this day, I’m not sure if Rosalyn got given her marching orders from the Girl Guides like me.

I don’t believe I got a chance to defend myself by explaining my actions on that day before the Brown Owl either sent, or hand-delivered, my expulsion letter to my parents.

If I remember rightly this punishment didn’t faze my late Mum, and I don’t remember her chastising me either for a silly, mischievous schoolgirl prank – in fact, we most probably laughed about the whole incident together.

Unbeknown to me at the time, though, I think my Mum didn’t respect this Brown Owl because I later discovered that she’d gazumped my late Nan out of buying a house near our home.

Now, I’ve no idea whether the Brown Owl thought my folks would be mortified that I’d been expelled from the Guides. If she did, she was misguided as I remember feeling relieved that I didn’t have to attend Girl Guides ever again.

In truth, I’d quite enjoyed mucking in with my Brownies pack in Donnington where I was a Seconder in the rather derogatory named “Forget-me-not” pack, but I was approaching my rebellious teenage years and it had all got a bit too boring for me.

We’d never gone camping as a troop (or unit, as they’re now called) and all I really remember doing at Brownies was to dart from side to side, and up and down, the village hall as Brown Owl called out the nautical terms for a ship: “Port, Starboard, Bow, Stern”.

At the time, money was tight for my folks so I must have felt guilty that they’d bought my Girl Guide uniform for no reason. Saying that, they most probably got it second-hand from the Thrift Shop in Chichester and had quickly sold it back there.

By now, you’re possibly thinking why I am bringing up my Girl Guides’ expulsion in the Seventies on Remembrance Sunday 2025?

If you’ve read my Facebook page today, you’ve possibly gleaned that I wasn’t prepared for today’s parades in Chichester because the buses were diverted from the Litten Gardens War Memorial.

So, folks, I’d not done my homework and I’d ended up waiting for more than an hour at a Stagecoach bus stop that had been suspended this morning due to today’s events.

My bus from Chichester to Bognor Regis didn’t arrive, but every cloud has a silver lining (as the saying goes) because I got talking to two women, who were born around the same time as my late Mum, and had fascinating tales to tell about the Second World War.

To be honest, I found it refreshing because I’ve never been the “marching type” , taking commands from self-appointed sergeant majors barking orders at me. My mother wasn’t either – and my late Dad never attended RBL ceremonies post-war.

There’s little doubt in my mind that the war affected my late mother profoundly but I loved hearing her childhood recollections of these troubled times. I was captivated too by the two women who happily shared their memories with me today.

One of the women told me she’s been sent from pillar to post across Britain as a child evacuee from Shepherd’s Bush in London where she witnessed the Blitz, whilst the other woman said she’d lived in a village in Surrey which was targeted by the Luftwaffe.

Both these women were approaching their nineties but they were still sprightly so I felt privileged speaking with them. I asked them about the secret of longevity and we laughed a lot together.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that I felt like a valued part of the RAF family at the RAFA Club 381 today in Bognor Regis, despite my late Dad’s Second World War service, and after the Chinook helicopter flew over the town’s pier. The less said about this, the better, I’d say.

Still, I spent a lovely hour or so talking to a friend and listening to live music at the Dog and Duck pub opposite the now-empty Landing Place restaurant on the seafront. What on earth happened with the town’s re-imagined Royal Hotel? Any clue, anyone?

There’s little doubt that Britain is now well and truly a divided country of the “haves” and the “have-nots” so I, for one, question what my late Dad, and his fellow youthful servicemen and servicewomen, were fighting for back in the 1940s.

At this point in my life, I don’t have the money to fork out for costly taxi fares so I felt rather hard-done-by as I waited for buses today.

Still, my mood changed once more later today when I met two delightful women on the bus from Chichester to a Stagecoach bus stop near my home in Hunston. You could tell these women were good friends, despite being born into different generations, and I felt honoured when they both shared romantic family wartime stories that had been handed down to them.

I hope the four women I met and chatted with today get a chance to chronicle the fascinating tales that they began telling me because social history – and our shared humanity – helps bind people from across the globe together rather than dividing them.

Copyright, November 9th, 2025

Hilary Gavin

A freelance journalist who wants to see a return to public accountability in the local press

Hilary Gavin

Journalist & Writer (see other pages)

6 Southover Way

Hunston

CHICHESTER

West Sussex

PO20 1NY

email: grumpywoman@hilarygavin.blog

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