‘Being alert’ is part of the job description for us Girl Guides – Susan Morrison

Just exactly how a bunch of teens skilled in the arts of birdwatching and formation marching were supposed to hold the gates of Buckingham Palace in the face of a Bolshevik-style uprising was never made clear, but such allegiance to the crown was a marvellous way of training up future Daily Mail readers.

Most young people’s groups then had that tang of the parade group about them. Hardly surprising given their wartime origins. The Boy Scouts were very proud of their genesis at the siege of Mafeking. Their founder, Baden-Powell, was impressed by the sight of little boys running along the battlement walls to deliver messages to officers in charge under the very noses of Boer snipers.

Now, we may have thought this a dangerous thing for young lads to be doing, but no, Baden-Powell considered this was just what the rough boys of the cities needed and came back to found the Boy Scouts, who could forever play in the woods pretending to dodge the bullets of the Boers. It was all jolly japes under canvas, singing around a campfire and knee-high socks.

This was all a bit Home Counties for the Scots. We’d already brought in the Boys Brigade, an altogether far more butch approach to the problem of what to do with the near feral lads of the Industrial Revolution cities. The BBs were tough. Their founder, Sir William Alexander Smith was a member of the local rifle militia and a Presbyterian Sunday School teacher. Let’s face it, Scottish youth would probably still respond to a Bible class leader.

The Boy Scouts went in for those shorts and socks, but the BBs went for an altogether more military ensemble, with Glengarry caps and white piped webbing. My brother was in the BBs. Every week he went off to meetings looking vaguely like a cheaply dressed extra for A Bridge Too Far.

Which brings us to the Guides. I was a rubbish Guide. My folks sent me because, that’s what everyone did then. You went to the Brownies, then you went to the Guides, where we worked to get badges to sew on to the tunic sleeves of our uniforms, which also involved hats, lanyards and woggles. Despite the passing resemblance to the women’s organisation of the armed forces, we worked to win proficiency badges in baking, housewifery and booklover.

We were all terribly alert. There seemed to be so much in the 60s to be alert about. The front page of the Daily Express was a constant froth of fury about Bolshie trade unions, possible Soviet invasions and imminent nuclear Armageddon. No wonder I went to bed with my Guide uniform laid out in case I, with my proficiency badge in ‘Being Alert’, was needed on the front lines like Boy Scout on the walls of Mafeking.

No wonder I didn’t sleep. It was a lot of responsibility for a 12-year-old.