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smallhobbitAs part of the 100 years of Brownies Challenge, last week we looked at life for Brownies during the war, especially those in the cities. My mother was 10 in 1940 and living in London, so I took some of what she told me and we used that to create an acted story for the girls. We began by preparing for an air raid, with two sixes having air raid shelters in their gardens whilst the other two had to go to a communal shelter. Sparkly Owl blew her whistle (we didn’t have a siren) and they had to grab what they needed. They had to choose the correct items from all those written on pieces of paper. Points were given for taking the correct things and points lost for taking the wrong things.
But unfortunately their house was bombed (my mother’s house wasn’t actually hit, but the bomb landed on the gas main and all the house windows blew out.) So the girls were to be evacuated. They were given a picture of a suitcase and told to put in it all they thought they would need. They then filled out their name labels and went to the train station with their friends to be sent away to the country. At which point the billeting ladies split them up and put them with people they didn’t know. One of the billeting ladies was very brusque, pointing to them and telling them to sit down and be quiet. (My acting abilities may not be brilliant, but they were effective, they were amazingly quiet.)
Lastly, we explained to them a bit about what it would be like living away from home and gave them postcards to write home. Some of them wrote really lovely postcards, saying that they had made a few friends, although it was all very strange, and asking their mothers if they’d heard from Daddy (who would have been away fighting of course).
Acting out what was happening seemed to work very well – certainly kept them involved. One of our new Brownies told me at the party that she’d really enjoyed the evacuation. Funny what they like. The really funny bit was when one of our Brownies looking from the small hall we were in to the big hall that we’d left (on the train) saw one of the lights half fall out of the ceiling – clearly it had been hit by a bomb.
100 plus Brownies in a village hall on a hot summer afternoon could have been horrendous, but actually it went well. We iced biscuits, we played parachute games and pass the parcel, we made badges and bracelets and they had a drumming workshop. Drumming was in groups of about 26 – you can imagine the noise. They thought it was great fun; we were glad it was sunny and we could do several of the other activities outside. Not sure what the cricketers thought.
Half way through there was a break for a drink and one of our Brownies was sick. Joy of joys. She’d probably got too hot, since we’d spent the first half of the afternoon outside. So, to the sound of our Brownies (plus another pack) drumming away Brown Owl and I cleaned up. Such is life. However, even this did have a positive side. Immediately after L was sick all the Brownies (from 7 packs) went outside to wait for their next activity. I told one of our older girls to make sure our pack stayed together and they did, despite being by themselves. So when I went to find them to take them to the drumming it was easy – I was really proud of them.
All our girls (apart from L who was okay when Nan came for her) had had a good afternoon and enjoyed the activities. I’d have liked to have seen more mixing between packs, but given the lack of organisation (three days earlier the leader had said ‘the cake will serve 40’ to which the reply was ‘what about the other 60 girls?’) staying with our own girls was so much easier. I wouldn’t aware many points to the District, but Kingsway Brownies did well.
Tonight we went to the SkillZone. This is an educational site that has a full size house, with kitchen, sitting room, bathroom and bedroom full of hazards; also a bedroom that has been burnt out. There’s a proper bus. A road to cross in safety. A dark alleyway, which was too scary for some of the Brownies. A police custody suite and a courtroom. And other things which we didn’t have time to explore. A really excellent educational tool for staying safe, because instead of looking from the outside in you are actually there experiencing it – apart from the dark alleyway because I had to stay with the ones who didn’t want to go down it. I don’t think any of them will go home without having learnt something.
But unfortunately their house was bombed (my mother’s house wasn’t actually hit, but the bomb landed on the gas main and all the house windows blew out.) So the girls were to be evacuated. They were given a picture of a suitcase and told to put in it all they thought they would need. They then filled out their name labels and went to the train station with their friends to be sent away to the country. At which point the billeting ladies split them up and put them with people they didn’t know. One of the billeting ladies was very brusque, pointing to them and telling them to sit down and be quiet. (My acting abilities may not be brilliant, but they were effective, they were amazingly quiet.)
Lastly, we explained to them a bit about what it would be like living away from home and gave them postcards to write home. Some of them wrote really lovely postcards, saying that they had made a few friends, although it was all very strange, and asking their mothers if they’d heard from Daddy (who would have been away fighting of course).
Acting out what was happening seemed to work very well – certainly kept them involved. One of our new Brownies told me at the party that she’d really enjoyed the evacuation. Funny what they like. The really funny bit was when one of our Brownies looking from the small hall we were in to the big hall that we’d left (on the train) saw one of the lights half fall out of the ceiling – clearly it had been hit by a bomb.
100 plus Brownies in a village hall on a hot summer afternoon could have been horrendous, but actually it went well. We iced biscuits, we played parachute games and pass the parcel, we made badges and bracelets and they had a drumming workshop. Drumming was in groups of about 26 – you can imagine the noise. They thought it was great fun; we were glad it was sunny and we could do several of the other activities outside. Not sure what the cricketers thought.
Half way through there was a break for a drink and one of our Brownies was sick. Joy of joys. She’d probably got too hot, since we’d spent the first half of the afternoon outside. So, to the sound of our Brownies (plus another pack) drumming away Brown Owl and I cleaned up. Such is life. However, even this did have a positive side. Immediately after L was sick all the Brownies (from 7 packs) went outside to wait for their next activity. I told one of our older girls to make sure our pack stayed together and they did, despite being by themselves. So when I went to find them to take them to the drumming it was easy – I was really proud of them.
All our girls (apart from L who was okay when Nan came for her) had had a good afternoon and enjoyed the activities. I’d have liked to have seen more mixing between packs, but given the lack of organisation (three days earlier the leader had said ‘the cake will serve 40’ to which the reply was ‘what about the other 60 girls?’) staying with our own girls was so much easier. I wouldn’t aware many points to the District, but Kingsway Brownies did well.
Tonight we went to the SkillZone. This is an educational site that has a full size house, with kitchen, sitting room, bathroom and bedroom full of hazards; also a bedroom that has been burnt out. There’s a proper bus. A road to cross in safety. A dark alleyway, which was too scary for some of the Brownies. A police custody suite and a courtroom. And other things which we didn’t have time to explore. A really excellent educational tool for staying safe, because instead of looking from the outside in you are actually there experiencing it – apart from the dark alleyway because I had to stay with the ones who didn’t want to go down it. I don’t think any of them will go home without having learnt something.
