Susan has the right ingredients for Guides' shield tale (From Essex County Standard)

Susan has the right ingredients for Guides' shield tale

9:00am Thursday 7th October 2010 in Looking Back By Andrea Collitt

Girlguiding archivist Susan Leng has loaned her expertise following the publication of a photograph in the County Standard.

We published a photograph of 1st East Donyland (Rowhedge) Girl Guides as reader Derek Marshall was hoping to find out more about it.

Mrs Leng, county archivist for Girlguiding Essex North East, contacted us to say the shield was presented in 1924 by the Rev FH Surridge for a cookery competition.

“It is a large, beautifully carved wooden shield depicting aspects of cooking at Guide camp, which was quite a new feature of the girls experience at that time,” she explained.

“The shield was competed for biennially and the first two winners in 1924 to 26 were 1st Donyland Guide Company scoring 95 per cent and in 1926 to 28 they were also winners, this time scoring 100 per cent.

“The photograph must date from this period, probably 1926, when it was presented for the first time to 1st Donyland Guides, as the small silver plates with the winning Guide companies’ name and dates are not yet on the shield,” she added.

Mrs Leng said the youngest girls in the photo are the seven Brownies at the front.

They had probably just gone up to Guides after being Brownies and would have been about 11-years-old. They would be aged about 95 now.

* An Essex County Standard reader based in London has identified a girl guide who was pictured in the paper in our Looking Back pages.

Daniel Simons saw the photograph of the 1st East Donyland (Rowhedge) Girl Guides which was taken in front of Ferry House, High Street, Rowhedge.

Mr Simons believes the girl on the far left, holding the Union Flag, is his aunt Frances Simons, who was known by her middle name, Joan. She was born in 1916.