A retired Brown Owl

You have an abiding love for the Brownies and the Guides, haven't you Anne?

Yes.

What age were you when you joined up?

In those days you weren't allowed into the Brownies until you had reached the age of seven, and you left at 11. You went into the Guides at 11.

I suppose you couldn't wait to be seven years old...

I could not! My sisters had been in the Brownies too, you know.

Right. So, were you the baby of the family?

No. Alastair was the oldest in the family, then there was Alice and Joyce and myself. The three of us, and I had a brother who emigrated to New Zealand. So, the two boys were in the BB and the three girls were in the GB.

Were you the youngest of the girls, then?

Yes, I was.

So you couldn't wait to catch up...

That's right, I could not wait to catch up! (Laughs] I just wanted it so much and the Brownie uniform appealed to me, too.

It was a 'proper' uniform in those days wasn't it? Did you have the little yellow cravats that crossed over at the front and were fixed with a badge?

No, we had...this was ours (reaches for a black and white photograph]. We had a proper tie that was made from a triangle. Guides wore these as well and you could have used the triangle as a bandage or for any kind of first aid.

Oh right. So you could take your tie off, unfold it and use it to support a broken arm of something?

Or as a bandage or anything like that. We used to teach them how to do the bandaging of an arm or a leg and using a reef knot.

So, when you were seven you finally got into the Brownies, then?

I got in. I already knew quite a lot about them because I had two sisters in before me. I like them and I enjoyed it. We had a very nice Brown Owl.

Can you remember her name?

Yes. Miss Colhoun.

Where was your pack based?

Great James' Street. I was with Great James' Street Presbyterian Church and Miss Colhoun was the Brown Owl and Miss Fulton was the Guide Captain. Then through time Miss Colhoun gave it up and Maureen McConnell took it on. That's Maureen McConnell that's in that photograph (points to a black and white photograph], and I helped her in the Brownies as a Pack Leader.

A Pack Leader?

I became a Pack Leader I suppose in the last six months of the Brownies, but then I came back from Guides to help out as a Pack Leader, and then at 18 I became a Tawny Owl.

Now, what's a Tawny Owl?

A Tawny Owl is next after the Brown Owl. The Brown Owl is the top person.

The boss?

Exactly, and the Tawny Owl would have taken over if anything happened if the Brown Owl wasn't able to attend.

Are they the only two 'officer' roles in the Movement?

Yes.

So you were a Guide as well?

Yes. At 11 we 'flew up' to Guides. Now, that meant if you passed your test in Brownies and you took your 'Promise', then you could go on and do your hostess Badge or knitting or swimming or things like that. That was a big thing for us, flying up to the Guides.

Is that the official words for it?

The flying up, aye. The Brown Owl or the Tawny Owl would be there and the Brownies would be singing 'Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye. We were glad to have met you, we shan't forget you. Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye.' There was a toadstool and we 'flew' out of the ring and up to the Guides who had a horseshoe formed and we were received by the Guide Captain into the Company.

Wow! That was a really big occasion. Did you cry?

Ehm, I don't think I was very far off it! I knew I was coming back to the Brownies again, you see, as a Pack Leader.

What was the attraction of joining in the first place?

The attraction of the other girls that we knew, there was a good competitive spirit between everybody and if anybody got a badge we were all ears and eyes to see what they did. Mrs Eaton was the County Commissioner and she would have passed the First Class Brownies in their badges. One of them they used to do was they went to her house and they lit the fire, made a cup of tea and something for her and she sat down to tea with them. She used to say it was nice to see them all and most of them were very good.

Did you ever go away on day trips or anything like that?

Yes, but there was no camping with the Brownies. We took them away for days. I remember my father had a boat down on the river and he took me and the Brownies down to Culmore Point in the boat and we got off and we were playing games. Some of the parents went by bus or whatever, and we would have had a games day. We came back by boat and the Mayor met us at the Quay. Another day the late Billy McKee, who was the engineer in the Water Department, he made arrangements for us to take them out to Carnmoney Water Works, and we had a big day out there. It was a big picnic outside, that was when I was with Carlisle Road Methodist Brownies.

How did you get to become a Brown Owl?

I was helping Maureen McConnell in Great James Street and the Brown Owl in St Augustine's on the Wall was leaving to get married and they had not got another person to take it on. So, Mrs Eaton asked me if I would consider going to St Augustine's, so I went up there, and liked it. They got somebody in St Augustine's while I was there and she helped me, and then I left there and started a completely new Pack on Carlisle Road at the Methodist Church. that was a nice church and there were nice people in there, you know? You just had to ask for something and you got it. I usually put on a Parents' Evening every year and I never had to supply anything.

Did you ever have any disasters with the girls forgetting their moves or anything?

No. Not really. I would have brought them to my house if they had to do tests, just to put them through it. I think I was more severe on them doing test work than Mrs Eaton would have been. This is a wee story happened to me: the lady who is now co-ordinator in Foyle Fold, is Mrs Dunn, and I went down one day to visit a lady and Dorothy Dunn opened the door to me. She said 'You were my Brown Owl' and she said 'I didn't like you'. I asked 'Why, what did I do on you?' She said 'You failed me'. So I asked her if it was the hostess badge and if she put her finger in the cup, or did she lift the milk jug wrong...she said; 'No, I had one knife turned the wrong way'.

You were very strict.

But she said 'It was the best thing that happened because in this job if I go into the diningroom now and I see something not right, I'm over right away fixing it.' It is funny how some people can say things to you about things that you have forgotten about.