How the Girl Guides Won the War

 How the Girl Guides Won the War, by Janie Hampton

This was one of the titles that intrigued me on our last book-binge day in London.  As a former Girl Scout myself, I had to be interested in this!  How could that possibly be?

Hampton confesses in her introduction that she meant to write about how awful the Girl Guides were, so hearty and colonial and tragically unhip, but was then surprised to discover that they were in fact amazing.  She doesn't cover just British Guides, but girls in many countries, and though she ranges throughout Guide history since its inception, she mostly focuses on World War II.  This makes it kind of all over the place, but it's always fascinating to read about what these girls and women accomplished!

One thing to remember is that for a long time, Guiding reached up well into early adulthood and often functioned as further education back when many girls left school at 14 or 16.  You could be a Guide into your twenties, and lead a troop.  So Hampton writes about Brownies and young Guides, but also about grown women with full-time work.

Guiding was a fantastic outlet for countless girls and young women who wanted to run around outdoors and learn all sorts of skills -- something they didn't have a lot of other opportunities to do.  It helped them prepare for adulthood and work, and Guides had a solid reputation as competent, cheerful, and able to turn a hand to any job, which was invaluable in wartime.  Guides were in high demand and went everywhere.

Other chapters describe the wartime experiences of British schoolchildren interned in China, Polish Guides (even in the camps), refugee children who found their happiness in Guiding, city Guides who could cook for bombed-out families with nothing but a few bricks and a tin pan for equipment, and finally, the exploits of Guides who trained for post-war relief work in the most devastated areas of Europe.

This history was right up my alley; there's nothing I like better than a history book about women accomplishing much with whatever they had.  Just fantastic, and recommended if you like that kind of book too.