大象传媒

MARGARETE MUNT

CHILD VOLUNTEERS

During the war children volunteered to help in many ways such as collecting old newspapersand magazines, silver paper, jamjars, rose hips and pig food.

I was a girl guide and my brother was a boy scout. We collected all the above. I think the most memorable was the pig food.

Three times a week, in all weathers, we pushed or pulled our trolleys, which were half-circle metal bins on two small wheels, attatched to a metal frame with a long handle. We collected the pig food (peelings, any uncooked vegetables but no rhubarb as the pigs didn`t like that) from the back door, shed or garden of 50 houses each time. Most of the containers we collected were in a deplorable state, old enamel bowls, which leaked as we picked them up to carry to our bins on the pavement (no one put their bowls, dishes or old buckets on the pavements). Sometimes we had to knock at the door, others we could fetch from the back shed or greenhouse. This took a long time; then we had to empty our bins into large dustbins which a farmer then collected.

In September the farmer gathered together all the children who had collected the pig food during the year, transported them in a lorry to his farm, where we saw the pigs. We sat on hay bails and had cream buns to eat.

If a Guide or Scout did more than 96 hours in a year they received a badge to be worn on the uniform - it was a crown and the year embroidered beneath. The Scouts` badges were red, the Guides`s, navy blue.

As Guides we also helped the YWCA prepare food for the services on Sunday afternoons in the summer.

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