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It was at the start of the Second World War when the Headquarters of The St John’s Ambulance Brigade moved to Willey Hall, near Broseley, the home of Lord and Lady Forrester.

It was a member of the staff who started the first Broseley Guide Company.
Because of petrol rationings camping was usually done locally, although I do remember going to Black Rock Sands, where they had a wonderful Guide camp site.

Many of my memories are attached to school. I had to travel 12 miles to school and we had a small corner shop — called the Tuck Shop — nearby. The shop keeper was very good, when he had deliveries of oranges, he would allow us to have any spare oranges after he had given them out.

We didn’t do too badly with food as my father was a clean gardener, so we had lots of vegetables. We had to register for eggs. Spare eggs were kept in Isinglass so they would keep for several weeks.
Everything was rationed. You had to have clothing coupons. I remember when an assistant Guider was getting married; she was allowed to claim so many extra coupons to get material for her wedding. Everything was generally very skimpy, as the fabric was limited. So skirts were short and straight.

During the war some of the Guides were involved with a training exercise with the ARP, TA Soldiers and the local St John’s. I remember being stuck in a hay loft with a label attached to me saying I had a broken leg, a dislocated collar bone and a head wound. Eventually I was found and treated accordingly, and then lowered by stretcher to the ground and transported back to their headquarters — it was a bit like Dad’s Army!

Because transport was restricted and not many people had cars, you were very isolated as a Guide Company. It was not common to meet up with other companies so you often did your own things. We did go out for lots of hikes and carried out the outdoor cooking activities.

Many of my friends from school were in Guides. At the end of the summer we used to do gleaning in the fields — this is where we used to collect up the bits of corn that was left behind for the farmer. Another outdoor activity we did was potato picking as there were few adults to do this. We were also involved with Rosehips picking for Rosehip Syrup, which was a big form of vitamin C during the war.

We had the occasional odd bomb, which I think fell in the river, but we used to hear the enemy planes going over as they used to follow the line of the River Severn and we suspect were looking for the power station, which was very well camouflaged and so was never bombed.

Although we lived in the country we had a very big dug out air raid shelter in a friends garden which would hold 20 people. We used to be woken up and wrapped up and taken to the shelter — and at the age of 7 thought it was a big adventure, of course we didn’t see the dangers.

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