Message from the World Chief Guide

The summer days are over: the autumn quarter begins. How the time goes rushing by and our Diamond Jubilee year will be over before we realize it, and how triumphantly over too, with great achievements and such happy events which will last us a life time.

We are not a mutual admiration society, and modestly do not pat ourselves on the back, but we can inwardly rejoice indeed over the glori­ous successes of the many happenings both great and small, seen and unseen, which will warm the cockles of our hearts for months and years to come.

For my part may I now say thank you to those who have made my Diamond Jubilee so stirring and happy a beginning as it did with Guide rallies in Tanzania, Kenya and all over South Africa, followed by cheerful happenings in London on quite a large nationwide scale and in various places in the United Kingdom:

Westmorland       Cumberland Northumberland    South-West Lancashire Surrey East         Surrey North Sussex             Essex Somerset           Gloucestershire     Oxfordshire        Hampshire North Hampshire East     Sheffield and Cheshire, sandwiched in with a big tour in the United States of America and the splendid inter­national Guide camp of 9,000 in Denmark.

And now very suddenly, as we hear all the time that we are "living in a changing world", a change has come into my life.

I have caught up with the cat, which has nine lives! They have all been busy and happy with no time wasted!

1.         Babyhood

2.         Childhood

3.         Girlhood

4          Wifehood

5.         Motherhood

6.         Guidehood

7.         Widowhood

8          Grandmother-hood

9.         Great Grandmother-hood.

The change for me is that I have got a thing called diabetes which means my "staying put" at home, and no longer haring about the world as I have been doing for the last thirty years and more.

But I shall be "with you" just as much as ever, reading and hearing of the undertakings both great and small, having loving understanding and sympathy with those who may be facing difficulties and have worries to contend with (having had my share of them in some periods of my nine lives), and always rejoicing in your progress and day to day doings.