LADY BADEN-POWELL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 9, 11 January 1941, Page 14

LADY BADEN-POWELL

GIRL GUIDES' SYMPATHY

DEATH OF CHIEF SCOUT

The Girl Guides of New Zealand will feel deep sympathy with Lady BadenPowell in the loss of her husband, Lord Baden-Powell, whose death has occurred at his home in Kenya. Lady Baden-Powell and her late husband were well known in the Dominion, for they visited here in February, 1935, and were accorded a typical guide and Scout welcome from the two organisations with which their names are so vitally connected. When, in 1908, Lord Baden-Powell set up the Boy Scout organisation in England he found in Miss Olave Soames an assistant in the formation of a similar organisation for girls, and with her aid the Girl Guides came into existence. In 1912 the couple married, and as Chief Guide Lady Baden-Powell enlisted the interest and support of Princess Mary and the movement spread far beyond the British Isles. j THOUSANDS OF GUIDES.

The Chief Guide declared that its growth had been compelled by the girls themselves. The exercise of a

hobby, she declared, was essential to the development of a healthy and contented girl, and of the 586,000 Guides in Britain all had hobbies, which included arts and crafts of every kind. On her visit to New Zealand in 1935 Lady Baden-Powell said she was convinced that guiding had a definite purpose to serve in a period of mechanical movement and. hurried chasing after pleasure. It endeavoured to build character and to teach useful arts and handicrafts, the quiet practice of which brought the true joy to be found in constructive living. No one today will be more satisfied with the way in which the Guides have lived up to their principles under war conditions, especially in such countries as England, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, than their Chief Guide. DOUBLE BIRTHDAY. Although much younger than her husband, Lady Baden-Powell's birthday fell on the same day as his, and this gave the Scouts and Guides the world over a unique opportunity of extending their good wishes to both leaders at the same time. Grief at the loss of one leader will be universally felt by both Guides and Scouts, for with the death of the Chief Scout the collaboration of two notable personalities in a movement which has made a unique monument in history has come to an end.