TO HELP IN EUROPE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 6, 8 January 1944, Page 2

TO HELP IN EUROPE

“SHOCK-PROOF” GUIDES Speaking at the recent annual meeting of the Wellington Provincial Girl Guide Association, Miss Ruth Herrick, Dominion Commissioner of Girl Guides, and director of the W.R.N.S. in New Zealand, said that the world after the war will demand a new people. The Scout and Girl Guide movements were among the finest in the world, Miss Herrick said, and it was up to those concerned not to relax their efforts on behalf of these two organisations. She referred to the “shock-proof” Guides being specially trained in England to help in post-war work in Europe. In conjunction with Australia, New Zealand also would be able to help by supplying “shock-proof” Guides to help in the Pacific area after the war.

According to a London newspaper sixty “shock-proof” young women, all trained to a pitch of commando-like toughness, are patiently waiting to play their part in the relief of liberated Europe. They are the first batch of senior Girl Guides who have passed with honours special “mercy” tests based on the probable conditions they expect to find in starving Greece, Yugoslavia and Poland. Here are a few of the things they had to do to prove themselves 100 per cent, fit for their mission: Make a nine-day trek in the Welsh mountains living on their own rations. They were forbidden to touch any other food but dried biscuits and synthetic tablets They had to haul their bedding, kit and handcarts over rough mountain tracks and finally cook a three-course, open-air meal for 85 Home Guards on manoeuvres. The latter got steak and kidney pudding, apple charlotte and coffee—the Guides had to endure the smell of the stew-pot knowing that all they could eat were a few tablets. In camps in various parts of the country they had to pitch their own tents and live under canvas in all weathers. Without warning they would be roused at 3 a.m. or 4 a m. and told to hike to a place six miles away in pitch darkness—and get there without guidance. Often the girls would be awakened at midnight and told a party of refugees was coming into camp. Other Guides, made up as refugees and suffering from various “wounds” and “diseases” would be treated. Each girl had to know enough “rough” doctoring to tell what sort of infectious disease a patient had. Apart from fitness training they were taught up to an advanced stage such subjects as diet, baby care, and hospital nursing. On the lessons gained from the experience of these 60 whole system has been designed for training more than 400 other Girl Guides aged over- 18 who will eventually help Europe. Many of the girls can already speak Polish. Serbo-Croat, or modern Greek, so that they can talk to their fellow Guides in their own language.