Brownie Thrift Badge

squeakysue

My dd is told to wear comfortable shoes for brownies so that is trainers for most. Ds is in cubs though and he has to polish his shoes and carry a handkerchief...maybe I should iron it, we got it off his grandparents because we don't own any!

Mojisola

Broomstick wrote: »

I had a look and someone posted on there the contents of what she was expected to carry in her uniform pockets:
coin for phone
pencil and paper or notepad and pencil
hanky (so could double up as sling or tissue)
piece string
wrapped plaster
safety pin

and I think this is almost certainly what I would have carried. I don't remember the plaster but everything else seems terribly familiar. I think the contents of our pockets were checked from time to time!

It was four old pennies in my day - huge coins they were, compared to today's money!

Broomstick

squeakysue, :rotfl: Get him to iron it!

That's another thing. As a 7-ish yr old, I used an iron, a hob kettle for hot drinks, fried food on the hob and baked cakes in the oven including getting hot trays out of the oven (I remember that well!), used sharp tools, matches, a treadle sewing machine, had a penknife albeit a pretty hopeless one. I remember doing it largely for Brownie-related stuff so the dating of it is easy.

Mojisola, I was pre-decimalisation too. I still have the (old) penny collection I made for my 'Collectors' badge! (Will this never end? :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: )

Can you remember the date you will have needed four pennies for? I remember having to know how to use the phone and a phone box but I can't remember anything about the number of coins needed for a call.

B x

Mojisola

Broomstick wrote: »

Mojisola, I was pre-decimalisation too. I still have the (old) penny collection I made for my 'Collectors' badge! (Will this never end? :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: )

Can you remember the date you will have needed four pennies for? I remember having to know how to use the phone and a phone box but I can't remember anything about the number of coins needed for a call.

It must have been late 50s/early 60s. You had to lift the receiver in the phone box, feed in your pennies and then dial the number. If the call was answered, you pressed button A, the money dropped into the box and the call was put through. If there was no answer, you pressed button B and your money was returned to you. Seems very primitive now!

Cold pennies were also useful for putting on fresh bumps to reduce bruising and warm ones made a lovely peep-hole through the frost on the inside of the bedroom window to peer out at the snowy outdoors.

Broomstick

I was a Brownie in 1963-65ish but I definitely remember the A and B buttons on call boxes now that you mention them.

We must have been one of the earliest families in our town (which now has a population of over 30.000) to have a phone at home in the late 50s. Our phone number was three digits long and when you picked up the phone you talked to the operator. My mum told me that it was a big problem when I was a toddler because I really liked picking up the phone for a chat. Must have driven them crazy at the exchange.:D

I didn't know about warm pennies being used to make spy holes on frosty bedroom windows. That's lovely. It's almost worth letting the house go below freezing one morning just to try!

B x

anguk

I remember going to Brown Owl's house to make scrambled eggs on toast for my cooking badge.

I'll always remember my brother in his scouts uniform washing cars, weeding gardens and mowing lawns for Bob-A-Job. He had a little notebook with all the jobs he'd done, how much he was paid and the signature of the householder. I think they stopped doing Bob-A-Job a while ago because of health & safety.

[Deleted User]

I bet there isn't a London child from the late 1940s onwards that didn't automatically press button B every time you went passed the phone box in the hope of getting some unforgotten change returned to you,along with returning empty lemonade or Tizer bottles or if really lucky beer bottles to get the pennies back on them.It was often our only source of income as children as money was rationed (to our house anyway ) to 6d a week pocket money and that would pay for Saturday morning pictures.Children were more inventive in those far off days and tried to earn a bit of extra cash by 'working' for it Strange concept by todays standards I know .My two brothers would 'rescue' wooden orange boxes from the local market and bring them home and reduce them to manageable sizes and I would help tie them up in bundles and they would put them on their 'soabox trolley' and sell door-to-door at 2d a bundle for firewood I would get a small cut for helping to bundle and tie Usually about a shilling depending on how well they did selling.Everyone had coal fires then so wood was essential for lighting them up.My middle brother would also cut grass for several big houses in the neighbourhood and dig gardens 2/6d per Saturday morning and he started at 8 and worked through till 1.00.p.m.We were all expected to do small jobs at home for free and not to expect any monetery gain for it .They were just chores that had to be done I had to spend some Saturday afternoons polishing my Mums brass (she had quite a collection ) and I swore I would never have brass ornaments in my house when I grew up and I never did.Hours of my childhood wasted polishing that blooming stuff :):)

blue_star87

I am a current Guide leader so I might be able to have a search through the old books for you although many of them are guide books.

I think I do have a couple of spare Brownie Thrift 'Bee' badges as well somewhere. Unfortunatly this has now been taking out of the badge listing for both Brownies and Guides.