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Preamble
The book was published in late 1947, but before that, and during the tours, the Chief Guide also wrote letters, including for publication in Guide magazines. One example is this, about VE Day, from the June 1947 issue of The Ranger [Thank you Georgina Stanley]:-
WITH THE CHIEF GUIDE ON V.E. DAY
Vitory in Europe Day —
we shall remember it all our lives, those of us who were old enough to realise what it meant. The Chief Guide was in France, on her way throuoh to Switzerland, and in one of her letters home she wrote, in in her own simple, moving, style, of those first moments when the news was received. She wrote also of the great March Past in Paris. Here are the extracts from her letters, which every Ranger will want to read.
NEVER — no never — have I seen anything that has stirred me more than the March Past of forty thousand Scouts and Guides, Rovers and Rangers and Wolf Cubs and Brownies in Paris. Bunches of big French flags were flying from groups of flagstaffs at the corners of that handsome open space, and on the tribune were gathered officials and representatives of nations, and various authorities who had come to associate themselves with this great parade in recognition of what our Movement has done and is doing in France.
As I stood at my place looking up the wide street flanked by blooming chestnut trees I saw in the far distance the flags starting to move from the Etoile, as they swept forward the massed formations of Guides and Scouts came like a wide brown stream pouring down the avenue. Grouped in bunches of about two hundred, marching twenty abreast, they lowed into the wide open 'Place' to sweep round it and past General Lafont, their Chief Scout, and myself at the saluting base.
Well out in front of each block walked two Scouts carrying a big plaque with the name of each Association for all to see; and these were followed by four individual boys or girls carrying bunches of flowers.
When it was a group of Wolf Cubs they had mainly cowslips; Brownies carried primroses; and the Scouts and Guides held great sprays of guelder rose or lilac.
The marching Guides and Scouts kept themselves in line by putting their arms straight out across each other's shoulders. Splendid bands played to keep them perfectly in step.
As they passed by, each group yelled. called out, sung or shouted some special loud cry of their own — some waving their hats on their hands, others just turning their heads to show rows of beaming radiant faces in my direction. There was not a single pause in a never-ending flow for an hour and three-quarters, On they came, fine, upstanding, gay young things, striding along shoulder to shoulder, and formed up in the huge open space before me, which gradually — in spite of its size — began to be covered by excited happy throngs.
As the last body of sturdy Routiers wound up this gallant procession, the loud-speaker explained the next proceedings. All the flowers were brought forward and laid at my feet, and then came the great momeni of the raising of the Colours.
Slowly on two tall masts at either edge of the tribune the immense flags were hoisted, and I looked out over that sea of faces of my children standing silent and still, hearts full of emotion as the standards of the two great nations sailed out on the wind side by side.
Peace Day
From the shaded park this brave little band of Scouts and Guides marched down the hill to the 'Place' in front of the Mairie facing the Church.
A crowd is collecting there to listen to the voice of their great leader who has stood so firm, and whose name will live for ever in France's history — a quiet crowd of subdued people who have suffered so much that they cannot yet feel free to rejoice — especially when half their friends are bowed still by anxiety and grief.
General de Gaulle's speech 'comes over' from Paris — rather hurriedly spoken with no flowery poetic phrases — just the bare statement that hostilities have ceased at last.
The confused noise of the sirens in Paris sounds next, and the 'All Clear' is taken up by the local sirens and hooters all over this little old Alsatian town.
And then the bells of all the Churches pealed; we hardly dared look at one another, and the old white-haired Maire sat staring at the ground.
"That mental picture I shall never lose. Ringing bells, quiet darkness inside the panelled room, and people going through great emotion; and looking out from the narrow window on to the sun-filled 'Place' — waving flags, moving Scouts and Guides, heads up, hands waving, laughter and vigour and hopefulness — a new France — a new world?
