Wantage Guide Hall

Wantage Guide Hut
By Barbara Keep, Barbara Lovegrove and Jan Powles

The track can be heard here: Wantage Guide Hut

More information about Guiding in Wantage can be found here: Guiding in Wantage

The text is as follows:

Barbara K:
I'm Barbara Keep. I'm now 92 years old. I started as Brown Owl when I was 18. Yeah. I was a Brownie and a Guide and Rangers and then Cadets.

Barbara L:
We all owe Barbara a great deal.

Jan P:
Well, I was one of Barbara's Guides.

Barbara L:
She is Wantage Guiding.

Jan P:
Definitely. And Barbara was my Brown Owl, and then I ended up Guiding with Barbara. I came back into the movement in 1973 when I ran 4th Wantage with Barbara. I came up -

Barbara K:
There's a really old hut up at the Nut Walk.

Jan P:
Yeah. Well, I started -

Barbara K:
In the priory garden.

Jan P:
That was right. That was in the thirties, wasn't it? And I remember -

Barbara K:
That was in the thirties, yeah,

Jan P:
I ran my first Brownie unit at 16 up in the Nut Walk. And it was absolutely spooky at night, wasn't it? When it got, you couldn't stay after dark. And this Guide hut was in the garden of the priory, and it was right at the end and we used to use tennis courts, didn't we? I used to go out in the summer. I used to use the tennis courts,

Barbara K:
The tennis court

Jan P:
And the Nut Walk we used to do our cooking in. Do you remember? Did you do that?

Barbara L:
Well, being that little bit younger, and all I remember about the Nut Walk and the hall there was being enrolled by Barbara.

Jan P:
Oh, right. That's -

Barbara K:
That's the Nut Walk -

Jan P:
Yes. That was it. There was no electricity.

Barbara K:
Just the ladder up. We used to keep old cupboards up there with Brownie uniform.

Jan P:
Awful uniform.

Barbara K:
They were all damp all the time.

Jan P:
I'm gonna tell you a lovely story about that, by the way, I'm Jan Powles. And, um, as I say, I was left with this – because the Guider that was – Betty Herring, who was the Guider that I joined, got married and said she was off to Newbury and left me with it. And I went along to – Mrs. King was then the District Commissioner. And we went to this meeting and I was very nervous 'cause I was only young and they were talking about St. George's Day parade, and they said they wanted all the Guides and Brownies there in uniform and half my lovely lot didn't have uniform. I had quite a few children that came from poorer backgrounds. They were all lovely, but they couldn't afford the uniform. And I got to know that at those – that awful thing, there were these old damp uniforms.

Jan P:
And I went up there and I fished enough out and I went to Farmers that used to be in the square and I bought Drummer Dyes. Do you remember those? And they were about tuppence. They were a powder. And I remember my mum and I dyed all these uniforms and got all these Brownies smart as paint and got them in the parade. And I was so pleased. And guess what? I never had a uniform either. So I never joined the parade, but, the Brownies did, but that was in the thirties. And when – I mean, when you think that Brownies and Guides started in that hut and that was down to the Miss Adkins because they owned that house next to, the Guide hall.

Barbara K:
You might not know there that, in the priory house, when we were Rangers, we went underground in

Jan P:
Oh, did you go along the tunnel?

Barbara K:
We went along the tunnel.

Jan P:
Oh you lucky thing. I never

Barbara K:
But it – you only get – 'cause they used to have the monks there in the priory. Oh yeah. They used to go through to the church, but it's blocked up now.

Jan P:
Oh, is it?

Barbara K:
The road is you know, yeh.

Jan P:
How far did you get along then, Barbara?

Barbara K:
It was a bit scary. You went to the road.

Jan P:
Did you?

Barbara K:
Yeah, we went right through the house to the road.

Jan P:
Wow. Cause I've, that's always intrigued me and I knew it was there, but I would love to have gone.

Barbara L:
I've always understood you could get from the priory to the house that almost joins it, but fronts the church, the white house, there was a secret little room between the two houses where they used to hide.

Jan P:
Oh was there?

Barbara L:
Yes.

Jan P:
I suppose that was in the time of the Reformation

Barbara L:
The Reformation

Jan P:
Going back all that time. So there's a lot of history in Wantage. Yeah.

Barbara L:
I'm Barbara, Barbara Lovegrove and I'm a Trefoil Guild member. My beginnings with Guiding and Wantage was about 1950 when I became a Brownie. We had a Brownie pack in Charlton village school, which was attached to the church in Charlton village. And there were, it was quite a big company, but we could never sustain leaders. So I'm very grateful for Barbara. Yeah. And Peggy Shade because they, we never, ever closed. They always included us in everything that was going on. Peggy enrolled me as a Brownie actually. And then Barbara as a Guide. Well, and then Barbara also started up Cadets about a year before I was old enough for Cadets. If it wasn't -

Jan P:
What year was that?

Barbara L:
For Barbara, we would've never traveled in Europe the way by the time I was 18, I'd been away twice. Well, in those days that was unheard of. I went to Switzerland and I went to Austria with them.

Libby HS:
Wantage's Guiding is really old as well. It started quite early, didn't it?

Jan P:
1910.

Libby HS:
Which is only couple of years after Brownsea island?

Jan P:
Yes. Yeah. And I think that was down to the Miss Adkins, wasn't it, Barbara?

Barbara K:
Well, she started it in

Jan P:
That's right. And that's why you should – why Priory Road has always been Guiding. It's always where the Guides and Brownies were and it was 1930s. And then out of the school, which the Miss Adkins ran didn't they? And Barbara told us that it was Miss Adkins' brother, who was the estate agent who actually bought the, you know, built the school for them in their garden where it is now. And then they just kept teaching there. And I mean, one of our members – her mother actually went to that school and a friend that plays Scrabble with Barbara and I, and everybody, she went to that school and I, you know, so that was my age. So it went on for a long time. Well, yeah, lots stopped – quite a big school

Barbara K:
And the only other people who really have used it is the Church Sunday School for a few years.

Jan P:
Oh, did they? Yes. I'd forgotten that Barbara. Yeah.

Barbara K:
We used to fetch them over for after the sermon.

Jan P:
Yeah, but it was when the Miss Adkins died and the priory got put up for sale, but then you had the offer to buy it, didn't you?

Barbara K:
Yeah.

Jan P:
It was sold for a thousand pounds. That's what the Adkins wanted for it. Wasn't it, the – in the sale.

Barbara K:
That's right.

Jan P:
And when it didn't happen. There it is, yes.

Barbara K:
And then when the Miss Adkins' sister died, she left another thousand pounds to the Guides.

Jan P:
And almost gave back the money.

Barbara K:
Back the money that we'd earned.

Jan P:
Yeh.

Barbara K:
With jumble sales.

Libby HS:
But you fundraised it really quickly as well, didn't you?

Jan P:
Yeah, well, Mr. and Mrs. Sale put the money up, didn't they? They lent the Guides the money.

Barbara K:
That we paid a hundred pound back a year.

Jan P:
And you had to pay back a hundred pounds a year, but you and Peggy, the jumble sales and goodness knows what and paid it back in four years. So in 1962, it belonged to the Guides.

Barbara K:
I suppose we were -

Jan P:
I think that was amazing.

Barbara K:
I suppose we were lucky when all you came to the Harwell estate because we had some very good people then yes on the Local Association.

Jan P:
Yes

Barbara L:
Yes. A lot of our parents did join the Local Association.