Serving Their Communities: Girl Guides and Historical Pageants
The Border Pageant, held in September 1930, was planned as a relatively small event to raise money for the Girl Guide movement at a regional level, and to improve the local contribution to the organisation’s national funds. But despite the small scale and some bad luck with the weather (no Indian summer that year!) the pageant turned into something of a triumph. This Guides worked hard to organise their pageant and their efforts paid off. So much so, that one of the then most glamorous members of the royal family, Prince George (fourth son of George IV and Queen Mary and then fifth in the line of succession), came along to the event. The Prince was paying his very first trip to the Scottish Borders in order to grace the pageant, a fact that attracted a good deal of news coverage. And with royalty in attendance, tickets were snapped up, and the pageant was attended by what one local newspaper described as 'a brilliant assemblage of Scottish society'.
Examining this pageant set me to thinking about the Guides and pageantry: they performed and helped out at numerous pageants in Scotland, all as part of their remit to serve their communities, but this was the first example I had found of a pageant wholly organised by them in Scotland. Were there others like this?
Well, thanks to the lovely volunteer archivists for Girlguiding Scotland who have been doing some excellent detective work on behalf of the Redress of the Past, it seems there were plenty more! From the Scottish Borders all the way north to Caithness, the Guides were ardent pageanteers.
Guides were encouraged to take an interest in the history of their communities and of their country, but like all Guide activities, this educational ambition was pursued in ways that made learning fun, and provided new opportunities for girls and young women that helped bolster their confidence. Holding pageants needed great leadership skills, efficient team work and enthusiasm for the task, all talents that Girl Guides were encouraged to develop. Unearthing evidence about this almost-forgotten part of the history of the Guide movement has shown yet again, just how widespread historical pageants were in twentieth-century Scotland.
The 1934 Border Pageant also revealed yet another forgotten pageant master. She was Molly Clavering who in a long career eventually became a District Commissioner for the Guides in Dumfries. But not only this, she was also a prolific and successful novelist, and under the penname Molly Moffat, wrote articles for well-known magazines in the post war years. She wrote, directed and performed in at least two of the Guides’ pageants (the Border pageant and another in Bridge of Allan in 1929), but almost certainly there were more (we just have to find them!) Molly has slipped into obscurity, but we hope to recall her pageant work and life-long vocation as a Guide through the project.
With thanks to the inspirational archivists at Girlguiding Scotland who have given their time and expertise in order to assist the project, please keep up the good work!
The Stirlingshire Girl
Guides perform in Scotland’s Crown, a
historical pageant held at Bridge of Allan in June 1929, written and directed
by Molly Clavering (Image provided courtesy of the
Scottish Girl Guides Archives).
Linda Fleming