First Derry Guide photo sparks more memories

It's not surprising really, given that she is in the picture herself, and although she cannot remember which pack she was in, she does remember quite a few of her fellow Guides.

Take a look at the black and white photo, and in the second row, fourth in from the right is Jeanette, complete with home perm and 'pudding bowl fringe', courtesy of her mother.

Laughing with delight at seeing the picture in print, Jeanette spends several minutes running her hands over the image, picking out some of her Guide pals. Back in the days when money was a scarce commodity, not many people would have had the cash spare to buy copies of photographs, and for that reason Jeanette had never expected to ever get her hands on a copy of the photograph. Her delight at finally having one - a glossy 8x12 print - was evident.

Fascinated and giggling at her appearance, she said: "Look at the curls. That was all down to my dear mother and her talents at home perming - Tweenie Twink - and she was forever perming my hair and more times than enough it ended up in a big frizz because I had really fine hair. So this is all down to her - and the really straight fringe. She used the scissors on me. You didn't go to a hairdressers back then. It was your mum done all. There's a couple of other girls here have exactly the same cut, but that's just exactly what the mothers done, they just trimmed the fringe and that was it."

While Jeanette was unable to recall the names of two of the officers, she is certain that the lady on the right was Mrs Lily Eaton

Clued-in

However, when it comes to naming the girls, Jeanette was very clued-in. Starting at the front row, to the left, the first two girls she cannot remember but third from left is a young girl by the name of Pollock, whose family attended the same church and who lived out Prehen Road, beside her is Ella Holmes. On the other side of the matronly looking woman in the centre of the photo she recalls Ruth Neely pointing her out third in from the right, standing very straight to attention.

"I remember Ruth. She lived on Lower Bennett Street, but I'm not sure of those two," she says, pointing to the two Guides on the extreme right in the front row.

In the second row behind them is Myra McDermott, second right, and beside that is Iris McKinley, who is the girl in glasses to Jeanette's right, without a fringe, the girl on the other side of Jeanette, also wearing glasses, Jeanette does not remember, but the next girl over with a bit of fringe dropping down over one eye is Roberta Hamilton, who used to live in the Fountain.

"Iris McKinley was my friend and she liked in Barrack Street, and then there is Roberta, from the Fountain, and Rita Gardiner, who was also from the Fountain, and next to her was Andrea Wright. You see we were all in the Cathedral Brownies and we had no Guide company so we just moved over to First Derry then," she said, her eyes hardly leaving the photo.

In the third row, third left is Evelyn Dunne, who lived in Grove Place, and pointing to another girl, Valerie, third row back and fourth from the right, Jeanette recalls she lived in Wapping Lane, and next to her is the last of the Guides that Jeanette remembers, Marlene Logan from the Fountain. The older girls in the back row were senior girls and not in Jeanette's circle.

The conversation ebbs and flows about Jeanette's association with the Brownies and Guides, and she recalls how she joined the Brownies at about five years of age.

"I was a Brownie in the Cathedral, and I went on to take the Brownies. I was actually a Brown Owl and I did that for 26 years at 7th Londonderry Cathedral Brownies. The reason I became a Brown Owl was I took my daughter to the Brownies in the Cathedral and I ended up helping. I just stood still long enough and before I knew where I was I was there every Monday night and the Brown Owl retired and I ended up the Brown Owl and was there for 26 years," she says matter-of-factly.

"I devoted 26 years to the Brownies and I loved it. I loved the girls, but it was a lot of work planning the programmes for a Monday night. You just didn't walk in and say 'Right, what are we doing tonight?' You had to go in being prepared and have something ready for them. Different projects, that kind of thing," she said of her days leading the Brownies.

Her favourite pack badge was the robin, but Jeanette remembers that earning her badges were hard work.

"I remember going out the Clooney Road and doing the survival one, where you made your wee fire with sticks and so forth. That was where Clearwater is and the next one down, Rosswater. That was all open fields right down to the water and we were taken out there to make our fires, and I remember that so well to go out there. We didn't camp overnight. We weren't taken away an awful lot then, but now they go to camps everywhere. We maybe had an outing once a year, but when I was taking the Brownies we took the girls here, there and everywhere," she said.

Jeanette, like so many Guides, distinctly remembers being tested on her Hostess Badge: "I'll tell you where I done that - it was out in Mrs Eaton's house. That's Lucy Eaton there," she says, pointing to the officer on the far right of the photo.

"She lived on the Clooney Road in a great big fancy house, and I can remember it so well. The house is still there, and I remember going in and just being fascinated with the big hall as you went in, with a fireplace and she made us read out the fire and reset it and then set a tray for tea," Jeanette said, adding: "I remember doing that. It was class because we got nosing into her house, you know...big house like that, it was like walking into a castle! And she was a lovely lady. I do remember that, she was a very kind lady."

Jeanette was one of the Guides who managed to get her Hostess Badge first time round.

"It was good crack. I remember it well. They were a good bunch of girls," she said, gazing at the picture.