h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was a Girl Guide between the ages of 12 and 16. My memories of Guide meetings involve assembling in a bare hall and learning first aid, knots and not much else. Guide camps, however, were much more fun.
We used to make 'gadgets', which were useful items like tables, by lashing sticks together. In the evenings, we would gather round the camp fire and sing songs. Sometimes, we made 'dampers', by mixing flour and water and pushing the resulting dough onto a stick and cooking it on the fire. They were never very nice- tasting mainly of smoke. I became leader of the Cassopeia Patrol and learned to recognise our constellation, high above the trees at the edge of the camp site - a lopsided ‘w’ which pointed towards the Pole Star.
Once, the older girls went on a night-time hike, which led through countryside to an unfamiliar camp site, where we had to work out how to pitch our two-person tents in the dark. I seem to remember dscovering that my tent had to be hung from a tree.
It wasn't always idyllic, however. We were expected to keep our tents tidy and to take turns washing up pans blackened by smoke. One camp it rained so much that our tents began to slide down a slope.

I was in the BB when I was young – happy days.
We had our fair share of night hikes, Duke of Edinburgh Expeditions which always seemed to coincide with storms and learning camp craft such as how to erect everything from a 2-man tent to a gigantic marquee (one with posts wider than yourself that tower to the sky) and where in the field is the best place to erect the tent taking into account the gradient of the field, prevailing wind and natural hazards, and how to read an OS map with a piece of string to get bearings, distance and map the contours of your route. There's a lot you can do with an OS map and a piece of string.

Our tent never slid down a slope but the 12-man ridge tents we erected for the main camp were canvas tops and a separate ground sheet, and one year I in my sleeping bag slid in my sleeping bag right out of the tent.

Happy days.

<BB<

Gadget making was my favourite activity when I went camping. I didn't mind washing up quite so much knowing that I had made the washing up bowl stand

The last camp I ever went to was the one where it was so wet our tents all slid down the hill, so we had to dismantle everything and start again in a more suitable place... (whoever was in charge of that camp hadn't learned their camp craft very well...) A week of constant dampness was quite sufficient for me

We once had to make a barbecue on the beach using only driftwood, and try to cook and for everyone. We had a frying pan, but had to use what we found to support it, so we were using driftwood to balance the frying pan on above the flames but constantly changing the wood as it caught light and became part of the fire. Good fun.

<BB<

We had to learn how to build a fire and light it, using only two matches. I'm still better at lighting bonfires than my husband.