Author Janie Hampton was taken aback by Girl Guides' pioneering ways and their grit in the face of two world wars. She is now saluting them in a new book

JESSIE RITCHIE was a wee mite of six, living in a tenement in Glasgow's east end. When her mum abandoned the family, her father bundled Jessie, Joan (one year older), and their baby sister into a handcart, flitting from one relation to the next trying to find them homes.

His parents took in the littlest girl and the elder two found refuge with an aunt. The girls' father went off to war and was never seen again.

Good fortune arrived in 1940, when Jessie and Joan were evacuated to Balendoch Hall, outside of Alyth, in Perthshire where a hostel was established after the townspeople objected to billeting "unsuitable" slum children. It was run by three Girl Guide leaders recruited from down south.

"We walked into the basement kitchen at Balendoch (and] Miss Esther greeted us from the big black cooking range. It was the first time in my life I had seen an adult smile," Jessie Ritchie told author Janie Hampton, when the latter was researching her book, How the Girl Guides Won the War. "Up to now," writes Hampton, "they had known only fear, and they were malnourished and miserable. But all that was about to change."

Hampton, an award-winning journalist with 15 books to her credit, originally planned to write a satirical book. She thought the Guides were a bit naff, and that she could have some fun at their expense. "I realised the Guides were coming up for their 100th anniversary and had the feeling that these were boring old spinster aunties. I was going to do a satire and make it quite funny. But as I started researching, I realised that these women and girls did something extraordinary. Girl Guiding is the grandmother of feminism."

When many of us think of Girl Guides, we picture the uniforms, the rules, the "dib dib dib" chant. "But actually," says Hampton, "up till the 1960s, it represented freedom, equality, independence, and new skills, particularly for girls who left school at 14.

"If you worked in a factory, there was no other way you could have a social life that was safe, and it was also a place where you could earn badges, that were like a CV. When war broke out, suddenly things like Morse Code, semaphore, looking after a bicycle, Highway Code, mapping, were of strategic importance. Any Girl Guide could walk into a hospital and the matron could look at the badges on her arm and say, 'Ah, you've got 'child nurse' you've got 'first aid', you've got 'housekeeper'. I know you're trustworthy, because you're a guide. I know that you'll obey instructions and remember them.' They were semi-trained already.

Similarly, when they were called up, it was the Guides who were picked first."

Hampton points out that nearly 20 years before all British women were allowed to vote, Guides were earning badges for proficiency as electricians, cyclists, surveyors and telegraphists. During both World Wars, these youngsters stepped into adult roles. They built emergency ovens from the rubble of bombed-out houses; they dug shelters; administered first aid; painted kerbs white to help people navigate during blackouts; looked after the elderly, and much more.

Today, Jessie Ritchie is "a tough, doughty, amazing woman. She went on to become the Mayor of Weymouth. And she told me that the time spent at Balendoch were the best years of her life," reports Hampton.

The three amazing women who made all the difference were Esther Reiss, Ada Edith Ashby and Jean Rutherford. Recruited through an advert in The Guider, they made the 550-mile journey north in a van with their dog, Jockie. They arrived to find a dirty house and, within days, 24 children in residence – rising to 60, at the hostel's busiest point.

Hampton not only found the Guides' Log book and press cuttings, but examined the minutes of the Alyth Council, too. "It said, 'We don't want evacuees.' That was a real eye opener. I'm sure they were no different from any other town council in the countryside, saying we don't want these slum children because they've got nits and they swear and they wet their beds, and they might even be Catholic! And it was 70 years ago. So these three women arrive to a town that doesn't really want evacuees, a huge empty house that hasn't been lived in for ages, filling up with kids – boys and girls, from babies to around 15 or 16 – from the Glasgow and Perth slums. They said right, how are we going to deal with this lot? So they used Brownie and Guide principles to run the hostel. They didn't just feed and water them, they gave them extra tender loving care, they gave them Christmases they'd never had before.

And they also inculcated in those children, who'd been too poor to receive, but also too poor to give, the idea of giving."

The children adhered to a strict timetable and did chores. Everyone was in bed by 8:30pm, regardless of age. They received gold, silver, and bronze stars to reward work well done, and there were monthly competitions, complete with prizes. Auntie Ash made Brownie uniforms out of brown cotton romper suits, which was a blessing, as some of the children had "practically no clothing" and many were without shoes.

Brownies grew flowers, while Guides learned stalking, woodcraft and other skills. Everyone was taught to swim in the River Islar. There were frequent fund raising events where Brownies sold wallets, comb cases and other home-made items, and they participated in local parades. They even earned extra money by picking raspberries, to be turned into jam for the troops overseas. In 1941, when a bomb landed in a nearby field, Auntie Esther led a delegation to go peer into the hole.

When Alyth held its Warship Week in 1942, writes Hampton, "the Guides dressed as Red Cross nurses, made an effigy of Hitler and carried him around on a stretcher with a banner reading, 'Your pennies will help to pay for his funeral'. A total of 10.6s 7d in pennies was thrown onto the stretcher. This helped to pay for the latest radar equipment to be fitted on the destroyer HMS Highlander."

Eventually the reputation of the Balendoch Guide Company was so enviable that Guiders travelled the length and breadth of Perthshire to train with them.

Hampton's inspiring book is filled with numerous other tales from around the world, depicting the way the Guides contributed to the war effort. Having started out sceptical, she jokes that she probably sounds like the Chief Guide now.

"What impressed me was the sense of sisterhood among Guides across the world. There's no racism or nationalism. An Indian guide is as important as an Irish or a British Guide. And through a World War, they could still be holding hands despite the nations' differences. In Germany Guiding was banned from 1933, but in Poland they became part of the resistance. They were really important because thanks to being Guides, they knew about tracking, they knew about keeping secrets, they knew about messages and how to remember them, all these things.

"The real eye-opener was discovering how those who were arrested and taken to concentration camps made a difference to everyone, because they kept to their principles. One of the strongest was: 'We will not die until our death.' That meant you didn't give up just because you know you're going to die. And they did know they'd probably die; they'd probably be tortured.

"But until that moment, they were going to try to keep clean every day, eat whatever food was put in front of them, however disgusting, and keep their integrity and dignity. That way you have the best life you can until you die. It was the witness of other people, who watched this, that I found so interesting. They said where there was a guide – even though they had to pretend they weren't – you just felt the difference. It's very inspiring."