SONGS FOR GIRL GUIDES & GIRL SCOUTS
How it began
After creating, and then delivering a new Girl Guide leader's training course in 2019-20, I became aware of how useful it would be to have the songs they needed to know in one place. I started small, just 100 songs added to YouTube channel, but this quickly outgrew the initial plan.
I discovered the world of collecting vintage songbooks was fun, cheap and, importantly for Hong Kong, didn't take up too much room. Also, there was COVID raging outside so I had time on my hands.
This then morphed into recording songs from as many old, out of print songbooks as I had the energy to do.
I now own approximately 70 songbooks from UK, USA, Canada and Australia, with more on my wish-list The oldest one in my collection dates back to 1926.
It was from this special interest that my next one grew; researching and writing the biographies of women from the world of Girl Guide and Girl Scout music, starting with Mary Chater to then publish to Wikipedia.
This has now become more foremost activity, with articles spanning royal wedding cakes, medieval windows and brutalist architecture.
I set myself the challenge of recording
all the English language songs from the
four World Centre songbooks:
