Something a bit different

So today instead of cricket or coronavirus, I thought I'd take you back to the dark ages when I was about 8 years old.

I was in The Brownies and we went away on Pack Holiday for a week to Camp House, which was in the beautiful Whitworth Park Estate Spennymoor. These grounds are full of woodland animals and wild flowers and  to any 8-10 year old at this time ( pre mobile phones, play stations etc) an absolute wonderland.
I remember with very fond memories of evening walks through the woods with Brown Owl and Tawny Owl ( not the feathered kind, but our leaders)

I went on this holiday twice which was the allotted amount of trips you could do and the memories of it have never gone away.

The Camp House was made possible by Rosa Edith Marguarite Duncombe Shafto ( descendant of seafarer Bobby Shafto) who leased the land on which the house now stands to the Durham branch of Brownies, Guides and Rangers for a nominal rent.

The house officially opened on 3rd April 1965 by Mrs Shafto's grandson  Robert, this house became ( and still is) very important to Girlguiding in the County as it is also used for training as well as a holiday home for the girls.

In April 2007 the purchase of the land and surrounding Bluebell wood was completed which meant that it would provide holidays for many years to come.
In 2011 The Shafto Foundation gifted  the remaining land ( which had still been leased for a nominal rent ).

So what made these holidays so memorable, well I guess, going away with 23 of your Brownie friends was the main thing, and for many it was a first holiday away from parents.
Being given the task with my bunk mate Lorraine, of cleaning the windows outside at the front entrance.
Who knew that 4 bottles of Windolene were nigh on impossible to remove once baked on by the sun. I'm sure the window cleaner loved us!!!
We would walk through the woods were there was an 'ice pit' were food would have been stored to keep it fresh centuries ago ( we all loved this for some strange reason).

And then there was the old lady who lived in the little cottage in the woods who grew lots of vegetables and would give us fresh herbs to take back to the house.
This lady was Rosa Shafto ( she passed away in 1979), she always came out to talk  to us and was a lovely lady.

We had great games in the fields and picked flowers for the camp house.

Great memories of times gone by.



 Rosa's Dad was named Robert ( not Bobby who was born in 1732) and her mother was named Alice and was from Sydney, New South Wales.


Happy Wednesday