Collection of Old Badges and Jewellery
When I posted about The Argonauts Club, I mentioned that I still had my badge, but when I looked for it, I could not find it. I knew, that if I stopped looking for it, I would most likely find and I did. I recall that when I received it, way back around 1954, the sails were green, but sadly that colouring has disappeared.
Argonauts Club Badge
Girl Guide Badge
Around the same time that I became an Argonaut, I also joined the Girl Guide movement, as a Brownie, which is what the junior girls were called. My career in Guides went for around 8 years, with my time in Brownies, and then in the Swallow Patrol of 1st Warradale Guide group, and later a Ranger Guide.
I loved Guides and challenges, and was an enthusiastic hiker, and camper and earned many badges. I was pleased to be one of the first girls to earn the Aboriginal Badge too, after researching about life as a First Nations person.
When Lady Baden Powell (the founder of the Guide Movement) came to Australia about 1959, I met her as my patrol came second in a competition, and the prize was a meeting with her.
I went on to earn the highest award in Guides at the time, the Queen’s Guide Award, which was presented to me at Government House, Adelaide. My certificate did not have a date on it, and sadly has not survived the many years since.
My Queen’s Guide Badge
Nursing in Mt Gambier
In my late teens, I headed off to Mt Gambier, in the south-east of South Australia, a long way from my family in Adelaide, to do nursing training. In those days, we worked and learned “on the job”, but had regular lectures, exams and more.
The training was for 3 years and 3 months (the latter because each year we had one month’s holiday leave), and I eventually graduated early in 1966. The Mt Gambier Badge is not as perfect as when I received it way back then, but it is one of the badges in my collection.
Mt Gambier Hospital Badge
Age has wearied the badge and it is almost impossible to read the words on the badge – but it is a special member of my collection.
More Badges
More Badges
Not the best picture, but a few more from my collection. Thr RN badge, awarded when I became a “registered nurse”. Th Quota International badge from my days as a member, and the last one from the time I completed my first university degree.
