Stowupland Boys and Girls Brigades
The last date I have relating to Stowupland’s Girls and Boys Brigade is 1984 when 100 boys and girls attended an Enrollment Service at Stowupland United Reformed Church. Whilst we have no date for this photo of !st Stowupland Girls Brigade at a summer camp, we do know they were formed in 1963 (Photo from Stowupland Archives).
Before Stowupland built its own village hall in the mid 1950s, public meetings were held in the Iron Room, the BB Hut or the primary school.
By the late 60’s the primary school had a larger hall, and by the 80s the chapel and the church had halls for hire.
For many decades boys from Stowupland were part of Stowmarket Brigade, having to travel to Stowmarket for meetings. But in 1921 Mr T.A Harwood assisted with the purchase and relocation of a disused gun-site shed from Creeting St Peter to a road-side site on Crown Farm land to Stowupland. Mr Harwood had been made a Captain in the Stowmarket Boys Brigade in 1893. (A History of the Boys Brigade in Stowmarket’ by Steve Williams, 2017).
This section of a map from the 1955 sale of Crown Farm shows the position of the BB Hut on Crown Farm land and adjacent to the Main Road. In the sale document it is described as ‘a well-built brick and corrugated iron Home Guard Hut’ by 1955 it was being used as a corn store.
Much of what we know about the Boys Brigade comes from newspaper cuttings collected by Margaret Catchpole in her scrapbooks. Unfortunately the cuttings are not always dated exactly.
This parade was probably held in the early 1930s. the Rev Chapman was replaced by Rev Bonney in 1936. The Captain Reginald Brame was the older brother of Rev Leslie Brame.
The roll call was for the 37 local men who lost their lives in WW1.
We are extremely grateful to Rev Brame for his memories of his time in the Stowupland Boys’ Brigade. Below are a few extracts but you can read more of his Recollections from As I Remember It
Leslie joined the Lifeboys at the age of 9, so 1923. This was the junior Boys Brigade, their aims were cleanliness, godliness obedience and self-respect. He thinks there were about a dozen boys (no girls in his day), their parade was Thursday evening at six o’clock and it started with an inspection to check they ‘had washed behind our ears and polished the heels of our shoes’. Their uniform was ‘a navy blue jumper over a white shirt with attached collar, navy ble shorts and socks, black shoes’ with a sailor style cap with the word lifeboy printed on the ribbon. They also had a badge in the shape of a lifebuoy.
At the age of 12, lifeboys ‘exchanged the round lifebuoy badge for an anchor motif which was part of the insignia of the Boys’ Brigade.
‘Our Stowupland company was officially known as the “Boys Brigade Fifth (Stowupland) Company East Suffolk Battalion”.’ Their parade night was Wednesday at 7:30.
The Diss Express of January 1935 carried this report on a meeting of ‘The Battalion Council.’ Of particular interest is the appointment of Mr W. Lockwood to be Lieutenant and Mr. D. Potter to be Warrant Officer for Stowupland.
However, it was not until 50 years later when, instead of being a separate wing of the 1st Mid-Suffolk ( Stowmarket), Stowupland Boys Brigade become the 9th Mid—Suffolk, captained by Lieutenant L Hart. I don’t know whether girls attended meetings in the BB Hut before it was demolished in 1979. It was certainly made good use of by the local community, both before and after the completion of the Village Hall in 1956.
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As can be seen the Brigades were split into several sections, seniors, juniors and explorers. It seems this was an era when the Brigade was popular with local children and as this press cutting tells us changes were being made to accommodate the increasing numbers.
A local resident remembered joining the BB aged 11 as a Lifeboy in 1964. To begin with he went to a company section in Combs Lane but 12 years later he ‘left Stow BB to help Mr Lew Hart run a newly formed section in Stowupland.’
He proudly remembered leading a parade in 1980 from The Retreat to Stowupland Chapel.
This was posted on face book showing some of the boys in 1981. It triggered some memories from girls and boys of their time in the Brigade.
The Parish News from from October 1984 (price 8 pence) gives us a few more facts about the Girls and Boys Brigade
A press cutting of the 1964 wedding of Heather Salmon surrounded by members of Stowupland Girls Brigade.
