{"id":11409,"date":"2019-12-30T11:49:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T16:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/?p=11409"},"modified":"2025-10-29T08:10:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T08:10:51","slug":"jonguler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/?p=11409","title":{"rendered":"Find 13: Girl Guide Pixie Promise badge"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A soft, early afternoon light broke through the clouds, dappling the Wiltshire fields in a patchwork of sun and shadow. The air had a crisp chill to it, a promise of the autumn to come, and the hedgerows were already thick with hawthorn berries. This is a field I know well, one I’ve walked many times. I’ve found a dozen or so Girl Guide badges here over the years, a curious artefact that suggests a troop once used these fields for their outdoor activities.
As my detector sang out a strong, clear signal, I felt that familiar surge of anticipation. The ground here is a bit dense, so it took some careful digging, but what emerged was a small, oval bronze badge. A quick brush-up revealed not the familiar trefoil symbol of the Guides, but a dancing pixie-like figure. It’s a simple, unassuming thing, but it immediately felt different from the others I’ve found.
This badge, as I’ve since discovered, is a Girl Guide Promissory Badge\u2014a small token given to girls who were considering joining the movement. It\u2019s an object that symbolises potential and a budding commitment. What’s truly fascinating is its design, which places it firmly in the 1940s. I imagine joining the girl guides, or even the Brownies was a different proposition than it is today. In fact, the other badges I\u2019ve recovered from this very field are largely from the 1970s and 80s, suggesting a continuous, if not regular, use of this particular spot over several decades. It gives me a sense of the generations of girls who have come to this place, on an endless progression of summer days to develop skills, learn teamwork, and explore nature.
It\u2019s these small connections that I find so rewarding. This tiny piece of brass, separated by a generation or two from the others, links us to a moment of decision for a young girl many decades ago. It\u2019s a quiet reminder that every find, no matter how small, tells a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Banging good signal though…<\/p>\n\n\n

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A soft, early afternoon light broke through the clouds, dappling the Wiltshire fields in a patchwork of sun and shadow. The air had a crisp chill to it, a promise of the autumn to come, and the hedgerows were already thick with hawthorn berries. This is a field I know well, one I’ve walked many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11488,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metal-detecting","category-writing","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/image1-rotated-1.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sDxlf-jonguler","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11409"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13856,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11409\/revisions\/13856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}