The theme of this year’s Girlguiding Thinking Day service is “Our World, Our Thriving Future: The Environment and Global Poverty”.

However, guiding might not have any future at all in Bermuda, thanks to a decision of the parent organisation in England. Authorities there have decided to close overseas operations. Bermuda could continue as an affiliate, but only after large sums of money are paid out.

Felicity Lunn, 90, a former island commissioner, is one of those trying to save guiding Bermuda.

Local guiding goes back to 1919.

“I just finished drafting a letter to the leadership in England, and am just waiting for approval for it here,” Ms Lunn said. “People in the Girlguiding community in Bermuda are feeling frustrated, and in some cases angry.”

She became a Brownie in Montreal at the start of the Second World War.

“I was 5,” she said. “My kindergarten teacher was my Brown Owl [leader].”

As war rocked the world, she learnt how to tie her shoes in the Brownies, how to knit and how to thread a needle.

“I remember that was hard,” she laughed.

Her father worked in shipping so they moved around a lot, particularly when the St Lawrence River froze.

“Girlguiding was always a challenge,” she said. “We learnt semaphore and went on hikes. Once we went camping in the St Laurent’s mountains in Quebec. Each camp had an Indian name, and I was in Huron.”

At 13, she took a life-saving course with the Girl Guides. That came in handy years later, in the 1960s, when she was working as a matron at Lefroy House in Sandys.

“One day someone rushed in with an unconscious child in their arms,” she said. “He had to have been about 3 or 4. It was quite scary. I think he had been on the beach with his mother and then got into the water and started to drown.”

To help the toddler, she reached back to her Girl Guide training.

“We did not do CPR, we did another technique to get the water out of his lungs,” she said. “Today they would probably do things completely differently.”

Whatever she did worked. She saved the child’s life.

“I would not recognise him today,” she said. “It sure made the mother happy.”

Ms Lunn was quite relieved herself.

As a young woman, she wanted to become a physiotherapist, but had not studied physics.

“I ended up going to England to become a nurse,” she said.

She came to Bermuda in 1959 to work at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

“I worked in Ward 2,” she said. “It was a general ward.”

Bermuda was very different at that time.

“We would go off on our bikes and never see a car,” she said. “There were very few cars on the roads, which were very narrow. There was a lot more open space.”

She and a girlfriend were just about to move on to a hospital in New York when she met her future husband, David Lunn, a police officer from Northern Ireland.

“We met at a party,” she said.

After getting married, she worked at the health department in the women’s clinic.

“I loved that,” she said. “We used to visit all the newborn babies. We also had an antenatal clinic. It was really nice.”

She became involved in Bermuda guiding a few years later when a friend asked her to be a lifesaver at a camp in Sandys. She and her husband were living in Dockyard at the time. From there, she became involved with the organisation again, now as an adult.

She was western district commissioner for ten years before becoming island commissioner. She liked that she could be a part of the leadership, but still go camping and do all the fun things. She was always an outdoorsy, active person. She enjoyed going to leadership training all over the world.

“The guiders all got along,” she said. “We had such a lovely friendship. We would have trainings together and do things together.”

She really enjoyed working with the Brownies, some of the youngest guides.

“When they went to make their Girl Guide promise, they were always so serious,” she said.

She remembers the day she made her pledge.

“I felt almost grown-up,” she said.

Over the years, she has been to many Thinking Day services, a day reserved for celebrating the global organisation.

“On Thinking Day, me and other leaders would go to Fort Scaur in Sandys and raise the flag,” Ms Lunn said. “We would have hot chocolate in the morning. It was really fun.”

The skills she developed as a Brownie and Girl Guide helped her later in life.

“The team-building probably helped me the most,” she said. “When you are in girl guiding you are always working together. Respect is also built into the culture. That stands you in good stead no matter what you choose to do in the future.”

She retired in 1987.

“After that I volunteered for the Bermuda Red Cross in the Blood Donor Centre for quite a while,” she said. “That has all changed now. They no longer use retired nurses; they use nurses on staff in the hospital.”

In recent years, she has enjoyed playing golf, and also bridge with her friends.

Her husband, David, died two years ago after 62 years of marriage.

She has four children, David, Greg, Catherine and Colin and nine grandchildren. Only her daughter was ever involved with girl guiding or scouting.

“She still has her Girl Guide dress,” Ms Lunn said.

This year’s Thinking Day service will be held on February 18 at the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity on Church Street in Hamilton.

“We want to encourage as many former guides to come out and support us,” she said. “They are more than welcome.”

• Lifestyle profiles the island’s senior citizens every week. Contact Jessie Moniz Hardy on 278-0150 or jmhardy@royalgazette.com, with the full name and contact details and the reason you are suggesting them