Travelling to Mexico

This photograph shows Lillian and Stuart Minors of Cedar Hill with their six children in 1964. My mother, Rosalind Minors (Hubbard) is pictured in her full Girl Guide uniform and the photo was taken at the Bermuda Airport. Rosalind had been selected to travel to Nuestra Cabaña (Our Cabana) in Cuernavaca, Mexico to represent Bermuda at the Western Hemisphere Conference (Pan-American Gathering) of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Rosalind was 19 years old, and this was the first time she would have travelled abroad from Bermuda. Her delight and excitement are clear to see from her beaming smile. (Her siblings look much less excited, perhaps because they weren’t going with her!) To be travelling by plane would have been a huge adventure, and the significance of the occasion was marked by all the family attending, dressed in what looks like “Sunday Best” to farewell her at the airport. (Perhaps they had even travelled to the airport from Church at St, Mary’s?) It is a special picture because it is one of the few family portraits of my mother, her parents, and all her siblings taken when everyone was still young and living at home.
Rosalind was a cadet of the Bermuda Cadet Company, and she travelled with Yvonne Francis (Pearson) from the 2nd St Georges Company. Rosalind had worked her way up through the Guiding ranks from being a Brownie to become a cadet leader at the Friendship Vale School. Rosalind thoroughly enjoyed the Girl Guide gathering in Mexico, and throughout her life would fondly reminisce about the experience. The chance to explore another country, its language and culture and to meet young women from around the globe made a huge impression on her and very much broadened her horizons.