Lucy Hutchinson

Mainly about being a volunteer Guide leader but also women's sports, rugby and life with my family.

[UKSwifts @swifts_uk]

Please retweet and spread the word!
What to do when you find a grounded swift 👇

[Natasha Asghar MS @natasghar]

🚨 In just 1 year, there were 6 reports of rape, 2 reports of sexual assault & 7 reports of voyeurism in leisure centre changing rooms

❌ 88% occurred in a mixed sex changing facilities

👇Why isn't the govt acting to ensure the safety of women & girls? @WRNWales

[Lily Craven @TheAttagirls]

Woman of the Day cobbler Jemima Nicholas, born in 1750 in Fishguard organised a defence of her village during a French invasion and captured twelve enemy soldiers. She was said to be “of such personal powers as to be able to overcome most men in a fight.”

Why today? Well, OTD in 1797, France, with the help of the Americans, carried out the last invasion of mainland Britain when it landed on the beach at Fishguard. It intended to carry a two-pronged diversionary attack to tie up British forces at Bristol and Newcastle while the main force headed to Bantry Bay in support of the Society of United Irishmen who were “American in their hearts”, but bad weather plus outbreaks of mutiny and poor discipline prevented two of the forces from landing while the third had to settle for Fishguard.

Big mistake. Huge, in fact.

The Battle of Fishguard raged for three days between the Irish-American Colonel William Tate’s 1,400 men (mainly republicans, deserters, convicts and 600 regular soldiers that Napoleon had no further use for), and Baron Cawdor’s 400 militia and sailors supported by the civilian population of Fishguard who didn’t take at all kindly to a load of ne’er-do-wells landing on their beach.

Almost as soon as the invaders landed, discipline broke down. The irregulars deserted to loot nearby villages where they found the Welsh armed with pitchforks and surprisingly hostile. The convict recruits discovered the locals’ supply of wine - a Portuguese ship had been wrecked on the coast several weeks previously - and lay drunk and sick in farmhouses all over the Llanwnda Peninsula where they were given scant sympathy.

The only troops left to Colonel Tate were the 600 French regulars, including his Grenadiers. They still outnumbered the local militia of 250 while the 150 British sailors were busy dealing with the invaders’ four ships, all sailing under Russian colours.

On the second evening of the battle, two French officers turned up at the Royal Oak in Fishguard Square where Baron Cawdor had set up his HQ. They tried to negotiate a conditional surrender but Cawdor bluffed and said that only an unconditional surrender was acceptable as he had superior forces. He gave the French an ultimatum: line up on Goodwick Sands and throw down your weapons at ten o’clock tomorrow morning or we attack.

Meanwhile, 47 year old Jemima Nicholas had been busy with her own efforts for the cause. She found twelve drunken French soldiers and armed with a pitchfork, captured them and marched them into town where she locked them inside St. Mary’s Church overnight for safekeeping.

Jemima instructed the other women of the village to dress up in their traditional Welsh hats and red whittles (shawls) and line up alongside the militia on the cliffs overlooking Goodwick Sands, marching up and down in formation.

The French forces on the beach thought the women were male redcoats wearing military hats and later described their fear at seeing so many troops on the hills meaning that their army of 1,200 men was outnumbered.

After a bit of dithering, Tate surrendered and his men piled up their weapons on the sands.

They were marched through Fishguard on their way to temporary imprisonment at Haverfordwest where they were later exchanged for British prisoners of war held in French prisons.

Final score: British deaths nil, casualties light.

French and American deaths and casualties: 33;
1,360 captured, one frigate and one corvette captured and handed over to the Royal Navy for its use.

Jemima, known also as Jemima Fawr or Jemima the Great, was awarded a lifetime pension. Quite right too. Never mess with Welshwomen.

[Lucy Hutchinson @lucyfrearson]

Happy 100th World Thinking Day to everyone involved in Girlguiding and Girl Scouting.
#WAGGGS #ThinkingDay

[Lily Craven @TheAttagirls]

Not long now, just one more sleep…🎄
#MerryChristmas to all the Terven. 💚🤍💜

[Lucy Hutchinson @lucyfrearson]

@BionicSparkle @LizJone55098804 @PoliticsJOE_UK Scouts in the UK are mixed sex and have been for many years. It would be illegal for them not to accept any boy or girl however they identify.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

Answer: it helps girls. It tells girls they have the right to things of their own. It tells girls they have the right to say 'no'. It reminds girls that the desires of boys do not supersede their feelings, their rights, their discomfort or their safety.

[Rick @colonelhogans]

Women are 51% of the population but 60% of the poor and 83% of single parents doing 66% of the work producing 50% of the food but earn just 11% of the pay and own only 20% of the land

All while giving birth to 100% of the population.

In case you wondered why we still need feminism.

[Diana Alastair💚🤍💜 ⚢ ❌❌✡️ @sappholives83]

When women get a cervical biopsy - which involves cutting off a small piece of the cervix - we are offered no pain management whatsoever, not even a numbing agent. The cervix is sensitive; even having it hit during sex can be extremely painful. Having a piece of it cut off without any kind of anesthetic is one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced, and I have endometriosis. We are not given any painkillers afterwards either; not even an ibuprofen. Women’s pain, after all, has always been the foundation of gynecology.

Men, on the other hand, are fully sedated for prostate biopsies, which are the closest equivalent, and are sent home with prescription pain medication and doctor’s orders to take the next few days off from work.

[Red Roses @RedRosesRugby]

This sign was left with a steward after the #RWC2025 final 🏆

Thank you for your support, Eleanor – keep playing (and smashing them every week) 🌹

[Lucy Hutchinson @lucyfrearson]

Something for the new #Guide Codingbreaking badge.

[Lily Craven @TheAttagirls]

Woman of the Day WW2 codebreaker Audrey Briggs, born in 1920 in Cambridge, was on Z Watch, the night shift at Bletchley Park, with specific responsibility for translating intercepted German naval messages and helping to track U-boats.

Night shifts in my line of work were generally quiet (well, even muggers and murderers, rapists and robbers have to sleep sometime). They were not quiet at Bletchley.

The Z Watch team who worked the midnight-to-0800 shift played a vital role in translating, analysing, and forwarding decrypted German naval signals - primarily from Enigma-encrypted messages - to the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre (OIC) in London and transforming raw decrypts from Alan Turing’s team in Hut 8 into actionable naval intelligence.

Audrey was a fluent German speaker, having graduated in Modern Languages from Newnham College, Cambridge.

Newnham graduates, especially those with degrees in maths, languages, classics and history, were targeted for recruitment by three influential Newnham alumnae in the late 1930s, as war loomed. It was a highly secretive process, requiring oaths of silence that persisted into the Cold War era, which delayed recognition until archival research in 2024 by Newnham researchers Dr Sally Waugh, Dr Gillian Sutherland, and Frieda Midgley, revealed that at least 77 Newnham alumnae and students worked at Bletchley Park in roles ranging from analytic decryption to photographic interpretation.

Joan Clarke was one. Audrey was another. She was recruited from Newnham for Bletchley in 1942 to join a high-stakes, precision-driven process team handling the overnight hours when many intercepts arrived from Y-stations (coastal listening posts).

Her routine would begin with the arrival of decrypted messages via pneumatic tubes or wire trays from Hut 8, where cryptanalysts broke the daily Enigma keys using Bombe machines. She would then have to use “cribs” (predictable snippets of code such as weather forecasts), and translate them from German into English, while cross-referencing naval terminology using extensive indexes such as ship names and U-boat designations.

These were life-or-death stakes and Audrey worked in that high-pressure environment for three years. She did it under an intense oath of secrecy that isolated her from family and friends. Even after the war, she maintained lifelong silence about her role due to the Official Secrets Act.

Audrey died in 2005 at the age of about 85, after the declassification of the work of the Bletchley Park codebreakers but long before the memoirs and oral histories that emerged in the 2010s.

We might never know how much of a debt we owe to women like Audrey - but we can guess.

I can’t give you a stirring quote from her - she kept her secrets till the end - and there’s no known photo of her. You didn’t really think there would be, did you?

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

👇🏼

[Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls @UNSRVAW]

Horrifying crimes committed by the #RSF against women and girls in Sudan

[Lucy Hutchinson @lucyfrearson]

@Cyclinintherain @JPFoundation @GuidingGLW Our Guides would love this.
Did you have someone come to lead the session? Or do you have talented super creative leaders?

[Lucy Hutchinson @lucyfrearson]

@Se_Railway Did you find any replacement busses?
My son is trying to get the 7 or 402 bus but there is no space

[London Welsh RFC @LondonWelshRFC]

140th Anniversay Celebrations

THIS WEEKEND
JOIN US to celebrate the history & heritage

Multiple games on the day including Round 8 of @Natleague_rugby London Welsh vs Havant

Get your Tickets HERE

- The whole day
- Round 8
- 140th anniversary dinner👇

https://t.co/v9nlCWqIP9

[Lucy Hutchinson @lucyfrearson]

We've been #GuidingForGood.

Shopping for the local Food Bank and learning some #lifeskills

Thank you to Farah at @Tesco Orpington for helping organise the visit.

[Lucy Hutchinson @lucyfrearson]

Here we go.
Common England! #RWC2025

[Lucy Hutchinson @lucyfrearson]

@AMAZlNGNATURE O yes. They make some really poor choices. We had one build a nest one branch away from a pair of magpies and then get upset that the eggs were stolen.

[Lucy Hutchinson @lucyfrearson]

@KatMerchant14 Delighted with the result but disappointed as I was expecting a closer match. It's sad to see USA drop back