Knitting, baking and singing hymns. That's what the Girl Guides is all about, right? Well, not according to a new book which tells the little-known story of the huge contributions that Guides made in World War II.

The moment that war was declared in 1939, Margaret Collins, at the time a guide living in Maidstone, Kent, knew exactly where she was - helping out in the town hall, where she listened in the Mayor's parlour to the declaration of war.

"Various information offices were set up and I helped direct the evacuees," she says. "First, we Guides scrubbed the large old houses along the London Road, which had stood empty because of the Depression. They were taken over by the council and we got them ready for pregnant mothers.