The papers comprise material relating to the Marsden Bay Camps and Girton Guides. The camps were run for three years (1937-39) by a group of Girtonians for the wives of long-term unemployed Durham miners. Cambridge male undergraduates ran work-camps for the Durham men, but the Girton-run camps were intended to give the women a holiday break. Included are three Marsden Camp 'magazines', one for each year of the Camp's life, as well as 3 group photographs of women on the camp (one is labelled 'Hut 4, the others are of a smaller and larger group taken on some steps, both produced as postcards), 1 photo of country dancing and 1 photo of an elderly camp member sitting on steps smoking a clay pipe (the photos are undated). There are also photographs and postcards of a Cambridge student skiing trip to Oberstdorf, Germany, Christmas 1937, and a reunion the following summer. The group, which was probably that which organised the Marsden Camps, stayed at the Peter and Wendy Haus, of which there is a postcard.
There are also two album pages with photographs of the Backs and Emily Davies Court, summer 1936 and Girton Guide Club Camp, Easter 1938, as well as a loose photo of Merton House, Grantchester where the 1st Grantchester Guides met in an outhouse 1935-38.
With the above is a letter from Sheila Nevell to Patricia Acres with details of the Marsden Camps, 18 November 2003.
[See also GCPP Duke 4/3.]