What are these girls holding?

[GR2]

I have just looked through a book I have called "Sound bodies for our boys and girls" (1884). The children mostly use dumb-bells, but there are exercises which involve holding sticks in front of them and twirling them. None of the drawings show anything on the ends of the sticks, but they should be half the width of your wrist in thickness. Maybe these longer sticks are for something similar. The drawings of the younger girls show them wearing skirts which come just below the knee. The older girls have on ankle-length dresses.

Graham.

[Colin Cruddace]

I've noticed that all the girls with a pole and basket have their hand inside the basket to hold the pole. Could it be a hand protector and used as part of the display for pole twirling and club swinging. If they were used for collecting money, I doubt if they would all have done it.

Colin

[Lydart]

Like fencing foils ??    Possible... but I suspect they would also have the face masks visible ...

[ScouseBoy]

Nowadays, Girls have dancing troup competitions.   Would they have had Dancing competiitions 100 years ago?

They would swing the Indian clubs in unison,  and wave the sticks about like a drum major.

[ScouseBoy]

I suggest that you Google Girls Morris dancing troups.

Or look  at "Lymm girls Morris Dancing" 

I am sure that you will be able to find photos of Girls Dancing troops from before 1900.

Have you any idea which town they lived in?       Some areas may have a stronger tradition of girls dancing competitions than other areas.

[Aberdeen Archives]

Gosh, thanks for all the suggestions!  I'll get the back of the postcard scanned later on today, and post it up but as far as I can remember there wasn't anything on the back which seemed to be of use.

Good idea to contact Grampian Police about their service records, to see if the man was indeed a policeman and whether there's anything about his extra-curricular activities, as it were.  However, I'm not entirely sure the picture is definitely in Aberdeen / the North East.  The collection the postcard is in contains ones from all over the world, including South Africa and Europe, but I'll give the police here a shot nonetheless.

I thought the idea about the baskets being used for collections was a good one, and it's something I'm keeping in mind...it's just so frustrating when you come across photographs like this with nothing whatsoever to identify it. 

[Aberdeen Archives]

As promised, here's the rather boring back of the postcard!  The number in the top right doesn't mean anything.

[Emjaybee]

SINGLE-STICKFIGHTING

Stick fighting, was a popular pastime throughout the whole of the British Isles. In Scotland young men would learn the seven angles of attack and six guard positions and like the Phillipino systems, training involved the use of the left hand to parry or disarm, and wrestling throws & trips. The weapon typically consisted of a yard-long ash wood stick with a wicker basket guard, which was usually the combatant's only protection. Village fairs and Highland Games often held singlestick or cudgelling matches which began with the short prayer, "God, spare our eyes", after which the object of the game was to break each others heads, "for the moment that blood runs an inch anywhere above the eyebrow, the old gamester to whom it belongs is beaten".

Maybe the girls took over the stick as a Morris style baton?

[Greensleeves]

SINGLE-STICKFIGHTING

Stick fighting, was a popular pastime throughout the whole of the British Isles. ...... began with the short prayer, "God, spare our eyes", after which the object of the game was to break each others heads, "for the moment that blood runs an inch anywhere above the eyebrow, the old gamester to whom it belongs is beaten".

I do hope that these nice young ladies weren't about to embark on this kind of pastime; but it would certainly account for why they are all looking so miserable!