I have something in common with Kate Moss, Carol Vorderman, Davina McCall and Cherie Blair.

As girls we all wore a blue shirt, a neckerchief and a cabin crew-style cap. We cooked sausages on open fires, learned how to resuscitate a plastic dummy, tied complicated knots and played rowdy games of Traffic Lights. We were, of course, Girl Guides.

I loved Guides. I even became a Queen’s Guide and got my photograph in the T&A. I acquired armfuls of badges, learned skills like first aid and putting up a tent, and enjoyed the camaraderie of a lively youth movement.

Boys had Scouts and girls had Guides. That was the what the Baden-Powells had in mind when they started both movements in the early 20th century.

I think it’s important at that tricky, formative age to have something exclusively for your own gender, so I’m not in favour of Scout packs admitting girls, something that became compulsory in 2007.

Now, girls are outnumbering boys for the first time in the movement’s history, with 4,330 girls and 3,796 boys joining Scouts over the past year.

I can’t see the point of this when the Guide movement is still so active. It’s not all cross-stitch and baking – a few years ago, I visited a Guide pack and came across activities like outdoor pursuits, football, joinery, electronics, canoeing and car maintenance. They even wore jeans.

The emphasis is on life skills, decision-making, teamwork, leadership, responsibility and resourcefulness.

I’m all for children getting out, learning practical skills and having adventures, instead of staring dead-eyed into a computer screen, but I don’t see why Scouts can’t just be for boys. When I asked my nephews, who are Cubs, if they’d like girls in their pack, they turned their noses up. I’d have done the same, aged ten, if we’d had boys in my Guide pack. It would’ve changed the dynamic, and turned it into a regular youth club.

I can never understand the fuss about organisations that don’t allow the opposite sex. Why on earth would any woman want to join the Freemasons anyway?

Some organisations just aren’t meant to be unisex. My mum was in the WI for many years and made some good friends. That Monday evening each week was her time, and it wouldn’t have been the same with husbands getting in the way.

It was the same for me with Guides. Guiding was something that belonged to us girls, and it instilled a kind of practical feminism embodying life skills and good citizenship. To this day, I still know what to do if someone sinks an axe into their leg at Guide camp…