1939 POR - Ability Badge
The candidate should do one of the following, or equivalent exercise, continuously for ten weeks, keeping her own record throughout:
a) Play some game such as netball, tennis, hockey, etc., at least once a week.
b) Walk six miles a week.
c) Attend weekly "Keep Fit" or gymnast classes.
d) Cycle ten miles weekly.
e) Ride for two hours a week.
f) Swim 200 yards a week.
g) Help for two hours a week in some form of outdoor farm work.
h) Garden for two hours a week.
I) Attend a weekly country dance class.
(Should time be lost trough illness or other unavoidable cause, it may be made up at the end of the period.)
In addition, she should do any six of the following:
1) Memorise a message of twenty words and transmit it by any method, excluding postal services, over a distance of one mile.
2) Know and describe four of the following, two from each list:
a) 6 makes of car; 6 sea craft; 6 types of aeroplane; 6 kinds of wood and their uses; 6 machines of farm implements and their uses; 6 metals and their uses.
b) 6 fish, their habits, and how they are caught; 6 animals, their uses and habits; 6 crops and their rotation; 3 weather signs and 3 cloud formations, and what they portend; 6 constellations, and how an explorer can find his way by three of them.
3) Read a book on exploration or the conquest of the air.
4) Use seven knots, and use a chair knot or double bowline, or fasten one car to another preparatory to towing.
5) Improvise and bring to the test, two implements for temporary use only.
6) Know how to carry a sick or injured person; how to enter a smoke-filled room and rescue its inmates, and how to deal with asphyxiation through smoke or gas poisoning. understand the use of fire extinguishers and hose, and know how to deal with forest fires.
7) Make a fire in the open and produce a hot stimulant on it in a remarkable time, according to circumstances; in no case should the whole test take more than 20 minutes.
8) Know what constitutes a reasonable landing ground, and in the event of seeing an air pilot looking for a suitable place on which to make a forced landing, know how to assist him.
9) Know how to prevent panic and to keep people calm on such occasion as the failure of the light supply, a bad thunderstorm, or a flood.
10) Jack up a car, remove wheel and replace with spare, or mend a punctured bicycle tyre.