​Whattalife! was a most unusual musical play based on the life of Kathleen Ferrier which the BFWI hosted at Newton Longville on 24th January. This was the first event of the centenary celebrations and was attended by over 130 members who enjoyed a really good lunch beforehand. On sale were some of the celebratory items too such as chocolates, mugs and aprons: we’ll have to wait until the Council meeting for the gin and the new edition of the Bucks Village Book.

The concert was wonderful. Lucy Stevens, a contralto with an impressive list of credits for performing new work on radio and at Sadler’s Wells acted as Kathleen Ferrier and Elizabeth Marcus was a brilliant accompanist who has a very remarkable tally of accomplishments in her own right as well. The concert is on tour at the moment so we were privileged to have them perform for WI members in Bucks.

The singing was marvellous. Many of the folk songs for which Kathleen Ferrier was well known made brief appearances and little bits from The Messiah and the many operas which she had sung. But it was the manner in which Lucy could suddenly break off with some comment from Kathleen’s diary on where she had been or who she had met, or what she had eaten or bought that really amazed us. We were just settled into “He was rejected…and despisèd“ when we were told that Kathleen was going down to London to perform with Benjamin Britten and Malcolm Sargent; or we were well into Orfeo, when we learned that she had just bought a new-fangled roll-on which would keep riding up! To be able to do that switch in mid-breath was amazing!

I hadn’t realised that it was just 12 years from being discovered singing at Carlisle Music Festival that Kathleen died at 41 having sung at every major concert hall the world over---by watching the show we saw her go from being excited to be asked to sing in Silloth to appearing on stage in wartime London or Glyndebourne, to revelling in food without rationing while touring the States, and to being invited to sing for private concerts in Buckingham Palace. She remained a north country lass with a dirty sense of humour, always amazed at her success and determined to remain loyal to her friends and family.

Merry Christmas and a happy successful year 2020
Last night the local WI held its Christmas meeting and welcomed four potential new members. Let us hope that as they won most of the raffle prizes they will feel obliged to join next year. (In case it crossed your mind that this was a fix, I assure you it was not). The organising committee for the barn dance was congratulated on the success of the evening not just in financial terms but also in enjoyment. We were entertained by MK A Cappella who sang a varied selection of songs, some of which needed audience participation. Once more lovely food and drink was available to fortify us before scraping the ice off our cars for the journey home.
This is my valedictory post as the BFWI semi-official Members’ Blogger. I never got to have capital letters, did I? Anyway, I hope that someone will volunteer to take over the blog. It is an enjoyable thing to write when all the technology is running smoothly. I have been lucky in that the BFWI Digital Champion (capital letters) lives so near that she can almost hear my cries of frustration and she has never failed to sort me out. Thank you Joycelyn. Sometimes I have felt that I am talking to myself and then a verbal comment is made so I know that there are members out there reading my contributions.
I don’t know how to say goodbye. Shall I ride off into the sunset? Or exit pursued by a bear? Or float away in a cloud of mixed references? I shall use the epitaph that I hope will be written when I really do shake off the mortal coil---“She was always trying”. Make of that what you will.
As I said before, Happy Christmas readers. 

​What a week as we all hurtle towards Christmas! The local WI Book Group met to discuss “Beach House” by Jane Green. We were forewarned that this novel was classified as Chicklit and written by the Queen of Chicklit. This genre introduces lots of characters suffering from or surrounded by others suffering from all the social relationship problems that one reads about in agony aunt letters. These people live in houses which are described inside and out in great detail and they are dressed in fully documented clothes. Then all the characters are brought together either under one roof or in a small part of some community and manage to sort themselves out. Actually, that is a bit unkind because the novel was well written and we all enjoyed reading a light holiday type of book for a change. Our next “set” book will teach us not to be so snobby because it is a huge historical novel which promises to take at least two months to finish!
The next day I attended the Resolution selection meeting at the AVDC Offices in Aylesbury. Why do the staff there see the WI coming and immediately conduct a fire evacuation drill? It cannot be three cases of coincidence, can it? It was an interesting meeting because the five short-listed resolutions stirred up quite a lot of discussion. It was a good idea to give everyone a tick sheet so that we could review each of the subjects against the same criteria. The WI Advisers took turns to present the resolutions and offered ideas on how the members should approach them in their own WIs. They also directed us to the wealth of material issued by NFWI which is on the national website ready to download. In fact, it is almost done for us all these days.
On Saturday 30th November three of our WI members attended the primary school’s Christmas Fair to help the children stuff and sew up their own knitted teddy bear. Some kind grandparent had knitted 50 teddy bears and donated them to the school. The WI was approached to see if we would help. It was quite entertaining but we were a bit surprised at how few children had ever sewn anything at all and hardly any knew how to knit. (I am afraid this applied to several of the parents too). I know, through WI Life that some WIs go into schools to teach basic skills so should we be offering to fill this gap? Surely there is space in the national curriculum for something of this kind: co-ordination, design and technology are all necessary in life.
In the evening the local WI held its Barn Dance. This had been planned for June but had to be postponed because of lack of support which was not a problem in November. People came from miles around. It was great fun: good refreshments, a grand band and although the caller struggled with dancers who had forgotten which was left and which was right everyone enjoyed themselves. I am sure it must have been a successful fund-raiser too.
 

​A rather depleted craft group met this afternoon. We reviewed the success of our contributions to the WI tombola stall at the Farmers’ Market. This had been masterminded by one of our members. There hadn’t been the number of children visiting the stall as we had expected which meant we had toys left over. We agreed that these could go still in their wrappings but without raffle tickets attached to the Women’s Refuge which the local WI supports. We then discussed the invitation from the local school PTA to help at its Christmas Fair. Fifty knitted teddy bears had been donated to the school but they needed eyes, stuffing and sewing up by the children. It was hoped some WI ladies would be able to give practical advice and be there to demonstrate how to tackle the problem. The thought of perhaps 50 primary children armed with needles and bags of stuffing made some of us turn pale but we are going to give it a go!
The local WI held an extra meeting this week. Every year our WI gives what it calls a Denman College bursary: one year the members draw a raffle to attend a course at the WI college at Marcham and in alternate years the Committee set up an extra educational evening to which all the members can come for free. On Wednesday over 20 of the members shared the annual Denman Bursary by being taught to work with silver wire to make a piece of jewellery. The demonstrators from Corzo&Wood in the Courtyard at Claydon House brought with them a display of silver pendants and ear-rings, handbags and scarves from their shop. We set about trying to tame lengths of silver wire with different kinds of pliers in order to encase a stone to form a pendant. It was very hard on the thumbs but everyone produced a passable pendant with a little help from Violeta and Sarah. It was a most enjoyable and educational evening and of course the refreshments were good too.

​Yesterday one of the Bucks Federation board of trustees held a shop and coffee morning at her house in Padbury. I imagine the attendance might turn out to be lower than hoped because overnight rain had caused extensive flooding on local roads. It is appreciated when the WI shop contents are brought out to the areas at a distance from our HQ in High Wycombe.
The local WI discussion group met this week after a sort of summer recess. The topic was “fake news” which is not a new problem but one that has grown in importance with the advent of social media. We thought there were two kinds; first the deliberate information planted to reach a targeted audience in order to achieve a specific aim and secondly, information started with a nugget of truth which then suffers manipulation in the manner of Chinese whispers. Fake news has been about since it was exchanged by word of mouth among the courtiers, crusaders and peasants of the medieval world. It was used in scare stories in wartime and in espionage to bamboozle the enemy. Chequebook journalism thrives on it and of course it is so fast along social media outlets.
Our WI Annual Meeting is in November and this year it was very well attended. We completed all the required reports and were pleased to be reminded of a successful year with interesting speakers enjoyed and a healthy bank balance to see us through the next. We have a committee and our president is game to continue in post for another year. The members were asked to sign up to receive the Bucks Newsletter on line rather than as hard copy. Several of us refused even though we had e-mail addresses because we didn’t like reading newsletters off the screen and personally, I don’t believe that the members will take up as many bookings for BFWI events if they haven’t got the information in writing in front of them. It’s bad enough as it is with the system of not receiving paper tickets for events: one has to go back to the original announcement in the newsletter to be reminded of time and place. OK you can prove me wrong! The tickets for the barn dance are selling well. The social time at the meeting was taken up by “swishing” our unwanted clothes or bad buys amongst each other. This proved popular and no money changed hands.
The local WI held a promotional stall at the November Farmers’ Market when we ran a tombola and drew attention to our WI. This attracted a few enquiries into what the WI was all about and we hope these will bear fruit in January.