​Many of our local WI members attended a meeting called to explain about the proposed new Express Roadway planned to be built very close to the town. It was a public meeting called by the protest group: there was no one there from the Highways people to put their case and the local press wasn’t present either. However, we were shown excellent diagrams and maps and lots of statistics were given about traffic flow and damage to the environment. There is a need for improvement of the road leading into Milton Keynes past Thrift Farm and an extension to the Tingewick bypass but the case for a brand new major route was not proven. The frightening thing is that for every mile of developed road you have hundreds of new houses alongside and more cars and lorries using it. We want more buses to reduce the amount of cars with one person in. Have you heard that somewhere before?
The WI book Group has been reading “I am Malala” which is the autobiography of the young girl shot by the Taliban a couple of years ago. We learned a lot about the life of the women and girls who are eager for education but have to be so brave to just attend school every day. The journalist Christina Lamb, who helped Malala write, came and talked to the BFWI some time ago either at a Council Meeting or at a Literary Lunch. Malala’s descriptions of English life and of Birmingham where she now lives with her family showed how much she appreciated the freedom to move around without a male escort all the time and to choose how she dressed---but she missed the flat roofs where the children could play cricket! We compared her fighting technique with the young Swedish Greta who is in all the media at the moment.
There is a deal of banner-waving going on at the moment and I fear that our little town of Winslow may have to start on some form of protest soon. Our community library is under threat of demolition: we are being offered a portacabin as a “temporary” substitute until a proper centre is built. As there are not even plans submitted for this yet and knowing the speed of decision-making we fear that this could be a stealthy way of being closed down altogether. I am sure I don’t need to remind you that the preservation of libraries features in one of the WI mandates so perhaps we should be girding up our loins for a good old protest---banners are boring so what about a sit-in or read-in or library hug?
The natives are restive. If members of Parliament can behave disgracefully I am sure the WI members can too. It comes to something when the item on TV which is most tear jerking is the Ten o’clock news! To the barricades!
 

​September is the month for fresh starts, the month when one looks at the calendar and thinks where did the year go and if I don’t get that done soon it will be Christmas. On the home front one rushes round to book flu injections, dentist appointments and house painters and if the luck lasts try to have an annual review with the doctor which I am assured is the due of all patients of a certain age. Things are starting up again for WI members after the summer recess. Members have survived wet garden parties and barbeques so it is time to get back to normal, whatever that is.
Our WI pennant for 2020 is completed and has been approved by the members before being sent to Stuart Lodge for adding to the celebratory bunting which will tour the county next year. We have looked at the list of walks planned across Bucks in order to encourage members to walk 100 miles in 2020. Most of them look of a manageable length and circular to avoid the problems of a linear walk which we did many years ago when we walked from one end of the county to the other. Some of our members have experimented with walking netball: I am told it was a hilarious session with a certain amount of cheating going on. The Book Group read “Persuasion” by Jane Austen and really enjoyed a trip down memory lane when the novel had been read in school. For some it was their favourite classic.
I did some sight-seeing in North Wales during the holidays and visited Plas Newydd where Lady Anglesey lived when she started the first WI in UK at Llanfair PG. Unfortunately, the mansion is undergoing restoration work so we couldn’t see the interior properly. The guide knew nothing of the WI connection so you can bet I put him right on that! I wonder what those original WI members would think of the organisation today. We still share many of the first concerns and certainly ideals but imagine their attitude to our ways of communication---a glossy member magazine, e-mails, the web and the unofficialwi site and the way we jump into cars to travel to meetings instead of walking or cycling. Early membership meant hard work and dedicated commitment---we have it easy. Perhaps that is why some members skim along the surface and cannot be bothered to look a little deeper into what the WI is all about: like most things, the more one puts in the more one gets out.