​It was the Chase Group Autumn meeting last night. A beautiful evening with a bright moon above and no rain, so why was it so much smaller than usual? I don’t believe the WI members were glued to the latest Brexit news but something kept them at home. More fool them because they missed a really interesting speaker, good reports from the group WIs and tasty refreshments. Deborah Brady spoke about her life as a photojournalist on Fleet Street where at the beginning she was the only female in a man’s world. Deborah had covered some harrowing events and she explained how difficult it was to try to desensitise herself to the scenes which she was photo-ing and she demonstrated the physical problems of lugging around all the equipment necessary for obtaining just the right shot at varying distances. The audience was enthralled to listen and watch a very entertaining and accomplished public speaker in action.
Thursday 10th October
I attended the BFWI’s Autumn event “Women in Uniform” in the Old Town Hall, High Wycombe. This was a well-supported event: there must have been over 200 people there. There were some uniformed ladies in the audience and the Board of Trustees were resplendent in hats to represent the uniform of WI ladies! Well I suppose it was nearer the truth these days than aprons! Three young women from the Armed Forces Diversity Engagement Team gave a very comprehensive presentation about the opportunities on offer to girls in the army, navy and air force. It was slick and fast and very interesting. The modern armed forces welcome all trades and professions with 500 different roles to play and they want to attract school and college leavers into their ranks: they have 6000 apprentices. This demonstration was followed by Mrs Julia Upton MBE describing her role as the High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. She wore a most attractive, definitely feminine uniform but revealed that this lady had set herself a mission to make a difference to our prisons and care systems. The Sheriff shared many of the concerns and aims of the WI and is obviously a woman of action. Then there was an extra speaker, the new NFWI Training Manager based at Denman College who had been a high-ranking officer in the Navy. We were allowed to look but not to touch her ceremonial sword. Tracy Santrian spoke of the similarities between the training in the forces and the shared ideals of the WI. The afternoon closed with a brief concert from the RAF Halton Voluntary All-Woman Saxophone Quartet to prove that the forces welcomed musicians as well.
9th October
After the summer break the local WI discussion group met to plan a programme of topics for the coming months. Everyone had thought of something and their ideas ranged from protest marches to language tuition, industrial espionage to space mining, tea to the use of religious buildings and frontiers to TV programmes. We then sat drinking our wine and listing what made us feel happy---besides the drinking of wine! Female company ranked high too so, WI members go forth and spread the word.

​Lyn Kidby spoke about “Patterns of my Life” which was an intriguing title for a very interesting treatment of how the mathematics of shape are all around us in the natural and industrial world. Lyn showed examples of the many crafts she has learned and her illustrative photos of her travels were really lovely. Hot off the e-mail members reported that the threatened demolition of the community library had been reconsidered so that it will not take place until new premises have been approved by the planners and can be seen to be being built. A great relief to us all but we should remain vigilant in case the issue is re-thought again.
It promises to be a busy autumn as plans got under way for our WI to host the Chase Group meeting on 16th October, the promotion stall at the Farmers’ Market on the 3rd November and another jigsaw coffee morning on the 7th November. Some of us will attend the “Women in Uniform“event at High Wycombe next week and the walking netball is in full swing. Then of course there is the Christmas Dinner looming. We listened to an explanation of the difference between BFWI being an incorporated or an unincorporated organisation in preparation for next spring when all members must cast their vote on this decision.
Beside the seaside, beside the sea.
WI members from all over Bucks set off for an autumn break on Sunday 29th September by coach to Blackpool. Everything was very well arranged except the weather and poor Jacqueline’s voice box—coach and hotel fine. We broke the journey with a visit to the National Memorial Arboretum where we paddled bravely under umbrellas around the memorials. Even in the rain it is an impressive place to visit and there are always additions being made. By a strange coincidence we bumped into a founder member of one of the Milton Keynes WIs who now lives in Bedfordshire: she was with a group of friends so we exchanged news with her about our respective WIs.
Rain made driving difficult and the fields on both sides of the motorway were flooded but we arrived safely at the hotel in Blackpool. After dinner most of us rushed out to catch an open illuminated tram to see the Lights. In spite of the rain and a stiff sea breeze we really enjoyed ourselves and the lights are impressive depicting pirates and skeletons, mermaids and Disney characters etc. Next day the majority went to Chester and enjoyed a guided tour of the city before each visiting the places that had taken her fancy and finding a good place to lunch. Six of us jumped coach and explored Blackpool. The weather stayed fine: we were able to walk along the sands, go up the Tower from where we could see Anglesey, The Isle of Man and the Lakeland hills; to visit the Tower Ballrooms to listen to the organ, to walk three piers by all the pinball machines and the fish-n-chips and read the music hall jokes that carpeted the promenade. And it was all chaotically noisy and just what Blackpool has always been famous for---even the pavement conversations were several decibels louder than in a town in Bucks!
That evening in the hotel there was a large party from the Isle of Man some of whom were WI members and had known a lady who used to chair at Denman and left a substantial legacy to the college to help defray the cost for IOM WI members attending courses. Next morning reading the news of the devastation by storms in Laxey, IOM I wondered how many had had their houses flooded in their absence. We left Blackpool in pouring rain and travelled down to Baddesley Clinton a National Trust property near Birmingham where we planned to lunch and walk in the gardens and some of us did! The house was fascinating because it had been added to through the years from the 1200s and the stewards were so informative and friendly. We were able to look in some detail and at leisure because there were so few people there. It had priest holes and wonderful woodwork---well worth a visit. I forgot to mention a very full moat too! Pity we couldn’t enjoy the gardens but everything was sodden including us.
Home then and thanks to Jacqueline King for arranging such a lovely break and if you want to go to Amsterdam with BFWI in the Spring you had better get your application in soon because it will be rightly popular.
 

​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.

​It seems to be the closed season for me as regards the WI because I haven’t added anything to the blog for 6 weeks. I shall start now with an item which was not run by the WI but which several local WI members attended. Another organisation had arranged a group visit to Greatmoor EfW centre (electricity from waste) based at Edgcott near Aylesbury. Here 345,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste from Bucks and other counties is converted into electricity---nothing is wasted. This is where the contents of our ordinary household bins end up. The size, cleanliness and the efficiency of the plant is impressive: every authority should have a similar facility but unfortunately not all are as switched on as Bucks. You may organise small group visits or attend an open day where you will receive a more superficial grasp of what is done. I do recommend this as it covers many aspects of WI mandates and there is a lot of misinformation about the process bandied about.
The local book group takes no notice of summer holidays so we met as usual and were rewarded by having read a book that everyone appreciated and kept us talking for much longer than usual. I can’t remember how we came by this novel but we can recommend it to you all to read. “Painter of Silence” is by Georgina Harding. It is set in Romania between 1939 and the late 1950s so is a pretty harrowing read about events that few of us had really known much about. The vehicle for the story is a deaf mute. You’ve got to read it to see how successful this is. The writing is excellent too.
We enjoyed our usual WI garden party in the usual downpour: it doesn’t matter whose garden or what day of the week it is, the rain can be guaranteed for the local WI‘s summer meeting. But then the BFWI archery session had to be re-scheduled for wind and fetes were washed out so what’s new for August in the UK?
In the national press there have been mentions of matters related to WI mandates such as the publicity about ignorance of young women about the necessity to undergo regular smear tests and the lack of opportunities for older women to continue being tested. This is thanks to Marina Wheeler, the estranged wife of Boris Johnson, revealing that she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer. I wonder what would happen if we all walked into our doctors’ surgeries and demanded smear tests---there’s a suggestion for a group visit for you!
I also saw that the hospice in Leicestershire which had banned the local WIs from baking cakes has had to eat its words but we knew it would, didn’t we?