Jambusters (17 page)

Some WIs made so much money from the pie scheme they could make donations to war charities and hospitals. After the war Willaston WI bought a new clock for the church hall and a
banner for the Scouts. Some WIs, I learned recently, still have a Pie Fund, which is a useful back up for hard times.

It was always clear that in the event of a major war there would have to be petrol rationing and by the time of the Munich Crisis in September 1938 a coupon replacement scheme was in operation. Five months before the outbreak of war Miss Farrer had written to the Assistant Secretary for Defence asking for key workers within the National Federation of Women’s Institutes to be considered in the event of an emergency. She pointed out that the ‘Federation has a membership of over 300,000 and it has applied to the Lord Privy Seal for recognition that its work will be of national importance in time of emergency in order that its “key workers” may be included in the list of reserved occupations. Petrol will be required more particularly for the Federation’s full time organisers and for the Secretaries of the County Federations in England and Wales of which there are 58.’
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One of the biggest headaches for national and county federations was the issue of petrol rationing. Although the WI was requested formally by the government to assist with food production, they were not entitled to extra petrol rations since the WI was a social organisation. It was a source of tremendous frustration to Miss Farrer, whose correspondence with the relevant people at the Ministry of Food became ever terser as the pressure on fuel increased. It was particularly galling since the Women’s Land Army and the Women’s Voluntary Service, as military organisations, were each entitled to bulk supplies and this led to friction.

The government had two departments dealing with the rationing of petrol. The Ministry of Transport dealt with commercial vehicles and road haulage while the Board of Trade and then later the Ministry of Supply dealt with private motoring, which had three categories: essential users which included doctors, semi-essential users such as commercial travellers, and
non-essential users which comprised the bulk of people and into which category the WI was placed. This was one of the reasons why they ended up by having to do such battle with the Ministry. By the outbreak of war there were almost 2 million private cars in Britain and motoring had become a way of life and not just a hobby. The government did not feel sufficiently confident to deny civilian motorists petrol completely but they limited the supply to sufficient fuel for 1,800 miles a year. By the end of the war the number of civilian cars on the roads was just 11 per cent of its prewar high. Peggy Sumner put her beloved Morris 10 on blocks and the only vehicle she drove during the war was a civilian ambulance. Sybil Norcott was more fortunate. Her father was a farmer so had a larger petrol ration, which meant he could keep a car on the road. Although there was a brisk black market in petrol, as there was in so many goods, the WI could not be seen to be taking advantage of this source. My grandmother, however, did. She would receive a phone call from the garage who would tell her that ‘the bicycle is repaired’ and that would be a cue for her to drive down and fill up her car. Her sister-in-law, Ruth Toosey in Barrow, seldom drove her family car and used her bicycle during the war. It was an upright model with a skirt guard which the children nicknamed the ‘potato peeler’ because it rattled and clanked.

As a method for savings stocks of petrol rationing worked. In fact it was so successful that in July 1940 all motorists were granted a concession of 300 miles for servicemen on home leave. This lasted for the remainder of the war. The grey area as far as voluntary organisations were concerned was the definition of semi-essential users. The National Executive of the WI considered that the work their members performed, particularly with reference to fruit preserving, was war work set for them by the government. Thus they ought to be entitled to extra petrol in order to be able to carry out this essential work. At the beginning
of the war Miss Farrer was able to report with satisfaction to county secretaries that the Petroleum Department of the Board of Trade had agreed that key workers would be entitled to normal fuel allowances and that Voluntary County Organisers and county workers should apply directly to the Board of Trade. It was particularly for those women running the WI market stalls, as it was often their responsibility to drive round villages collecting the produce to be sold.

In late January 1940 the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed that WI national and county organisers would be entitled to supplementary petrol rations in view of the valuable work they were doing, especially in their efforts to ‘stimulate local education authorities to provide further facilities for instruction in rural domestic economy’.

However, by June 1940 the attitude of the civil servants at the Ministry and the quantity of petrol available for domestic use meant that the WI would not receive special treatment. Mr Squance in the Petroleum Department, formerly the Department of Mines, locked horns with Miss Walker at the national headquarters. She wrote testy letters to him explaining that the Ministry of Agriculture had formally asked the WI to be involved in the fruit preservation scheme and that this was not possible if organisers could not move around their counties. Mr Squance wrote back: ‘I should emphasise that the 300 miles is a maximum [per county] and the allowances on that basis will only be granted in special cases where it is considered the circumstances demand this mileage.’
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The atmosphere between the two bodies deteriorated and Miss Farrer took over the correspondence from Miss Walker. She wrote, in early 1941, to complain that the Women’s Land Army and the Women’s Voluntary Service were both entitled to bulk supplies of petrol so why could the Women’s Institutes not be treated in the same manner? The battle for
petrol rations continued throughout the war and at times the arguments became acrimonious. On one occasion, when Miss Farrer tried to force the point that the WI was a voluntary organisation tasked with doing work for the country for which the vast majority of the contributors got neither pay nor petrol nor even a free pot of jam, Mr Mackay wrote back explaining that WIs would have to ‘take their place with the many peace-time social and cultural organizations whose use of petrol must be severely restricted in war-time’.
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The problem of transport affected the WI at all levels. The institutes were particularly resourceful when it came to organising alternative transport, especially when getting food to the WI market stalls. Some food was boxed up and sent with the local grocer if he was going in the same direction, other women took fruit and vegetables into markets by bus, the pony and trap saw a resurgence of use and others still cycled with heavily laden baskets back and front on their bicycles. Where a cycle was not available and the distance was not too great, some women resorted to pushing their wares in babies’ prams or carts. Such was the determination not to waste produce and miss the market sales that any method was acceptable provided the fruit and vegetables arrived in good condition. Grocers would sometimes help by offering a corner of their trailers and the market controller would collect from homes if she had a car and petrol. ‘One controller broke her gear lever as she was driving along with a heavy load of produce. There was no way of changing gear, no time to get it mended, so she drove on in the same gear, past traffic lights, past startled policemen, called out blithely, “Can’t stop. Must get to market.” And she did.’
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The Voluntary County Organisers (VCOs) and other officers responsible for lectures, demonstrations and checking produce stalls and preservation centres often had to do without their cars
and make journeys by bus or cycle. One VCO in Warwickshire cycled 1,258 miles in a year to fulfil her commitments, a feat that impressed the National Executive Committee who recorded it in ‘What the WIs Did in 1944’.
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A Denbighshire VCO had a motorised bicycle called ‘James’ that she used to reach hamlets tucked away in the hills. Miss McCall calculated that a minimum of 30,000 visits were made by these county volunteers annually and that the true figure was quite possibly double that, even in wartime when travel was so difficult. Mrs Herschell, head of the Pie Committee at Willaston, had to cycle to Ellesmere Port one week as the baker had failed to deliver. The distance was only six miles but the problem was that she had to carry 600 pies on her bicycle.

By the middle of the war the WI market stall had become a valuable addition to county towns and villages. Surplus fruit, vegetables and flowers were sold on a regular weekly basis in 300 locations throughout the country. The market stall had humble beginnings and was slow to grow. The first market was opened on 14 December 1919 in Lewes, East Sussex. It was a collaboration between several WIs and at its height sold produce from twenty-three institutes. At first it was intended to sell produce from members only but it soon expanded to include goods from smallholders, allotment-holders, owners of cottage gardens and ex-servicemen. This last was helpful for men who, on their return from the Great War and during the years of the Great Depression, found themselves without jobs and a prospect of work and an income in the future. Cooperative markets meant they could grow vegetables and sell them, bringing in a small amount of income. For some it proved to be a turning point in their lives and led to more ambitious business ventures. The markets also filled a gap since the quantities of fruit, vegetables and other goods sold were too small for any commercial business to handle.

From the outset the markets were registered as cooperatives under the Industrial and Provident Friendly Societies Act. Producers became shareholders by buying a share for one shilling. They then elected a committee of management to run the markets, often a mixture of men and women, with a number of WI members included. The Ministry of Information, which commissioned a short report on the markets, deemed them to be ‘business-like and practical examples of cooperative rural enterprise’.

Miss Vera Cox, the marketing organiser of the WI, was a spirited lady and tireless. She claimed to have been born in London by mistake and was brought up to dislike towns. After leaving school she worked as a farm labourer in Devon and Surrey from 1916 to 1920: ‘four years of spreading dung, standing knee deep in water ditching, patching sheep folds in the icy cold and singling roots in extreme heat’.
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After those challenging early experiences she obtained a war bursary to Seale-Hays Agricultural College in Devon and then attended the West of Scotland Dairying School in Kilmarnock, so that by the time she gained her national diploma in dairying she could say with confidence that she knew a great deal about farming in different areas of the country. Once qualified she went to work on a mixed farm in North Lincolnshire, where she ran the accounts. She also ‘acted as unofficial bailiff and helped to settle lock-outs and labour disputes and gave advice on everything – from the choice of wallpapers to the choice of wives’.
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After she moved to Hampshire to run a small grass farm she joined the local WI as secretary and served on the Hampshire County Federation Agricultural Subcommittee. She was also keen on drama and helped to produce plays in the village. When she became the marketing organiser in September 1932 she beat fifty other candidates to the post.

Miss Cox advised WIs on setting up new markets, on running
them and how to manage their registration as provident societies. She helped to draft a set of model rules by which markets should operate and these were published in a handbook. The Carnegie UK Trust, who had been supporting the WI market project financially by paying for the marketing organiser’s salary, continued to fund the role until 1941, after which the post had to be funded by the markets themselves. The commission charged to the market stalls rose from 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent of turnover. This was altered in March 1943 to exclude market stalls that had a turnover of less than £500 from then onwards until six months after the end of the war. It was clearly a policy to ensure that the markets carried on, if subsidised by the National Federation, rather than closing for want of being able to pay the commission. Even by this time there were still counties that had resisted, for one reason or another, the call to set up and run markets. At the same meeting in March Miss Cox reported that she had had success in Middlesex, Somerset, Devon and Huntingdonshire and that she was planning to visit Northumberland and Anglesey, neither county having developed markets. Cambridgeshire, she noted in her report, had refused to cooperate.

Until 1939 WI markets were held mainly in local market towns with the produce being supplied from the surrounding villages. The stalls ranged from the larger markets with a turnover of £2,000 a year to the small trestle-table type of stall with a turnover of about £200. ‘Every kind of home produce was sold, home-made brawns, cakes, cream, butter, eggs, poultry, vegetables, flowers and all kinds of preserves.’
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This of course changed as the war progressed and rationing became more restrictive. In the autumn of 1939 it was still possible for stall-holders to sell cakes and biscuits, which were popular and always sold first. They could also sell the jam produced by WI members with sugar ordered from the National Federation but this too was
stopped after sugar rationing was introduced and the goods on sale gradually became fewer and fewer. The book on the history of WI markets reported in 1944:

Since 1939 the markets have increased to over 300 but changed somewhat in character. Rationing has limited their sales mainly to vegetables and fruit. It is no longer possible to sell dairy produce or jam, poultry is very limited and only markets in existence before the outbreak of war are allowed an allocation of fat and sugar for the manufacture of cakes and cooked foods; transport is also very difficult. In spite of this individual market turnovers have increased, sometimes as much as £500 in a year.
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