Jambusters (31 page)

She joined the NFWI in 1919 and worked as the agricultural adviser from 1925, having been an organiser in the Women’s Land Army during the First World War, for which she was awarded an MBE in 1919. She was described in the short biography compiled by the WI after her death as ‘a personality, a great countrywoman, with the heart of a child’. Like Lady Denman, she was a notable sportswoman and had captained the hockey team for the county. She rode to hounds, was a good judge of a horse and always had a dog at her heels. Throughout her life she claimed she had one straightforward aim, which was to work ‘for God, King and Country’, and was proud to belong to the County of Spires, Spinsters and Springs – Northamptonshire.’
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An obituary in the personnel files of the WI listed her interests and abilities:

She showed sweet peas and bred dachshunds, sang in church and taught at Sunday School. Loved and respected by her colleagues at the national federation as someone who rejoiced in the little things in life, Miss Hirst Simpson brought common sense and clear thinking to her WI work. She understood what it felt like to be an outsider, given her lack of formal education, and was very kind to shy women and tried to help them to develop their talents, though she was tough on women who grumbled. She was particularly well known for her passion for the social half hour and she often left her own WI out of breath after an energetic spate of games.

When on one occasion women at a council meeting complained how inconvenient it was for them to attend meetings as one lived a mile from the bus, another three quarters of a mile, Miss Hirst Simpson jumped to her feet and demanded of the delegates: ‘Have the countrywomen of Oxfordshire lost the use of their legs?’

At early WI meetings in newly formed WIs the social half-hour helped to break down the class barriers and create a bond between the women, which in other circumstances would have been hard to establish. Quick reactions, decisive moves and powers of deduction are not limited to background or education, Miss Hirst Simpson would point out: ‘We find unexpected qualities of character among our fellow-players. Shyness and reserve break down during a game, ingenuity and initiative emerge, and all round us is friendliness and goodwill.’
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However, the games were mainly intended to offer a little light relief in the lives of women who may have viewed the monthly meeting as their one opportunity in four weeks to let their hair down and behave in a way that they could never have done in mixed company or in front of their children. Miss Hirst Simpson
hoped that ‘hearty cooperation in games would help to bring a measure of cheerfulness and laughter into many lonely and weary lives, and surely to help to combat weariness and anxiety in others is worthwhile.’
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Miss McCall, in her brief illustrated history of the WI, celebrated the pleasure of the fun side of the Women’s Institutes. About the social half-hour she wrote:

In practice it may be a childish game played rowdily for ten minutes before going home, or it may be community singing for forty minutes. It may be entertainment by the drama enthusiasts of the institute or it may be dancing. Games are nearly always popular with the middle aged. In fact the older the members the more hysterical they become over musical bumps or passing the halfpenny. Younger and more sophisticated people may smile. But if you have been up at six, cooked two or more sets of breakfast for the variously employed grown-up members of the family, sent the children off to school and packed their dinner for them, cooked dinner for the others and washed up afterwards, looked after the fowls, swept the house, fetched the water from the pump; if you have done this every day for twenty years with no holiday and no difference except that sometimes you’re bearing a child, then you deserve a laugh once a month. And if musical bumps is going to give you one, let’s have more musical bumps.
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Musical bumps, sing-songs, parties even, all continued during the war years. Institute members soon realised that entertainments were one of the best ways to include newcomers into the villages or communities. By the middle of the war these had increased beyond offering parties and games to evacuees and visitors to well-organised entertainment for British, Canadian and American soldiers, dances and even drama productions with other local
groups. But the social half-hour itself was to be kept for the end of their WI meetings.

As the WI was very often the largest organisation in their village and also the most structured, it fell to them to put on village-wide events. Particularly at the beginning of the war when so many extra, new people had arrived in the villages and needed some sort of diversion. In Ringmer in Sussex Mrs James and Mrs Hills ran a canteen in the Parish Rooms every Sunday so that parents could meet their children in the hall and buy a cup of tea and, as this was before rationing, a piece of cake. That stopped within six months but it had been a useful safety valve for the parents of the evacuees and also the foster parents. The war had disrupted village life but Christmas was such a significant festival in the annual calendar of the country that it had to be celebrated, war or no war. Christmas 1939 had been labelled the ‘Economy Christmas’ although much worse was to come in future years. Even the turkeys were leaner, the WI members were told, ‘because nothing can stop our young London visitors from chasing them. Probably they have never seen a turkey on its legs before, only in skinny and anaemic rows in a poulterer’s shop.’
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Suggestions for Christmas arose such as having a communal tree in the village, as was the tradition in Scandinavia, or giving away family heirlooms such as silver spoons and old snuffboxes rather than purchasing expensive new items and, finally, not having icing on the Christmas cake. But the National Executive did not want the WIs to forgo their traditional Christmas party. They urged institutes to get around the difficulties by being inventive and getting everyone in the village to help.

That’s the spirit for Christmas 1939. We might be expected to black out our windows and doors but not our heart, intelligence or hospitality. The season of plenty must, like a well run WI, make a little go a long way. The festival, in fact, must tie its Christmas sash a little tighter. And be thankful that
our
Government doesn’t tell us to wear imitation wool and make our tea of blackberries, as Dr Goebbels was recommending the Germans to do the other day. Poor old Germans! Once the best Christmas keepers of all.
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The British government had indeed spoken about Christmas, suggesting that ‘reasonable expenditure on Christmas festivities will help trade and lessen unemployment’. There were still plenty of toys in the shops that year. Toy soldiers and models of the Maginot Line were hot favourites among the little boys. Parents and children were all keen to keep the spirit of Christmas going and when the calculations were made the economic figures showed that spending was up on the previous Christmas by 10 per cent.

Goostrey in Cheshire had initially planned to have their party from 6 to 10 p.m. but at their November meeting they decided to run with their usual format after all and to start at 7.30 p.m. and go on until midnight. And there would be dancing. The Christmas party was a great success, allowing the secretary to note in the end-of-year minutes: ‘all felt that the WI was carrying on in a splendid way in spite of the difficult times’. Barthomley, just down the road, decided not to hold their Christmas party and ‘Members resolved instead to give a party to the children, both Barthomley children and the evacuees in the village’. Lindsey WI in Suffolk was one of hundreds of WIs who decided to have a village-wide Christmas celebration. It started at noon at the institute hall with a meal for a hundred children. After lunch there was a grand procession to the school led by Father Christmas and followed by a jazz band of small village boys. The under-fives rode in decorated handcarts or pranced behind the procession on hobbyhorses, the
whole scene was made yet more magical by the light snow that fell during the walk to the school. After games, carols and the lighting of the Christmas tree the party went home to tea, each with a little bag of goodies. Ashover in Derbyshire had so many children to entertain that they had to hold a series of parties in order to be able to accommodate them all.

The following year things were completely different for large swathes of the country and most especially in the cities. The Blitz was at its height and some 40 per cent of the population spent the majority of their nights in shelters. Christmas 1940 was ‘under fire’. Parties, though still held, were often disrupted. Radley WI decided in December 1940 that it was not possible to put on a Nativity Play since ‘it had been considered inadvisable to undertake anything that would bring children out at night or assemble them in one place in considerable numbers’. A New Year’s Party held in January 1941 in Audlem was not unusual: ‘The Party had just got livened up when our unwelcome visitors were heard overhead after which the lights went out and we were left high and dry. Anyway we managed to have something to eat and drink in candle light and then all had to leave to report on various ARP duties.’
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Barrow WI had a Christmas meeting when they invited guests, including children, to join them. Caroline Dickinson said:

I remember those Christmas meetings. The women were all dressed in slightly tight dresses and the hall was decorated. There were dances held to raise money as well as monthly whist drives. The war years were not unhappy times for us children but I think they must have been very difficult for women like my mother. So much was expected of them and many of them had husbands away from home so that in addition to all the extra work they also had to look after all aspects of the household, even things that previously would have been done by men.

The fact that so many women had been members since the First World War meant that they had a great understanding of the suffering of those who were being damaged by this current conflict, whether at home or abroad. ‘Women who were grown up in the last war remember, as hardest to bear, the thought that young lives were being paid for their safety. Young men are defending us now, in a manner beyond praise. But this time we have the honour of sharing a little of the danger.’
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The Second World War had a much bigger direct impact on the civilian population than the Great War. Out of the 752,091 British deaths attributed to the 1914–18 war only about 1 per cent were civilian – some 8,000 casualties. The number of civilian casualties in the Second World War was far higher – about 20 per cent of all deaths, or 63,655 out of a total of 334,342. Like Mrs Milburn and Edith Jones, many of the women living in the rural communities had sons or husbands in the forces. Some were prisoners of war, others were missing and more still fighting in far-off countries. The constant stream of letters to and from family members provided a welcome link but also a constant reminder of the pain of separation. The King broadcast a message on Christmas Day 1944 in which he acknowledged this, saying that the separation of families was one of the great trials of the current war. ‘Indeed it is. No one can imagine what it means until they have experienced it,’ wrote Mrs Milburn that night.

The war was never far from people’s minds and despite it usually being referred to as ‘this difficult time’ it does occasionally find a way into record books. On 15 July 1941, Mrs Dainty in Oxfordshire was warmly congratulated on her son being awarded the Military Medal. At that meeting the WI had enjoyed ‘a delicious repast of fruit shortcake & coffee with real sugar’. At other times the news received was of tragedy, husbands, brothers, sons of members. And then there was the general loss in the
Blitz and other aerial attacks that killed, wounded and rendered people homeless. In almost every edition of
Home & Country
from late 1940 there were tales of bombed-out families being rehoused in villages, of collections for specific areas of London, Coventry, Bristol to give people the most basic of materials. Warwickshire ‘rolled up its sleeves in earnest this morning after the bombing of Coventry’, wrote the county secretary to Miss Farrer. ‘Thousands of refugees slept at the WVS Rest Centre, and WI members who have been on duty all night served early breakfasts to men going to work, and women returning to ruined houses in the hope of salvaging their belongings.’ Mrs Milburn lived just a few miles from Coventry and her diary is full of stories from the air raids on the city and the terrible destruction and loss of life. ‘Poor, poor Coventry! The attack is described on the wireless as “a vicious attack against an open town comparable to one of the worst raids on London, and the damage is very considerable”. The casualties are in the neighbourhood of a thousand, and the beautiful fourteenth-century cathedral is destroyed. I feel numb with the pain of it all . . . the loss of life and the injuries make one’s heart ache.’ Her institute catered for refugees from the city and she had people staying at Burleigh. ‘They just want bed,’ she wrote after she had shown a couple up to Alan’s bedroom.
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The city came under attack again, the following spring. On 28 May she wrote:

The morning sped swiftly away and at the WI this afternoon we were glad to welcome evacuees, three of whom had been injured in air raids. One young woman, a native of Coventry, rode here on a bicycle with plaster cases on her legs! Her husband was killed in the raid on Coventry. He was on duty that night but looked in for a moment to see how his wife was getting on in their shelter. When a direct hit was made there, he threw himself upon his wife and saved her life, but lost his own. Poor girl, she does not want to go back to the house again. It is too full of memories.
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