Jambusters (41 page)

It is difficult for us today to imagine what situation could arise that would call for and receive such extraordinary, unselfish and cheerful devotion to duty as did the Second World War. Although there was of course some grumbling, the vast majority of women who were involved in the wartime Women’s Institutes rose to the occasion. However much the government asked of them they seemed to find the capacity to give freely and usually with humour and enthusiasm. I am constantly humbled by the thought of all that they achieved under what seem to me to be at times impossibly trying circumstances. Just keeping the household going, let alone adding a dozen extra tasks, would be trial enough, but to be cheerful through it all – that is probably the greatest achievement. And after the war was over? Well, those women had work to do. There was a country to rebuild, a college to found in order to continue to educate themselves, issues that had yet to be resolved: equal pay for equal work, analgesia for women giving birth in rural villages, piped water to every village, drains, electricity, more women police. The list was endless.

As one of their post-war chairmen, Lady Brunner, said,

The history of the movement is one of
in
tolerance.
In
tolerance of burst pipes, children’s horror comics, squalid newspapers and sordid litter. So long as there is cruelty or evil to harm children and young people, as long as animals are ill-treated, as long as there are ill-designed, shoddy goods on the market; as long as there is avoidable danger and hazard for young and old, whether on the roads, or by accidents in the home, or by food poisoning; as long as country people are badly in need of amenities they should share with townspeople – and as long as we are bound by fellowship, truth and justice we can afford to be intolerant of a lot of things.
⁵

In amongst all the post-war campaigning and the adjustment to peace and another decade of austerity the WI had one other, private, role. It had to offer healing and refuge to those women who found life in post-war Britain a trial. Many took months or years to establish a comfortable relationship with their husbands; others had to come to terms with the loss of their husbands, sons and daughters, while more still mourned the return home to the cities of their evacuee foster children of whom they had become inordinately fond during the long years of war. In post-war Britain these issues were not discussed in public and seldom mentioned in private but women were aware of them and they helped one another in numerous, simple ways. The all-woman environment of a Women’s Institute was a refuge from a different kind of existence after the war and it was one in which women, like my grandmother, could breathe. Elsie Bainbridge, who was a young widow, spoke about the difficulties she had mixing with other widows who were all much older than she was. She explained: ‘I felt very uncomfortable amongst a lot of couples so I found the WI very much easier. I got used to going to meetings and getting to know people and mixing a bit.’ Peggy Sumner talked of how the WI helped her when she was distressed after her sister’s death. ‘Marjorie died on the Sunday and I went to the WI on the Wednesday. There was no hugging, just a hand on my arm occasionally to say “I’m thinking of you.” It was so reassuring. I always say to members who are widowed or who suffer a loss “Don’t stay at home. Come. Come.”’

I am not a member of a WI. I live in a city and thus do not qualify but my own association with the Women’s Institute began in 1982 when, as a student, I was asked to give a talk on Bristol Cathedral. Ten years later I began to lecture more regularly to WIs and by 2002 I was a registered speaker in Oxfordshire. Delivering a lecture to a local institute is always fun. I tend to
arrive during the business, so that I catch the tail end of the first part of the meeting and hear what is planned in the way of days out, theatre visits, demonstrations or county meetings. After a small amount of fiddling with the equipment I give my talk on whatever subject has been requested. Initially most of my subject matter had to do with exploration (Everest and Shackleton) or men in extremis (Japanese POW camps). I sometimes wondered how this would go down with women-only gatherings. I need not have worried. There is no subject that the WI is not prepared to tackle.

On one occasion I was asked to speak about the true story of the bridge on the River Kwai to a small institute in North Oxfordshire. An elderly lady in the front row smiled at me as I introduced the topic but the moment the first slide came up she closed her eyes and sat motionless. I carried on with the talk and at the end there were several questions. When it was all over I went to speak to her and began by saying that I hoped the subject matter had not bored her. She replied: ‘Oh no, my dear, it’s just that I couldn’t see your slides. I have been going blind for some time but I’m now completely unable to focus on anything. However, I did so want to hear your talk as my late husband was a prisoner on that railway and as he never talked about it I thought I’d learn something more about it if I came to hear you speak.’ I was deeply humbled by this and learned the important lesson that one must never assume anything when speaking to WI members.

Talking to a group at a half-yearly meeting in Cumbria was an experience of a completely different order. Five hundred women and one man, the Mayor of Kendal, were squeezed into a beautiful room in the Town Hall. At the beginning of the meeting we stood to sing ‘Jerusalem’. I had not experienced a large gathering of women singing together since I was at school and the effect of 500 women belting out the familiar words to the even more
familiar tune was utterly breathtaking. I am embarrassed to admit that I had tears in my eyes, so beautiful and uplifting was that experience. Fortunately for me there was some business to attend to before I had to stand up and speak.

I want to end with a beautiful letter published by a WI member anonymously in
Home & Country
during the war. She reflected on what the war had meant to her and her closest WI friends:

What are the reactions of the ordinary person to these days? It is, of course, impossible to generalise, but those of our own circle are interesting. First then, our treasured possessions are no longer the same. The china on the mantelpiece, the old bits of furniture, even the house we have lived in happily for many years cease to be of real value. We know them to be unimportant, but family life, friendship, music, books: these remain our true possessions. Again the background of uncertainty seems to enhance our joy in the beauty of life; the summer morning with its long shadows, the dew-sprinkled flowers, the gentle chatter of swallows and their swooping grace. Life is more secluded, though not less full, and our occupations are changed. The hostess is cook and finds a fresh pleasure in hospitality, the artist becomes a practical gardener, and the gardener makes dug-outs. Each finds a new pride in a new achievement. Letter writing has come into its own again and we may have some enlightening records of daily life for posterity. We make the best of our next door neighbours, now that our movements are restricted, and find them pleasanter company than we had expected.

Life is simplified; we cannot look forward or make plans, so that time seems to have ceased to exist. Perhaps after the rush and tension of these last years, these days may bring us single mindedness, an acceptance of life and of death, an inward peace. And the self concern which is our torment, whether we know it or not, must find an antidote when we let our imagination stray over the human misery now in the world. The common lot of men binds us to each other and if we will, we may pluck virtue from tragedy.
⁶

The Women’s Institute comprises some of the most remarkable women I have had the privilege to meet and I know that their wartime counterparts were equally as impressive.

NOTES

CHAPTER 1

1
 Stamper, Anne,
Rooms Off the Corridor
, p. 16

2
 Agricultural College, Guelph, December 1986

3
 Goodenough, Simon,
Jam and Jerusalem
, p. 11

4
 Walker, Collins and M. McIntyre Hood,
Fifty Years of Achievement
, Federated Women’s Institutes of Ontario, p. 23

5
 Stamper, p. 23, quoted from Roger Fieldhouse,
A History of Modern British Adult Education

6
 Robertson Scott, J. W.,
The Story of the Women’s Institute Movement in England & Wales & Scotland
, p. 19

7
 ibid.

8
 Stamper, p. 25

9
 Robertson Scott, p. 22

10
 Stamper, p. 25

11
 Robertson Scott, p. 6

12
 ibid., p. 40

13
 
Home & Country
, June 1946

14
 Jenkins, Inez,
The History of the Women’s Institute Movement of England and Wales
, p. 16

15
 Robertson Scott, p. 45

16
 ibid., p. 46

17
 Tribute in
Barrow News
by a friend

18
 Lady Denman’s address to the 22nd AGM, 1938

19
 Robertson Scott, p. 107

20
 Helena Clara Deneke,
Grace Hadow
, p. 32

21
 Robertson Scott, p. 46

22
 
Dictionary of National Biography
, Teresa Smith

23
 Goodenough, p. 29

24
 Jenkins, p. 42

25
 Jenkins, p. 145

26
 Stamper, Anne, p. 39, quoted from Piers Dudgeon,
Village Voices
, p. 46

27
 Stamper, p. 33

28
 ibid., p. 35, from Mrs Watt and Ness Lloyd,
The First Women’s Institute School
booklet

29
 Stamper, p. 35, from Watt and Lloyd

30
 
Home & Country
, June 1919

CHAPTER 2

1
 Andrews, Maggie,
The Acceptable Face of Feminism
, p. 30

2
 
Home & Country
, April 1939

3
 Sheridan, Dorothy (ed.),
Wartime Women
, pp. 73–4

4
 Lady Denman,
Home & Country
, October 1939

5
 Excerpts from a letter written by Lady Denman to the Ministry of Information, 5 September 1939

6
 Miss Farrer to Lady Denman, 25 August 1939

7
 Buckinghamshire newsletter, ‘Our Monthly Letter’, October 1939

8
 
Home & Country
, November 1939

9
 East and West Hendred WI minute books

CHAPTER 3

1
 Dorset War Book, 1946

2
 Mrs Constance Miles, Diaries, August 1939

3
NFWI Memorandum on Evacuation, November 1938

4
 ibid.

5
 Letter to
The Times
, 9 August 1939

6
 Letter from J. M. Bush James to
The Times
, 12 September 1939

7
 Harrisson, Tom and Charles Madge,
War Begins at Home
, p. 23

8
 Roffey, James,
A Schoolboy’s War in Sussex
, p. 18

9
 ibid.

10
 Harrisson and Madge, p. 313

11
 Roffey, p. 27

12
 
Home & Country
, November 1939

13
 Walter Elliot, printed in
Home & Country
, December 1939

14
 
Town Children Through Country Eyes: A Survey on Evacuation, 194 0
, p. 3

15
 ibid., p. 3

16
 ibid., pp. 3–4

17
 ibid., p. 4

18
 ibid.

19
 ibid., p. 5

20
 ibid., p. 7

21
 ibid., p. 9

22
 ibid., p. 13

23
 ibid.

24
 ibid., p. 15

25
 Sheridan, Dorothy (ed.),
Wartime Women
, p. 66

26
 ibid., p. 67

27
 
Town Children
, p. 18

28
 ibid., p. 18

29
 ibid., p. 20

30
 ibid., p. 22

31
 
Home & Country
, November 1940

CHAPTER 4

1
 PRO, CAB 16/157, CID, Subcommittee on Food Supply in Time of War, FS 13, report of the Subcommittee on Rationing,
5 October 1936

2
 Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina,
Austerity in Britain
, p. 1

3
 Collingham, Lizzie,
The Taste of War
, p. 362

4
 ‘The Effects of Severe Rationing’, 18 March 1940

5
 East Hendred WI minute book 1942

6
 Collingham, p. 13

7
 Donnelly, Peter (ed.),
Mrs Milburn’s Diaries
, 18 January 1941

8
 Longmate, Norman,
How We Lived Then
, p. 379

9
 Blunt, Maggie Joy, Mass Observation Diary, 18 March 1941

10
 Donnelly (ed.), 7 July 1941, p. 102

11
 ibid., 28 July 1942 p. 147

12
 Zweiniger-Bargielowska, p. 33

13
 Letter from Denbighshire Committee for the Feeding of Rural Workers, Wrexham, to Trefnant WI president, 18 May 1943

14
 Miss Farrer to Assistant Secretary (Defence), 16 April 1939

15
 M. M. Squance of the Petroleum Department to Miss Walker, 24 June 1940

16
 Mr Mackay to Miss Farrer, 1 January 1942

17
 Cox, Vera,
Country Markets, A Pioneer Venture by the National Federation of Women’s Institutes
, p. 22