Out and About

1st June
Did you remember that this was National Family Week? Winslow WI did so planned a guided family walk around the town. The sun shone but only WI members turned up which was disappointing as it was halfterm too.Never mind we enjoyed the local history information and being able to really look at the buildings instead of just scooting past them on the way to do some shopping. It is surprising what one can learn from different coloured bricks and strange shapes added to old houses.Is Winslow alone in having so many pubs and little schools converted into houses?
Following on from the family walk the local WI then threw open its monthly meeting to anyone who wished to come along to hear a survivor from the 1939 Jewish children's exodus train tell her story. How well she spoke and reduced quite a few of the audience to tears! What she described and endured fitted in very neatly with the book I am reading at the moment, The Hare with the Amber Eyes. To come through that experience and keep such a positive view on life is remarkable and a lesson to those who feel hard done by at very minor inconveniences encountered in their lives.There were 23 visitors to this meeting so that made up for the disappointment of the walk in the morning.After that it was back to arranging all the events both at home and away for the next month which range from an outing to the Bank of England to getting together to see if anyone can remember how to tat.Several members had completed the NFWI survey on Water Supplies. The bring and buy book sale proved a success and was something different from a raffle.

21st May
I don't usually put anything in the blog about where I go outside the WI but a visit to Greys Court near Nettlebed has a strong WI connection.This Tudor country house was the home of the Bruner family until quite recently. Lady Bruner was our WI National Chairman for five years in the 1950s and played a vital role in setting up Denman College. Her portrait used to hang above the piano in the drawing room: I hope it still does. She appears very ladylike in the picture but history tells us she was no mean rider of a motorbike in her youth.The house and gardens are well worth a visit. The guide mentioned the Keep Britain Tidy in reference to Lady Bruner's husband but not the WI. Upstairs there was an embroidered cushion which said "Lady Bruner was a keen member of the WI". I wanted to say she WAS the WI. Then my husband said there was a poster displayed in the Gents about a WI exhibition on the site.Strangely it wasn't in the Ladies. Anyway, we found it behind the queue for refreshments and up a spiral staircase in this lovely old building.It was a very good exhibition about the WI during the World War and in the fifties.Around the room there were those stand up plastic display panels which covered campaigns and events up until 2006. It would be a good display to go out on loan and have circulating around the counties but would need to be updated. On the side tables were lots of leaflets about joining the WI as an Associate Member and a few copies of the Oxfordshire Federation newsletter dated February 2011.I was glad to see that it had been thought of as a good place for recruitment but was disappointed that it wasn't being kept up-to-date.