‘Tea and tarts’ revive the WI

We usually associate the Women’s Institute with the jam and Jerusalem ambience of the rural village hall. But Huddersfield is one of a new breed of WIs which meet on university campuses, in pubs, fire stations and barristers’ chambers.

What once seemed an institution in terminal decline has discovered a new lease of life, just in time for its centenary in 2015.

It was however one of the rural variety, in a picture box country setting in the Dales, which was largely responsible for the shift in public perception of what the WI was all about and the kind of women who joined it.

A new book about the movement identifies the year 2000 as the turning point with the publication of the famous calendar by the women of Rylstone WI.

Twelve years on, Lynda Logan, one of the original Calendar Girls, whose husband, Terry, took the photographs, says, “We were being a bit naughty really. We never thought the WI would support a nude calendar, but we thought we’d better let them know what we’d done. So we took it along to the federation headquarters in Ripon and the door was opened by two ladies in twin-sets and pearls.

“They took us to a room and sat us down, and there was deathly silence whilst they looked through the calendar. Then one of them stood up and said: ‘Well I know what I’ll be giving my husband for Christmas’. And that was that.’’

Jane Robinson, the author of the new history, argues that the calendar embodied everything that was best about the WI: mutual support, cooperation, practical idealism, courage, loyalty and fun.

Rebecca Cobb-Kilner, the founding president of Huddersfield Women’s Institute see things slightly differently. “It’s a bit like herding cats,” she says. But with 58 members, aged from 14 to “somewhere in their seventies”, Rebecca and her year-old branch are brim-full of energy and ideas.

The history of the WI has more than a few surprises – not least the fact that it is not, strictly speaking, British.

It started in rural Canada it seems, as the brainchild of Adelaide Hoodless, a farmer’s daughter who married a prominent local business man.

Adelaide’s life changed when the youngest of her four children died after drinking contaminated milk. She was convinced that women in rural areas needed to be better educated and campaigned to make domestic science part of the school curriculum. Having achieved this, she turned her attention to older women and to finding a vehicle to educate them.

The first Women’s Institute, a sister organisation to the Canadian Farmers’ Institute, met in 1896 and the idea rapidly caught on, not least because the they offered a much-needed opportunity for isolated women to meet.

Adelaide was only too aware their work had always been less social than their menfolk’s and in an era of declining farm incomes and increasing mechanisation it was becoming increasingly solitary and invisible.

Adelaide and her supporters were keen to export their idea to Britain where they had several high-profile supporters. But it did not get going here until the First World War galvanised official bodies into thinking about rural women.

The country needed to maximise food production and the first WI market, selling surplus domestic produce, opened in 1916, a year after the first WI.

Mass mobilisation had also shown the nation’s state of health to be lacking and educating women was clearly crucial in rectifying that. The model of the Canadian WI seemed just the ticket.

The pioneers of the British WI – wrested from official bodies shortly after the war – were a diverse bunch. Several were suffragettes, who saw the WI (in part) as a means of accessing an otherwise “hard to reach” group. But a surprising number of men were also involved too.

Colonel the Hon. Richard Stapleton-Cotton and his dog Tinker (presumably also a boy) were fully paid-up members of Llanfair PG WI. The Colonel was a popular local speaker on “Salad and Salad Dressings”, and enjoyed comparing notes on knitting and gardening.

Grace Hadow, an Oxford academic and the WI’s first vice-chairman, summed-up the idealism of the early movement: “The Women’s Institute is for all alike: rich and poor; gentle and simple, learned and unlearned – all pay the same subscription, have the same privileges and the same responsibilities. Each member in turn acts as hostess to her fellow members, each puts her own experience and her own practical knowledge at the service of the rest.”

It was an ambitious set of aims and, perhaps not surprisingly, the WI didn’t always live up to them. Nevertheless, the WI has achieved a great deal. Not least, it gave rural women a voice which, through the WI’s many campaigns, has been heard on a wide variety of issues, including family planning, hunger in the developing world, rural maternity services, state-aided housing, women police officers and many more.

Just as importantly, and in a century when domestic “women’s work” became increasingly unfashionable, the WI plugged away, teaching and practising domestic skills such as cooking and crafts. It’s easy to make fun of this aspect of the WI’s mission (WI tents, jam competitions and the like) but, like other skills, the domestic arts are perhaps best and most easily learnt by trial and error in the company of other people. Moreover, as Jamie Oliver’s campaign has shown, when skills such as home cooking stop being transmitte, the consequences can be dire.

The movement was less successful in bringing “all alike” together. The WI’s officers and campaigners tended to be wealthy (sometimes aristocratic), well-educated and more radical than the membership. At times the two lost touch with one another.

Laudable campaigns came and went, but even Jane Robinson has to admit that there was little that was progressive or exciting about her mother’s experience of the WI in the mid-1970s.

The turn of the millennium brought not just the Calendar Girls but also the “handbagging” of PM Tony Blair at their AGM. He received a slow handclap as he delivered a patronising piece of spin in place of a speech on “the green agenda”.

Which brings us to the present. Membership is once again rising. WIs are popping-up all over the place and the interesting question is, what’s new about the new WI? Where better to find out than a “knit and natter” in “Spun”, the unofficial headquarters of the Huddersfield WI.

It’s immediately obvious that Huddersfield WI share the Calendar Girls penchant for cheeky self-parody. From their catchy nick-name “Tea and Tarts”, to the events with a twist (“Come Dine with Wii”?) they are determined to have some fun while drawing attention to themselves.

But it is equally clear that they retain a good deal of respect and affection for the century-old institution of which they are a part.

Lydia Tayler, the Institute’s treasurer and the owner of “Spun”, is convinced that “we’re keeping something that is good alive”. She is drawn to the organisation’s history of campaigning: “It’s about the power of a group. Campaigns such as library closures are really important.”

And of course there are crafts. The “tarts” meet together not only to knit, but also to crochet, cook, sample and print and both Lydia and Rebecca are convinced the present atmosphere of austerity, make-do and mend is here to stay. And they may be right. After all, Vince Cable has likened our economic circumstances to a war - and in wartime the WI steps up to the plate.

In the end though, it’s just as much about fun, friendship and mutual support. “It’s two hours of protected time,” says Rebecca, the mother of two small children. “Being with other women is freeing. It’s just different with men around.”

But this is no time to relax. The barrister organising a ball had just disappeared to Uganda for a holiday. Then there was there’s the vintage double decker to arrange, the circus act, the magician, the bacon butties….

But this is the WI, and so anything is possible.

A Force to be Reckoned With: A History of the Women’s Institute, by Jane Robinson. £20, Virago. To order your copy, ring our order line 01748 821122 Mon-Sat 9am-5pm. Or by post, please send a cheque or postal order, plus £2.75 postage, to Yorkshire Books Ltd, 1 Castle Hill, Richmond, DL10 4QP. Order online Huddersfield Central WI meet on the first Thursday of every month at Huddersfield Town Hall. For further information contact 07847403667 or see www.teaandtarts.ukpeople.com.