Jambusters Read online

  ‘I thought I was fairly well up on the WI contribution to the World War II effort until I read Julie Summers’ book, Jambusters! I was wrong – every chapter was a revelation – full of information, reminiscences, humour and social history. It is also well written, well researched and easy to read. Reading it not only gave me great pleasure but also made me proud to be a member of such a long lasting, valuable and vital organisation – an organisation which is still working actively to “improve the quality of life of communities” both urban and rural.’ Helen Carey OBE, former chairman of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (1999–2003)

  ‘That image of defiant jam making sums up the way many see the wartime contribution of the Woman’s Institute. But Julie Summers . . . shows its much wider contribution.’ Economist

  ‘Julie Summers recounts how thousands of women rallied round during the dark days of Hitler, baking cakes and knitting jumpers as if their lives depended on it’ Mail on Sunday

  ‘Superb . . . Overall, this book tells a wonderful story – highly recommended’ Who Do You Think You Are?

  ALSO BY JULIE SUMMERS

  Henry Moore and the Sea

  The Caros: A Creative Partnership

  Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine

  The Colonel of Tamarkan: Philip Toosey and the Bridge on the River Kwai

  Remembered: A History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

  Stranger in the House: Women’s Stories of Men Returning from the Second World War

  Remembering Fromelles

  British and Commonwealth War Cemeteries

  When the Children Came Home: Stories of Wartime Evacuees

  Rowing in Britain

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2013

  This paperback edition published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © 2013 by Julie Summers

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Julie Summers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  1st Floor

  222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-84983-221-2

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-0-85720-047-1

  Typeset by M Rules

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4YY

  In affectionate memory of Ga

  and to all the unnamed WI members

  who made the countryside tick

  during six long years of war

  CONTENTS

  Foreword

  1 Let the Sunshine Stream In

  2 The Gathering Storm

  3 The Piper’s Call

  4 Coupon Culture

  5 Digging for Victory

  6 Boil and Bubble, Toil and Trouble

  7 Knit One Purl One

  8 Gaiety, Song and Dance

  9 Building for the Future

  10 A Final Word

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Photograph credits

  Acknowledgements

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  FOREWORD

  In June 1939 the Women’s Institute held its annual general meeting in London. The weather was glorious. Many of the delegates who came to London from all over the country had never been to the capital before. Cicely McCall, who was responsible for the WI’s national education programme, observed the scene with fascination. She met one excited seventeen-year-old from Cumberland who had slept with her train ticket under her pillow for a month before the meeting, so thrilled was she to have been asked to represent her institute. Dressed in their best suits and dresses, wearing hats, gloves and sensible shoes, more than 8,000 women, many fanning themselves in the heat, crowded into the magnificent Empress Hall in Earls Court. The seating was arranged in alphabetical order by county beginning with Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire and so on. Stewards dressed in cream overalls with broad green and red ribbons over one shoulder showed people to their seats. There was a buzz of conversation and an air of eager anticipation.

  The national committee members walked up onto the stage. Everybody stood up. Miss Nancy Tennant from Headington raised her right hand to conduct. The organist played the opening bars of ‘Jerusalem’ and 8,000 women lifted the roof with the well-known anthem. The great theatre reverberated to Parry’s beautiful tune and the voices rose and rose. As the music faded, the delegates took their seats.

  Lady Denman, dressed formally and wearing a green hat, stood up and welcomed her delegates. She then asked Miss Hadow to greet their honoured guests from the Associated Countrywomen of the World, who had gathered in London for a mass rally. Twenty-three countries were each represented in the Empress Hall by a woman delegate, many in national dress. Miss Hadow stood up. Tall, thin, every bit the vision of a blue-stocking academic, she addressed the meeting: ‘Lady Denman and Fellow Countrywomen, we are met here today in our great parliament to welcome our sisters from other lands. In the first place, we are country women; we live on the land and serve the land. And in the last resort, it is not by armed force, or even by industrial prosperity, but it is by the land itself that men live.’

  There was loud applause and appreciative murmuring from the delegates. She went on:

  In the second place, we are women, we belong to the constructive sex, whose whole instinct is to reserve and to foster life, to build homes in every land. In the hands of women, of wives and mothers, and I will even dare to say of sisters, daughters and spinster aunts, the health and happiness of mankind very largely is laid. Those two things, the unity of the land, the unity of our common womanhood, speak a universal language. It is in that tongue that in the name of 328,000 English and Welsh women I do indeed say to our guests from other countries – You are Welcome!

  The applause swelled. As she sat down the foreign delegates stepped up onto the stage one by one. Some neither spoke nor understood English but all of them understood the applause and the smiles that greeted each fresh announcement. America, Sweden, India . . . One by one by they came forward, made their bow, and sometimes said a few words. Latvia, Norway . . . Germany. Miss McCall was in the hall and watched as the German delegate walked onto the stage.

  She was a tall woman. Her shoulders were flung back, her face set as she stepped on to the platform. There was a second’s tense silence, as though suddenly eight thousand pairs of lungs had contracted, and their hearts too. Then came deafening applause. It rang round the hall tumultuously. It fell, then grew again increasing in volume as though each perspiring delegate on that very hot June morning could not enough say: ‘Welcome! We are all country women here today. We are non-party, non-sectarian. We wish for peace, goodwill and cooperation among nations. You have had the courage to come here in spite of rumours of wars. We bid you welcome!’

  Countess Margarete Keyserlingk was overwhelmed. The look of strain on her face disappeared and pleasure and amazement replaced it. She spoke in German: ‘It is with great pleasure and thanks to you all and to my delegation that I am able to be here today to bring you greetings from my country, in the hope that this meeting will lead us all to a greater understanding of one another.’ As she stepped off the platform she hesitated and almost stumbled. We shall never know what message she took back to Germany because
within three months Poland had been invaded and Britain had declared war on her country.

  When I set out to write a history of the Women’s Institute in wartime I had in mind an historical overview with anecdotes from village institutes about jam-making, vegetable-growing, salvage-collecting, knitting and other activities we associate with the Second World War. As I have gone along I have realised that this is not what lies at the heart of this book. There are many top-down biographies of the Women’s Institute but what I was interested in was the bottom-up story, the ordinary countrywomen who were at the heart of the village institutes. What has grown out of my research is a picture of the remarkable role played by ordinary women in rural Britain during the war. Unpaid, unsung, to a large extent uncomplaining, these women quietly and often with humour, made the countryside tick. The role of the WI was crucial in two ways: on the one hand, the government relied on its links with the National Federation of Women’s Institutes to make direct requests of countrywomen to look after evacuees, collect everything from National Savings to bones for the munitions industry and to care for the nation’s larder; on the other hand, the WI at institute level offered women a safety valve. At their monthly meetings, after they had completed their business and agreed on the many requests for their help towards the war effort, they could let their hair down. And they did. Singing, dancing, sketches and readings, beetle drives, musical bumps, and ‘identify the ankle’ competitions all helped to lighten the mood and send them on their way to take up the tasks set for them.

  This book is a tribute to these women. Some were grand county ladies, others were farm labourers’ wives and daughters. The majority were somewhere in between. In the institute there was no differentiation between their backgrounds. Though it would be foolish to suggest that all social boundaries were broken, they were, however, porous. The story of how they all buckled to and helped out is of more interest to me than who was the president or secretary on any given committee. The WI bound them together. Sybil Norcott, a WI member for nearly seventy years, summed it up: ‘The WI is in my heart. It is in all our hearts. It is a way of life.’

  I have been fortunate enough to interview a number of women who joined the WI during the war, albeit as very young members, or whose mothers, aunts or other family members were involved. Their personal perspectives give the historical material its colour and they are the only ladies in the book who are referred to by their Christian names. Peggy Sumner joined her WI before the war and is still a member. Her county, Cheshire, honoured its nonagenarian members in 2011 with a service in Chester Cathedral. Sybil Norcott, also a Cheshire member, was a child during the war but her mother belonged to her local institute and Sybil used to go to meetings as her mother was afraid to walk through the woods to the hall on her own.

  Ann Tetlow and Dorcas Ward have known each other since they were a few months old. Dorcas’s mother and grandmother were founder members of Bradfield WI in Berkshire. Her mother was secretary throughout the war and her minute books are amongst the most colourful and descriptive I have read. Ann’s mother was also a very active member of the institute and used to allow Ann and her brother to attend the social half-hour of their afternoon meetings.

  Caroline Dickinson’s mother, Ruth Toosey, was my great aunt. She was on the committee of her WI in Barrow for several years during the war and she also held an ambulance licence with the Women’s Voluntary Service, as well as being responsible for the girls of the Women’s Land Army in her village. Dr Gwen Bark was a doctor who ran baby clinics in Tarporley, while bringing up her own young family and being an active member of her WI. She was outspoken on matters to do with child health, milk and the Beveridge Report but was also keen to encourage young mothers to find something of interest beyond the home in order to keep them mentally alert.

  And Edith Jones, the wife of a farmer from Smethcote in Shropshire, whose great niece, Chris Downes, has given me access to Edith’s wartime diaries. These offer a view of the war as well as the activities of her village and her farm-life during those years. In 1938 she wrote on the first page of her diary: ‘It is interesting to keep a diary. To look back on past events. Things often work out for our good. Ups and downs have been worthwhile. With God’s help let us make this year worthwhile for each other in our family life.’ The great beauty of her diaries is that they were written without a view to being seen by anyone else and are at once personal but objective. She recorded everyday life: ‘The weather is spring like, so I prune “my” apple trees. 6 of them. I like being out on these bright days but feel stiff after being on the steps and reaching! We move the pullets from the cabin to the big house. They look healthy and red. Geoff and Jim are ferreting.’ But she also noted events out of the ordinary: ‘Jack saw the “Northern Lights” last night. He said there was a very red sky like a fire, but it had faded when I looked out. He was pleased when I heard on the wireless that it had been seen all over England and that he too had seen it.’ Edith was secretary of her WI from the day it was set up in 1931 and in addition to her monthly and annual minutes, she wrote an article about life in rural Britain in the early twentieth century that helps to cast a contemporary light on the benefit the WI brought to rural communities such as hers. I will introduce each of these women at an appropriate point in the narrative and some, notably Edith, will appear in more than one chapter.

  All the other stories come from minute books, contemporary records held by the National Federation in its archives at the Women’s Library in London, letters, diaries and anecdotes that have been passed on to me. The women in these stories are referred to, as they would have been during the war, by their title and surnames. Traditionally the married women would have used their husband’s Christian names to identify them if more than one member of the family belonged to an institute. So Mrs Peter Walker was the sister-in-law of Mrs Trevor Walker and the mother of Edith Walker, addressed of course as ‘Miss Walker’.

  One other woman will feature: Clara Milburn of Balsall Common WI near Coventry. Her diaries were published in 1979, an edited version of the fifteen exercise books she had filled with daily observations about life during the war. Peter Donnelly, who edited the diaries, described how they began: ‘In the early uncertain days of 1940 Clara Milburn took time off from her loved (and sometimes loathed) garden and sat at her desk to begin a task she’d thought of starting for some time now. Opening a cheap soft-backed exercise book, she wrote “Burleigh in Wartime” on the first thin blue line, underscored it, and set to work on a project without any foreseeable end.’ Mrs Milburn wrote mostly of things that concerned her and other women: first and foremost the fate of her son, Alan, who was a prisoner-of-war in Germany, but also of her dismay at the ever-increasing price of what little was available in the shops, the terrible plight of the people of Coventry during the bombings there, and of her clothes, her garden and her institute.

  The Women’s Institute covered England and Wales. Scotland had its own organisation called the Scottish Rural Women’s Institute, which was independent of the WI and although it functioned on broadly the same lines as its English and Welsh equivalent, it does not come under the umbrella organisation and therefore will not feature in this book. Not every village in England and Wales had a WI during the war years. In fact only one in three had an institute but often they would cover more than one village, such as Edith Jones’s Smethcote Institute, near Shrewsbury, that also catered for Picklescote, Woolstaston, Leebotwood and Lower Wood. WIs were encouraged to involve those without institutes in communal activities such as fruit-canning and bottling or running market stalls so that the spread of its organisational reach was larger than that of any other organisation in the countryside. Its membership was ten times that of the Women’s Voluntary Service at the beginning of the war and twenty times the size of the Townswomen’s Guild. The WVS expanded to half the size of the WI during the war but with a proportionally smaller number of members in the country villages than in the towns. Many WI members belonged to other voluntary o
rganisations, some sat on rural district or parish councils, others ran Guides or Brownies while others still were school governors or members of charity committees local to their areas. Some women worked full time, others were housewives or farmers’ wives whose domestic life was their work. The spread was enormous and the energy equalled it.

  The Second World War was the backdrop to the lives of Britons for six years. For children who were five or six at the outbreak it shaped their childhoods; for young women it coloured their adolescence and the formative years of their adulthood; for middle-aged and older women it came as an all too grim reminder of the Great War that had ended just a generation earlier and cost the country nearly a million lives. As Peggy Sumner reminded me, the women who were members of her WI were the wives, sisters, fiancées and young widows from that war.

  At the outbreak of the Second World War the population of the countryside almost doubled. Key workers, evacuated families, unaccompanied schoolchildren and military camps resulted in unprecedented pressure on rural life. Food, housing, transport, schools, local services were all affected. As the country adapted to wartime conditions it was women who were at the forefront of helping with the adjustments needed. This was an era when wives were chattels and women made up a quarter of the workforce. Their lives in the countryside were not easy. When the war began over two thirds of rural housing had no access to electricity and main drains, a large number had only one tap or a pump in the kitchen to supply water. Some women even had to get their household water from a village well and privies were the norm. Washing was done in a copper, usually on Mondays, fires had to be laid daily in cold weather and some women still cooked on an open fire rather than a range or stove. Oral contraception was twenty years in the future and pain-relief for childbirth was unavailable except in hospitals. And yet this was the post-First World War generation of women who generally had less help in their homes than their grandmothers had.