WI News April

It is not just the way the writer crosses the ‘Ts’ and dots the ‘Is’, but whether they space out the lines and characters, or write very small and tight. This can all reveal those characteristics that perhaps they would prefer were kept hidden.

The WI’s speaker in March, Graham Birchmore, wanted to discover the identity of the person who had sent his first unsigned Valentine, and this sparked his interest in graphology. Considering most people are taught to write in much the same way, everyone develops different approaches and so much can be interpreted from all the variations in script and spacing. It was a fascinating and amusing insight into what Graham feels is a much-underrated subject.

In April Goodworth Clatford WI welcomed Lucy Frost with her presentation of ‘The Wonderful World of the Honey Bee’. An enthusiastic beekeeper herself, Lucy introduced members to the history and origins of bees and bee keeping and its value to ancient civilisations such as the Egyptians. She went on to explain the dynamics of a colony, the way in which it is populated and the life cycle of a honey bee. Members were fascinated to hear about the complex ways in which bees communicate to other bees in the hive directions to the forage sites they have found by performing a variety of ‘dances’.

The president welcomed members of Charlton WI to their April group meeting. After the essential business they sat back to enjoy a talk by Peter Williams, a member of the Magic Circle, entitled, ‘It’s Fun to be Fooled’.” Peter’s interest in this subject began as a boy when a magician was invited to appear at his school concert. The first trick had Peter enthralled and Christmas gifts of a magic set and handbook led to his great interest in this fascinating art. It was very much an audience participation evening with a member celebrating her birthday being selected as his first ‘helper’, followed by other volunteers.

Peter’s superb illusionary tricks, together with his sense of humour caused much hilarity and his talk ended with a well-known card trick that left members exchanging looks of sheer amazement!

Future events for the WI include the summer outing in July to the elegant Brighton Pavilion, theatre trips and in October, a craft day. The WI’s June meeting will be a celebration of the 90th birthday of HM the Queen, with special refreshments and a speaker.

The members of Andover Evening WI enjoyed a lovely evening with Bishop’s Bells from Bishops Waltham. It was both enjoyable and uplifting. The ringing team had brought their hand bells to play. Eight pieces were played, including the prelude from Te Deum (the Eurovision theme), the theme to the Miss Marple plays, a hymn, a boogie and an Austrian folk song, as well as a beautiful Japanese piece about cherry blossom.

In between playing, a member of the group told the WI some of the history of hand bells. They were invented about 1650 by some Wiltshire tower bell-ringers so that they could practise their change-ringing. The hand bells for Bishops Bells were re-discovered by Fred Haigh in St Peter’s Church tower in 1984. He came from Colyton in Devon and knew about hand-bell ringing. Now there are about 14 ringers and 48 bells; Tuesday is practice night. The Victorians were very keen hand-bell ringing, and held competitions where the clappers of other teams’ bells were sabotaged! Those bells, as now, were made in foundries. Most of the bells used by Bishops Bells were made at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, where the smallest bell (top ‘A’) costs £280 plus vat!

Today hand bell ringing is worldwide; bells are rung in the USA, Australia, Korea, Japan, Canada, Costa Rica and Hong Kong, to name but a few. Each bell is made of brass – 70 per cent copper and 30 per cent tin. There are alternatives, such as aluminium chimes or bell plates.

More than a dozen members of the WI had a go with the hand-bells, playing two songs. After the ringing the bell-ringers enjoyed some very well-earned refreshments.

Stephen Wells gave an amusing talk to the members of Andover Afternoon WI about his experiences working as a ‘Redcoat’ for Butlins Holiday Camps. The ‘Redcoats’ came about because the holidaymakers could not tell who were employees and who were not, so one of Butlins’ staff was sent to buy ‘brightly coloured jackets’ and came back with red ones, giving them the name.

First Stephen told members a little of the life of Billy Butlin. He was born in England in 1889 but shortly afterwards his family emigrated to South Africa. When his parents’ marriage failed he returned to England with his mother and after staying with relatives she emigrated once again — this time to Canada, leaving Billy behind with her relatives who were show (fairground) people. Once settled in Canada Billy’s mother sent for him but he was never happy at school in Canada and left when he was 14-years-old. After a short career in Toronto’s biggest department store Billy enlisted in the Canadian Army as a boy bugler.

After WWI Billy returned to England, living once more with his mother’s family and travelling around with the fair. He bought a hoop-la stall and modified it in favour of the customers by making the hoops larger. He gained a reputation for fairness and his stall was soon the most popular in the fairground. He invested the money he made in other stalls eventually buying a share of a fairground in Sussex, where he saw families of holidaymakers walking around in the pouring rain, as they were not permitted to stay in their lodging houses during the day. This gave him the idea of a holiday camp specifically for families. He did not have enough capital for this, so he opened a small zoo near Skegness in order to make some money. He opened his first holiday camp 1936, in Skegness.

The advertisements stated that it was possible for families to have a week’s holiday for a week’s pay which included three meals a day, including all entertainment and sporting activities. He started to build more camps, but with the start of WWII things changed.

Lord Beaverbrook approached Butlin who had experience with mass catering in his camps and he turned over his half-built holiday camps to the government for the duration of the war for use as training camps. He reclaimed them at the end of the war.

Post-war Butlin booked famous radio stars to make guest appearances at the camps and later the hotels. They performed in theatres seating up to 2,000 people. The golden age for Butlins was the 1950s and 1960s. The tv show ‘Hi Di Hi’ was based on Butlins and Stephen had known some of the characters that featured in it, including the Punch and Judy man who hated children, but their names were changed!

In June Gina Ireland will be talking about her career in HM Prison Service with ‘Both Sides of the Wall’, and in July there will be a laugh-a-minute ‘Growing Old Disgracefully’ with Tom Finley, at the WI’s birthday meeting.