Monday 15th July and Saturday 20th July - Exhausting the W.I.

Monday 15^th July and Saturday 20^th July  - Exhausting the W.I.

A Monday visit to the Record Office, I have had a couple of weeks off.  During that time the group has been set up with access to ‘Slack’ so that we can share what we find.   There is also a fantastic list of sources shared with the group, including a list of recorded interviews that are available on CD.  

I am told that these can be ordered through the public library, however, transcripts exist for some of them and are held in the RO.  I order one.     

I spend a bit of time looking at the paper catalogues.   I locate the minutes from Stowupland WI and order them.  There is another Coroners Inquest Report that I want to look at.  

The Coroners report is practically illegible, Bernard Pretty’s writing is very difficult to read, the form has been filled in by someone else prior to the meeting, then he has filled in his part.  

I also look at the 1955 Sale Particulars for Columbine Hall (a WLA hostel location), it includes two bungalow cottages constructed out of Land Army quarters.  

It is then on to Stowupland WI minutes, they are also concerned with fruit preservation and the Boys Brigade Hall becomes a ‘jam making center’, during the meeting of June 1940 there is a “lengthy discussion" the outcome of which is that "sugar to be purchased from Mr. Skinner who would also be asked to help in retailing the jam”

By the meeting held on September 25^th 1940 581lbs of jam had been made all of  which had sold by the November 27^th meeting.

I decide to give up on WI minutes, fascinating as they are (giving an insight into the quantities of jam made during the war years) there is nothing suggesting any link between them and any support for the the Land Army.  Apart that is from the link with Lady Denman. 

I spend the afternoon reading a transcript of one of the interviews.  This proves to be more worthwhile and productive.

Saturday 20th July 

A morning at the Record Office, I am helped by a former colleague from my UCS/Suffolk College days who is on duty, we look at records for Columbine Hall, there are the photos listed in the sources but little else from the war years.  We investigate some old card records and also seek out an education file that turns out to be missing. 

There's a reference to an article in Suffolk Fair from 1974, so I take a look at that, it is about fighter planes and Holton Airfield.   'Schilling's Acres, A World War Memoir' evoked by Christopher Elliot.

I also look at a pamphlet published by the Museum of East Anglian Life, it is all of four pages long by Kate Walters but proves to have a few useful bits in it.   A summary of organisational structure and a little about the role of forewomen and also mention of a National Reunion at the Albert Hall in 1969, this led to the formation of the Anglia Ex-Women's Land Army Association. 

I spend the rest of the morning back on the East Anglian, I find a report on Two Land Girls injured on their bicycles.   It seems odd to me that this minor accident is reported but major accidents are not!

Meanwhile East Suffolk County War Agricultural Executive Committee is concerned that runner bean seed is saved - 25% of this years crop