The Bude WI held their monthly meeting on January 11 starting at 7.30pm at the Bude Methodist Church Hall, when the president, Carol Sparham, welcomed 59 members and two guests.

The members were requested to wear masks and use hand sanitiser. Carol mentioned many upcoming events, including a spa day, a trip to the English Spirit Distillery in Launceston, an Indian Day of Colour and culture and a lunch to be held at the Widemouth Manor. Carol reminded everyone that in November this year Bude WI will be celebrating their 100th anniversary.  Many special events are being organised and these will be detailed very soon.

Bude WI plan to participate in the Royal Cornwall Show and will be organising the WI section of the Holsworthy & Stratton Agricultural Show to be held in August. The secretary, Heather Stephenson, collected voting forms from each of the members with their choice for next year’s WI Resolution. The national WI have led the way with many Resolutions which become campaigns, the most well known was probably ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ and in recent years, ‘Protect our Bees’.

The president then introduced the main speaker, local lady, Clair Roberts. Clair is well known for her hard work in collating many locals memories of WWII. Her talk detailed the rationing which affected all UK residents between January 1940 and mid 1950’s. From her conversations with older Bude people the first thing that came to light was severe poverty and how the food situation varied considerably between the people living in Bude town and those living in the country. Those living in the country had more opportunities to grow/produce food whereas the ‘townies’ had to live within the strict rationing allowances. For example just 2oz of butter and 2oz of tea per person per week. That’s about six tea bags and no coffee. Many tales were told of rabbit shoots, the arrival of the American forces and their wealth of chocolate and cigarettes. Clair is preparing a new war related project, she is producing a great generations cook book. The first is to be a book of war time recipes. To prove how good these could be Clair, with the help of Cynthia May, produced a selection of cakes for the members to try during the tea break — they were surprisingly good.

When the meeting restarted after the tea break, details were given of the recent special events and Eileen Harris announced the winners of the two competitions.  Foliage of the month was won by Anne Denton, joint second Pat Harris and Joan Trewin and third Heather Stephenson. The second competition, a photograph from the 1940’s with a brief explanation of why this was special to the person, was won by Ruth Pearce, second Gill Beasley and joint third Cynthia May and Christine Thomas. 

The next meeting will be held on February 8 at the Bude Methodist Church Hall when the guest speaker will be a representative of the Citizens Advice service, the competitions will be an interesting item whose name begins with the letter C, flower of the month and the first round of the Bude WI Bake Off, which is four Cornish splits — the recipe will be available on the Bude WI Facebook page.   

If anyone would enjoy meeting with other friendly women and think Bude WI would suit them, then do come along to a meeting as a visitor.