Rising from the ashes of the First World War and initially conceived as a way of improving the food supply for the nation, the Women’s Institute became one of the really important movements for women in the twentieth century. It provided education, opportunities to practise public speaking and opened the eyes of countrywomen to the wider world around them. The first organisers were ex-suffragists who felt that now they had the vote women needed an education to give them the confidence to make their presence felt in this new world opening up to them.

Responding to the national crisis at the outbreak of the Second World War, the Women’s Institute again proved its worth by tackling food shortages and organising schemes such as finding billets for evacuee children.

A further challenge in the 1960s and 1970s was the rise of the feminist movement. Membership of the WI started to decline and the executive searched for ways to improve its image and keep it relevant to younger women. Then, out of the blue, came the Calendar Girls. Any idea that the WI consisted only of jam and ‘Jerusalem’ was swept away by the energy, imagination and sheer courage of the women of Rylstone WI and led not only to a renewed interest in and respect for the countrywomen of Great Britain but to a flourishing of new branches in both town and country.

As the centenary of its birth approaches, the WI remains a powerful force in women’s lives, a source of fun, friendship and creativity.

• 2015 marks the Centenary of

  the WI

• New ITV programme on the story of the Women's

  Institute in the Second World War – “Home Fires” – starring Francesca Annis and

  Samantha Bond, due to air mid-2015

• Reviews in history

  magazines, national weeklies, national daily and Sunday newspapers, to include:

  The Independent and The Sunday Times, THES, and BBC

  History Magazine

• Author willing to do signing

  events in Oxford and also happy to be interviewed on BBC Radio Oxford