WOMEN Wave Your Orange Flags
iIII,ARY SPURLING writes:
`Acting, handicrafts, lectures, yes, But best of all the togetherness,'
runs the rhyme of the• Women's Institutes, who were gorging their fill of the last at the Albert Hall on Tuesday. They had a special welcome for the delegate from Ambridge (where the Archers come from) and another for `the WI's own Poet Laur- eate,' Mr. Cecil Day Lewis, who wrote the lines above and a good deal more. `How excited we all are,' said the chairman, `bands up anyone who's a WI President—wave your orange flags if you want to ask questions—Come on, Yorkshire— Speak up, Lancs—now we all know how to vote with our coloured cards—let's have a practice vote—fellow members, I need not remind you that we never leave litter.'
There are only two kinds of women, plain and coloured, as Oscar Wilde was fond of repeating. The ones at the WI jubilee meeting were nearly all Coloured, not mushroom-coloured or beige but red, green, orange and blue. Flower prints were out, speckles and spots got by, but primary colours were the thing. Petal helmets were losing ground to rearing straw battlements. The lesson on hats seemed to be that brims which shade theface are More becoming, but small turbans and tidies (which predominated) look cleaner. The general impression was of scrubbed cheeks, capable hands, and a frightening power, which the Mini- ster of Housing and Local Government was understandably anxious to put to his own uses. Nagging has always been the basis of our demo- cracy,' he told the ladies sternly, `you have not been doing enough of it.' Mr. Crossman person- ally wanted nagging on the, subject of the pylons With which Labour politicians, in cahoots with the Conservatives, plan to deface our countryside. The best of ministers can do nothing until you, as consumers, begin to deride us, as politicians, for not spending the money to put the pylons under- ground—for not, that is, increasing your electri- city bills.'
The ladies ruminated. Refuse disposal, corn- %nay service and battery farming were after all the business of the day. Questions had been asked about the rat pit maintained by St. Austell district council, and the streams fouled with rub- bish in rural Wales.
The Minister was not only equal in combat to an Albert-Hall-full of WI members. He seemed to 'now their secret motive springs: `You were not 411 born in your villages,' he said, `you're townees 'ho'vegot out.' An announcement made earlier 'n._ the proceedings supported his diagnosis: .!-landicraft members, your ears should be buz- , "lnk now' (sound of buzzing). `I have here a pam- "let, which I know you'll all want to buy, on The Use of Rjeshes' (prolonged buzzing). Surely no one but a townee who'd got out would want to use rushes?
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