The Women's Institute is the UK’s best-loved organisation for women, and local branches are celebrating its centenary by holding a fascinating exhibition at Milton Keynes Museum.
The display includes historic documents and scrapbooks through to hand-knitted cakes!
Video footage also features.
Among the exhibits are a series of colourful banners representing the branches and telling their history – Bradwell’s banner features the stocks which used to sit at the bottom of Primrose Lane, while Newton Longville’s includes an even grimmer reminder of the past – the gallows which existed until 1880 in a field off the Drayton Road.
For Thornborough and Thornton WI, the exhibition is a chance to remind people that the modern WI is about more than jam and Jerusalem.
Its display includes memorabilia from a novel Grab a Handful fundraiser, for which members donated old bras and then competed to see how many they could remove one-handed from a washing line in 30 seconds. Both the bras and the money raised were sent to support projects and people in Sierre Leone.
But you might expect, cooking and creative crafts figure heavily too - a giant collage featuring the faces and places of Stony Stratford High St in exquisite detail will take attentions.
Those cakes might look good enough to eat, but don't – knitted sponges aren't nearly as good as the real thing, which you'll be able to indulge in at the museum’s café, selling treats baked up by long-serving volunteer and WI stalwart Diane Roder.
The exhibition continues in the café where a timeline records the WI’s success in 1979 in lobbying for exemption for WI kitchens for making and selling jam.
The museum's gallery space is hosting the exhibition until the end of August.
For more details click to www.mkmuseum.org.uk
