In 1965, the Women's Institute celebrated it's Golden Jubilee.
All Women's Institutes in England, Wales, the Channel Islands and
the Isle of Man were asked to record the way of life in their
community. These scrapbooks were then judged by the county
organisations and the best ones were submitted to the Federation of
Women's Institutes for judging. The Daily Telegraph press cutting
from 12 April 1966 gives further details.
The Bodiam Women's Institute Scrapbook was masterminded by Muriel
Barber and is currently held by Dora Churcher. She kindly lent it
to me to copy and make available on this website.
I have done some searches on the internet to see if I could find other
village scrapbooks and I only managed to find one or two. It
would seem that most of them are have been lodged with the County
archives which is an excellent place for them to be kept for
prosperity. However, it does mean that many people cannot easily
view the scrapbooks and, given that in 2015 the Women's Institute
movement will be celebrating it's Centenary, it would be nice to see
more of them made available on the internet.
Below are links to the Bodiam Scrapbook. Please click on the
description to take you to the relevant page/s.