Twenty four members attended the September meeting of Dinton WI held in Dinton Village Hall.

Discussions about a variety of events taking place in the future followed, including a visit to Waitrose for a cookery demonstration in December and the WFWI Annual Council meeting to be held in the City Hall in October.

Members were reminded about the Three Valleys Group Meeting to be held at 2.30pm on Monday, October 13 at South Newton Village Hall when we are invited to take a guest, male or female, to learn about wood carving. Barbara Smith asked members to encourage friends and neighbours to use the new village community shop.

Paddy Archer will be organising the new Coffee Shop and gave a plea for homemade cakes.

After coffee, the president introduced the speaker, Jenny Peet, whose talk was entitled No Knickers - A Light-hearted Look at Tudor Life.

Then followed an amazing look into what we could have expected had we been born during that era. For a start if we had been well off our mother would have been incarcerated in her bedchamber for two months prior to the birth and a month afterwards - no daylight, heavy hangings, candles and definitely no fresh air! At the end of that time having been ‘Churched’ the woman returned to her husband and to having a baby every year. The poorer class managed to delay further babies for two years. Jenny then vividly described the swaddling of the baby including seven layers of nappies each interleaved with sphagnum moss and changed every three days. The poorer babies had a hook incorporated in their swaddling to allow them to be hung from a wall or tree as they rarely had access to a cradle.

As they grew up the wealthy children learnt reading, writing English, Latin, Greek, French, Spanish and Italian. The boys learnt all about War Horses and the girls learned embroidery. The poor children earned money from the age of three, working in the fields and the home.

Jenny described with some verve the horrible jobs that the youngsters had to undertake.

She also told of the various things used for medication, cleaning teeth, curing toothache and how wigs were made.

Vivian Longland then thanked Jenny on behalf of members for her amazing insight into Tudor history.

The competition for an interesting fact about Tudor Life was won jointly by Sue Taylor and Vivian Longland. The next meeting is on Wednesday, October 8 when we shall be entertained by our own Jan and John Moore who will tell us about Iceland.