Ok!

Right!

Well ... let’s get it out of the way, and right up front: the Women’s Institute, or “WI”, is not just associated with nudie calendars! Nor indeed is it mainly associated with nudie calendars, so those of you who are here strictly for the prurience factor can look out of the windows, or twiddle your thumbs, or whatever you do to pass the time for the next couple of minutes, because I am definitely not going to dwell on all that ‘Calendar Girls’ stuff. So, to recap, the WI should never be mistaken for an organisation of exhibitionists and flaunters.
Nor should the WI ever be confused with the Wii--for example the Wii has twice as many ‘I’s, they are much smaller ‘i’s and, further, and more importantly, any attempt to plug a member of the WI into your television set and then to wave her around by a strap attached to your wrist will result in unpredictable results. At least that’s what I’ve always found.
Finally the WI should never be confused with the Mother’s Union which, as its name suggests, has a much more restrictive membership.

Well, having disposed of what the WI isn’t, we come to the things that it is: Each local, self-governing Institute of the National Federation of Women's Institutes provides a programme of monthly meetings of talks and practical demonstrations. Sometimes these demonstrations involve demonstrating with placards on matters of local, national and even international importance, members also take part in other activities including, most famously, the making of jam; in addition to this, the WI is, above all else, deeply associated with the hymn tune Jerusalem:

“And did those feet in ancient time,
 Walk upon England’s mountains green:
 And...”

    ...so forth, which they use to start every meeting, and sometimes indeed every single utterance. Luckily they seldom do any of this in the nude. Wisely they also tend to stay clothed for the jam-making. Indeed the phrase ‘Jam and Jerusalem’ was associated with the WI long before nudism.

So how did all this clothing optionality start?
After vague fumbly beginnings (in Canada of all places) in the late 1890’s the Women's Institute was finally founded in Britain (as was only proper), by a lady with the absolutely fab name of Madge Watt at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in Wales on 11 September 1915, not quite England, but close enough for 1915. By the way that incredibly long name (which is, of course, in the Welsh language) rather interestingly translates as “St Mary’s church in the hollow of the people whose sign writers are paid by the letter rather than the word”. A couple of years later The WI reached true propriety by meeting in London at Central Hall, Westminster, to set up their Federation.

There is one final, and essential thing to bare (if that’s the right word) in mind about the Woman’s Institute: in these days of increasingly intimate, underhanded, and indeed underwear-ed, schemes by those so-called tourist folk to get round airport security and of airport security in turn trying to one-up them with ever more security, soon the only people who will be able to fly with any degree of comfort or composure will be all those nudie wee Calendar Girls!

Cheerio for now
from
Richard Howland-Bolton