Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2007 | Page 38

life

INTERVIEW

Comfortably in control
Amy Willcock is passionate about the
Women’s Institute’s aims and objectives.
So why has the WI not embraced her youth
and enthusiasm? Rosalind Whistance
meets the woman at the eye of a storm?

Amy Willcock is in her element.
Microphone in hand, she is striding
across the field of the Yarmouth Women’s
Institute fete, geeing up the sauntering
punters to roll the coin, race a ferret or
throw an egg.. She is comfortably in
control. It is busy: despite the apocalyptic
weather forecast people have turned
out in high numbers. Perhaps they
have come because of the unexpected
sunshine, but could it be that some are
here to glimpse a notorious woman?
Depending on your point of view, Amy
Willcock is the most exciting thing to
happen to the Women’s Institute since
a group in Yorkshire got their kit off and
sold calendars for charity: or she is a
pariah, an infidel who holds in contempt
everything the WI stands for. Since the
screening of a television programme
in June about the setting up in 2006 of
the Yarmouth branch of the WI she has
become notorious far beyond the Island’s
perimeters. But it is Islanders who are
her most vocal, and vicious, critics.
In the letters page of the local paper,
one correspondent suggests she gets
the next ferry off the Island and doesn’t
come back. Another suggests her use
of ‘the four-letter word’ was for shock
value. “That’s part of my language. I am
sorry if I offended, but I’m not going to
apologise for using it.” As she reads,
the president draws on her copious
arsenal of facial expressions: amusement,
incredulity, but essentially bafflement.
Amy Willcock is evangelical about the
Women’s Institute. She is passionate about
its objectives. Yet she has come smack
bang up against women who are, yes,
passionate about the Women’s Institute.
“The reason I chose to start a WI rather
than some other social group for women is

38

its stated purpose,
called the WI Vision:
to make an impact
in their communities,
to influence local,
national and world
issues, and to learn
new and traditional
skills. Out of that,
friendships arise but
that is not the core
purpose. Slowly, over
the years, what we’re
left with is a group
for older women
to get together
and have tea.
That’s the problem with the WI now.
There’s nothing wrong with tea and
chat – but it’s not what the WI is about.”
“That is what is forgotten about: I think
that’s why people have taken umbrage
about what I’ve said: because I’ve
exploded their little cliques, maybe.”
And people have certainly taken
umbrage. The BBC’s The Hissing of the
Summer Lawns followed Amy’s foray
into becoming part of this 90-year-old
institution: for the whirlwind way in which
she and her committee have found the
practices of Island WI s wanting.
The Island’s WI members had formed
opinions about the Yarmouth branch and
its president long before the film went out,
of course. It was reported that they had
cancelled the forthcoming Christmas fair
in Newport due to lack of response by
the membership. “We needed 15 stalls in
St Thomas’s church and it seemed we’d
only manage six. If you walk in and see
six stalls, it is not a Christmas fair! We
changed the emphasis – it was to be a
coffee morning with shopping opportunities.

But once it was reported cancelled, the
federation decided to take it over.”
Yarmouth branch had also seriously
clashed with their ‘WI Adviser’,
someone charged with overseeing
a new branch and its activities.
So why did this young woman, a
successful cookery writer, married to
the proprietor of a well known hotel/
restaurant, mother of two, choose of all
things to start a WI branch? “Well certainly
not just to be on television, as has been
suggested” Amy says archly, adding:
“People on the Island are weird!”
“I expected about 15 for the first
meeting. We got over 50. At the formation
meeting I thought, well, maybe half will
turn up. And we got 60. It just snowballed
from there. Which shows there’s a real
need in our community for women to

Island Life - www.islandlife.tv