Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2007 | Page 39

INTERVIEW
get together and form a group.”
Amy Willcock clearly likes to do things
in the way she thinks best, but it is not
that alone that has got her into trouble.
Her unguarded remarks, filmed, about
her fellow delegates’ hair and clothing –
“natural colour and unnatural fibres” – and
quips that she is the only delegate wearing
a thong display a humorous tendency to
open her mouth and put her foot in it.
But nobody could doubt her passion
for the WI campaigns. “The WI was
the first girl power, campaigning about
venereal disease in 1922.” She praises
the Federations’ organisation of the
Great Milk Debate. “Sadly, less than
50 members turned up. Pure apathy.
When we put on our own great milk
debate it was standing room only.”
Amy insists Yarmouth branch has to
be a “stickler when it comes to the WI
constitution. We are lily white,” she says.
Their meetings follow the traditional
format, including a monthly competition
and a speaker – the choice of which
has not been without controversy.
“When we had a barrister talking
on divorce some women didn’t come
because their husbands didn’t want them
to! This is 2006 for goodness sake! Why
did we fight for the right to vote?!”
Yet for her critics that was one of a series
of topics that just underlined the alien
nature of Amy’s group. A top eye surgeon
came to talk about eyelifts. A letter in the
local press said “Cosmetic surgery costs
a lot of money,” and suggests “if Mrs
Willcock did her homework she would
realise wages on the Island were not high”.
Money underlies the chasm between Amy
and her committee and the organisation
they have joined. On the film they visit
neighbouring Headon Hill branch: the
ladies who lunch visit the women that
do. When she invites the group to pay
£35 to attend Yarmouth’s fundraiser, the
ladies of Headon Hill visibly blanch. That
this funds a champagne reception and
a sought-after speaker only compounds
the impression that in the eyes of other
branches, Amy’s crew might just as
well have beamed down from Mars.
Good speakers cost money, something
Amy is unrepentant about. “Knowledge
is power, that’s the crux of what the WI is
about.” And she deflects criticism of the
venue for their meetings, the Yacht Club,
which is considered elitist and presumed
expensive. “I know we pay less than
a group pays for a church hall in West
Sussex. We pay the same rate as do the
Country Dancing Club and the Wine Club,
and quite a few members stay for supper
afterwards, which is a spin-off for the club.”
But thinking in pounds not pence has
some unsung benefits. When the Isle of
Wight federation was given £700 for the
branch with most increased membership it
opted to give each member £2. Amy looks

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baffled: “You can’t even buy a magazine
with that!” she snorts, “and writing receipts
for 140 members would practically be
a rainforest! So we voted to give it to St
Mary’s Applegate breast cancer nurses.”
When a speaker from Magimix donated
four £800 machines they were raffled
off, and the money raised, £83, paid the
cost of sending 93 jumpers, knitted by
members for Aids orphans, to Africa.
They also raised over £1,000 in three
weeks for a breast node probe for St
Mary’s. “We don’t shout about giving
to charity, we just get on with it.”
The fete has been a great success, a
happy mix of old-fashioned stalls and
games – including an egg-throwing
competition which might give health
‘n’ safety the jitters – a band, colourful
Irish dancers – and traditionally
irresistible cakes. It raised £3,000.
Yet many grumble about paying £2 just
to get in. One woman, watching her with
her microphone, is heard to mutter “Oh
keep your mouth shut for once!” Another
openly refuses to believe her when she
says it is not her car blocking others in. It
is as if the recent publicity has deemed
it open season on Mrs Willcock.
“I don’t have a small-minded mentality
so I don’t understand how it happens,”
she says, “but it hasn’t worried me. That
sounds uncaring, but I am genuinely
shocked at how people don’t listen to
what you say and how judgemental
they are. They are totally ill-informed.
I have been attacked personally, but

life

I never attacked anyone personally: I
criticised the WI as an institution.”
She relishes that Yarmouth, the smallest
town in Britain, now has the largest
branch of the WI. “Our meetings are
fun. The worst thing you can do at one
of our meetings is be boring,” Amy
says. “If they are we shout ‘boring!’”
Might not a shy person, new to the
group, find this a bit much? Would she
come again? “I don’t know. If you just pay
up and come and sit there, well maybe
that’s why you haven’t got any friends!”
she jokes. “We always meet and greet
people and introduce them to someone.”
The question is, can Yarmouth keep
up its momentum when Amy steps
down as president in November. “Oh,
we’re big enough, and we’ve got
great people on our committee.”
And despite it all, the televised clash
between Amy’s fierce love of the WI and
that of the rest of the Island, she has
been asked to serve on the National
Executive – to advise on growing
membership. And this, surely, vindicates
her in her belief “that we are the real WI
enthusiasts, the reason the WI started”.

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