A Rural Journey

An extract from Rural Journey was published in Scottish Home & Country in June 1997 to mark the SWRI's 80th birthday. Written in 1939 & published in 1940 by Catherine Blair, it describes her experiences in the SWRI's early years.

It is difficult for a generation that has grown up since 1914 to realise the revolution that has taken place in rural life. Now that motor buses daily penetrate into the remotest country districts, one of the chief features of country life in those not-so-far-off days - its terrible isolation - can only be grasped by the most imaginative. It was partly to combat this isolation, and to substitute social co-operation, that the Scottish Women's Rural Institutes movement began.

But although that isolation is now, fortunately, a thing of the past, the Institutes have not outgrown their usefulness. Started during the war which was to end wars, and with many useful war purposes, they have revealed the needs and possibilities that open up to the Institutes new paths of usefulness.

The problems that faced us in forming the Institutes may well throw light on the newer, yet similar problems of today.

Our dairymaid has gone off unexpectedly for the weekend. She was a bonny, blithe, buxom woman, mother of a large family, capable, industrious, a great reader, with a ready laugh and a keen wit - a fine type of country Scotswoman.

On her return I said I hoped she had enjoyed herself. 'I'm fine noo,' she said. 'I just took a sudden thocht an gaed awa. I hadna been like masel for a while back. I was that crabbit; I was aye flytin on the weans when they didna need it.'

Then the tears came into her eyes and she said, 'Men ken naething aboot it. They are aye meeting their neebors in the stable, an passing the time o day wi the maister; or they're up at the station speakin tae somebody. But for the likes of me, there's never a body tae speak tae.'

Could the raison d'etre of the movement be put more forcefully?

It was not until 1916 that I first heard of the Women's Institutes which had been founded in Canada in 1897, and which were now being established in England on similar lines by the English Agricultural Organisation Society.

It was while reading up for an address which I had been asked to give to the Glasgow and West of Scotland Discussion Society on the 'Farmhouse in Relation to Food Supply and Labour', that I came across an account of the activity of the English AOS.

I wrote to their secretary, who willingly gave me much valuable information, and much valuable help afterwards when we actually started the movement. Those of us interested in the problems of rural life felt that such Institutes would meet a real need. The time was opportune: the circumstances favourable. The rural conditions which gave such impetus to the movement may be best summarised in the following extract from the address:

'Those who talk so glibly of settling ex-soldiers and sailors on the land, very often overlook the word 'back'. Let us take it for granted that the ex-soldiers and labourers are for the most part married men.
Do you think that the woman who, even as a girl, has experienced the inconvenience and discomfort of a country cottage life, will readily return to these after enjoying the comparative comforts of town life? And the men won't go without their wives!

I do not wish to give the impression that town life compares favourably with a country life - far from it. The farmer's wife who lives within a reasonable distance of town, and enjoys a modicum of leisure, has an ideal life.

But the woman who has to drudge inside the house, naturally compares the relative merits of the houses, the advantages of the dry wooden floor over a damp flagged one, the convenience of turning on a tap in place of carrying water from a well, the pleasures of nipping round the corner for a kipper for tea compared to the wearisome trudge on a Saturday for the weekly shopping!

To the woman whose horizon is represented by the four walls of her house, the changing seasons suggested little besides a stuffy kitchen in summer, a frozen rain barrel in winter, bronchitis in the spring and wet clothes in the autumn.

If it is desirable to have labour back to the land, it is obvious that the housing conditions must be more attractive, more convenient.

Rural housing always suggests to me a village dressmaker whom I know. Sewing so much seems to give her time to think. Her powers of descriptive expression fills me with envy. I have often tried to get her to speak in public as she speaks to me, but she replies, 'Na, na; yae need tae hide the hide o an elephant to speak in public.'

One day she was on about the housing. 'Sic-like hooses! Built below the level o' the ground. Can ye wonder that they are damp. On the Sabbath morning ye tak your boots oot below the bed; they're like a pair o white rabbits wi mould. A' thae dishes just catchin the dirt! Shelves where a body canna reach them. Men shouldna build hooses. Men hae nae heids.'.

But if the housing conditions were bad the labour conditions were still more difficult. Farm labourers had no holidays and little leisure.
And, as usual, if the men had little leisure, the women had none. It was considered only natural and right that the woman should be tied to the cottage and the farm.

It is difficult to realise nowadays that an Aberdeenshire farmer was only expressing the general feeling when, on hearing that the Women's Institutes aimed to teach 'leisure crafts,' he smiled and asked 'Where are they going to get the leisure? There is none here.'

The farm women had never attended a public meeting in their lives. Women's Sufferage was, of course, a burning political question in those pre-war days. The attitude of some of the women to this was well expressed by one farmer's wife: 'I've got a good husband and a good home, and I don't want a vote.'

Opposition and apathy - an apathy only too natural when one considers that the women had no time for anything but the days endless duties - had to be overcome and interest aroused.

In order to get a meeting in a village to try and form an Institute, it was necessary to do a door-to-door canvas on all the farms in the neighbourhood. 'The women may promise to come', I was told by everybody, 'but you'll find they won't turn up'.

Miss Nancy Brown (of Women's March to London fame), who helped to organise the earliest Institutes, did much of this necessary spadework, and had many stories to tell of these house-to-house variations. 'No, I can't go to your meeting,' one woman told her, 'I'm on the Lord's side.' Another explained her refusal by saying , 'I keep mysel to mysel. I'm proud to say I've never been oot ma hoose for 16 years.'

I wrote to a well-known Ayrshire agriculturalist asking for the names of women likely to be interested. He replied that all the women in his part of the country were too busy with farm work to be able to attend meetings.

I retorted that I had never known men so busy on the farms that they could not attend meetings; and that as they had always regarded themselves as the Lords of Creation, I thought they might manage to milk the cows and look after the bairns for one evening a month when the Institutes met!

Such, then, were the conditions of farm life for women, and such the atmosphere - mental, moral and material - when our scheme was launched.

We were in the midst of a war, the end of which none of us could foresee. Food was rationed. Many articles which had been considered necessities had become luxuries. Submarine warfare had resulted in great destruction of shipping. Fruit and vegetables could no longer be inported in sufficient quantities from abroad.

At last the Government awoke to the importance of agriculture and the necessity of home production of food stuffs. Women's work on the land became increasingly important.

I urged on the formation of the Women's Institutes as a help in food production and conservation. My plea was sympathetically received, and a Scottish Council of Agriculture was formed. I was appointed to represent women's interests, and was given a remit to report on the conditions affecting social life in the country. After hearing my report, the council adopted the following resolution:

'That the Council, realising the importance of rural life in the development of Agriculture and other rural industries, recommend to the Board of Agriculture to support the establishment of Women's Institutes throughout Scotland.

In my new enthusiasm, I could not wait for the slow action of official machinery. Macmerry, our nearest village, was already accustomed to my Suffrage, Red Cross and other activities; and I planned that it should have the first Scottish Institute.
Alas! An outbreak of measles made the use of the schoolroom for our meeting (which was to take place in January 1917) impossible; and thus the honour of being the first Women's Rural Institute in Scotland fell to Longniddry.

I began a campaign of publicity for the new movement. Relieved to find that they were no longer being asked to publish letters or articles dealing with the Militant Suffrage questions editors received me with open arms.

Later that year an organiser was appointed but was soon called away to other duties and it was not till the next year that she was able to give her whole attention to Institute work. Meanwhile, feeling that no time was to be lost in forming Institutes, I raised some funds from friends and well wishers and acted as voluntary organiser.

Looking through some of the Canadian magazines, the first one I opened bore the words 'If you know a good thing, pass it on.' This I immediately annexed for our Scottish slogan.

On June 26th 1917, Mrs Watt (Mrs Alfred Watt of British Columbia, who was at this time forming Institutes in England and Wales) addressed a meeting at Longniddry, at which I was in the chair. There and then the first Scottish Women's Rural Institute was formed. In spite of all the mournful predictions of the extreme improbability of anyone turning up, 37 women joined.

The next step was a committee meeting in Longniddry to get our syllabus drawn up. Committee meetings in those days - when women were afraid to take office - were a 'sair fecht'.

We started having meetings in the afternoon, but very soon gave it up. Women did not like to come out to tea and go back to work. They wanted a 'night out.' We then arranged our meetings according to the moonlight, and our committees according to the farms or districts, so that if any special message had to be delivered, the committee members did it, and saved expense.

On one occasion I heard of a committee member who, when asked to take a message to her neighbour, Mrs X, said 'I cannae do that. I'm no speakin to her the noo' But the Rural cured all that!

Longniddry appointed as its Honourary President Lady Wemyss. The schoolmaster's wife, Mrs Allan was appointed Secretary - which was lucky for us as she knew something about writing minutes. My mother, Mrs Sheilds, was appointed Treasurer, and for 11 years she saw that we got all that we needed.

Our first meeting took place on July 25th 1917, when as President I had the honour of welcoming the speaker, Miss Louisa Innes Lumsden, one of the pioneers of the Higher Education of Women.

The aims of the Institutes, said Miss Lumsden, was to give women the opportunity of meeting together for comparison of methods in the practical work of the country home, for the exchange of ideas and the consequent sharpening of wits.

Men met other men in the course of their daily occupation, but women were far too often confined entirely within the four walls of their homes. It was not desired to take her from that sphere, but to deepen and broaden it.

Mrs Sheilds then demonstrated the bottling of fruit, and bottled fish, meat and vegetables were exhibited. By means of a 'china shower' - the contribution of a cup and saucer from each member - the Institute was supplied the necessary stock of china for tea. This gave each member a stake in the Institute.

Thus, almost unconsciously, at this our first meeting, we struck the chord that was to dominate our SWRI. Education and practical domestic economy - conservation of food supply - co-operation - all were exemplified in this first evening's programme.