Dry Drayton Women's Institute (WI)
Reports
Mrs. Rosemary Wheeler came to our June meeting elegantly dressed and wearing her ‘Trademark’ hat, carrying cumbersome and lethal looking instruments! She came to talk to us about her career as a butcher in the family business in Lavenham, which was opposite ‘The Swan Hotel’. (A business owned by three generations.)
As soon as she was 15 years old she left school to work in the family butcher’s shop because the regular staff in the shop had been ‘called up’ or enlisted. Her father also had a slaughter house and she enjoyed cutting up the meat after the carcase had been hung for two weeks to mature. Mrs. Wheeler had to learn how to bone and roll joints and to make sausages and brawn. As part of her training she had to sharpen the knives with a steel but was never allowed to put a blade on the grind stone. Work was hard with long hours – each night after the shop had closed for the day she had to scrub all the surfaces and floors. She told us (or reminded us!) of the difficulties with food rationing. Her father was in charge of the allocation of meats for that area – they had to have what the Authorities gave them!
We saw a display of old butchery implements, including a pole-axe for despatching cattle, and a heavy wooden stretcher-shaped shallow tray which was used to carry meat. Mrs. Wheeler remembers helping her father to lift this fully loaded tray on to his shoulder to make deliveries. Fortunately, she did not have to do this as she delivered meat using the firm’s cross-bar bicycle – her mother had used a pony and trap. (She was the third generation of female butchers in the family shop as her mother and grandmother had also worked in the business.)
She enjoyed her time working as a butcher (which included slaughtering), but her career ended after seven years when she left to get married. Her parting shot, as she finished her talk was to tell us that during those seven years she was a vegetarian – can you wonder at it!!?
Alice Webb
Meetings
Meetings are held at 7.45pm in the Village Hall (unless stated otherwise). New members and visitors (£1.50) are always welcome. Annual Subscription £29.50.
Diary Dates
10 August 2010 |
Summer Supper |
7.00 pm in the Village Hall |
14 September 2010 |
Mr Lacey Anderson on "About the Cam" (history from 1212) |
7.45 pm in the Village Hall |
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Contacts:
Pam Ducker 780653
Maud Wyatt 780735
Useful Links
National Federation
of Women's Institutes
Cambridge Federation of Women's Institutes
- see the list of local events