Sex and cakes and rock'n'roll

[Gob]

The Women's Institute (WI) is setting up a tea and cake stand at Glastonbury Festival, for the first time this year.



Based in the event's Green Fields area, Somerset WI members are expecting to serve more than 1,000 helpings of tea and home-baked cake a day to revellers. Katie Newell, from Puriton and District WI, said: "We might do more, we just don't know but we won't run out of tea and cake - we're the WI." A rota of ladies will run the tea tent, all five days from 10:00 to 19:00 BST.

The sold-out festival, headlined by veteran rockers The Who with other big acts including Foo Fighters, Kanye West and Florence And The Machine, is due to open its gates next month. But with just five weeks to go, Ms Newell said "lovely ladies" across the county were already busy baking a "phenomenal number of cakes" to freeze. "We have ladies baking sponge cakes, lemon drizzle cakes, chocolate cakes and fruit cakes - as we speak," she said.

"We don't know how many we'll sell but who doesn't need a cup of tea and a slice of cake at some point after a big party - it's the best way to chill out after you've been dancing."

Formed in 1915, the institute is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Ms Newell said being at Glastonbury would not only attract new members but show the institute was progressive. "We felt we really needed to do something that proves that the WI is going forward into the next century as well as celebrating having lasted this last century," she said. "We want to show everybody the amazing work the WI does and Glastonbury Festival seemed like a really good way for us to be represented."

[Guinevere]

That is so frecking British. I love it!

[Gob]

They make an unlikely pair of festival-goers … and an even more unlikely advertisement for the Women’s Institute.



But great-grandmother Margaret Biggs and tattooed former drug addict Joanne Croxford are sharing a tent at Glastonbury as they attempt to shake off the WI’s fusty image by serving tea and homemade cake to hungry revellers.

The organisation, traditionally better known for knitting, jam and Jerusalem, has set up a stall at the Somerset festival for the first time in a bid to recruit younger members.

For 77-year-old Mrs Biggs, who has been a WI member for 40 years, it’s an opportunity to sleep in a tent for the first time and sample her first Pot Noodle.



And for Miss Croxford, 32, it’s a chance to give something back to the organisation she says helped her recover from an addiction to drugs such as ecstasy – as well as inspiring some of her inkings.

She now has a number of tattoos based on the core values of the WI, including a teapot, gardening motifs and the wartime slogan of the institute, ‘For home and country’.

Miss Croxford, from Cambridge, said: ‘This organisation really has been fundamental to my recovery. For the first time in my life I feel like I belong somewhere.

‘I fell into drugs when I moved to London aged 18. I took a lot of party drugs to fit in. Then I started working in the fashion industry and used drugs to lose weight.

‘Now I’ve been clean for five years. A big part of that has been the WI. I joined when I lost both of my nans in quite quick succession and wanted to reconnect with that generation.

‘Now I would say 98 per cent of my friends are other members. It’s a fantastic support network. I’m friends with a 92-year-old and we have things in common.’

[Lord Jim]

Marge is 77, and Joanne The Tattooed Lady is only 32?

They only look about maybe 10 years apart in age...