THE WI started their February meeting with a very enjoyable talk called “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Writer”.

The speaker was Michael Malaghan, who had started his professional life as a reporter on the local paper in Skegness and then gone on to write scripts for plays, TV soaps and latterly novels.

Michael had many amusing anecdotes to tell about things that had happened to him over the years, and, writer as he is, he has a way with words, so that many in the audience were chuckling from start to finish, and several ladies rushed up to buy a book or two from him at the end. This was a very light-hearted and entertaining talk which cheered us all up wonderfully on a pretty cold, wet February evening.

Then came the business. 2018 is Olveston and Tockington WI’s 100th birthday year, and one of the things we are doing to celebrate is that we have bought and installed a bench seat for people to sit down on outside the village stores.

We were delighted to hear Kim Prewett, our president, tell us that it is already being well used. Then there was talk of the trips that are coming up, starting with one to the Concorde Museum in Filton in another few days.

In March we shall be hosting the group meeting this year, inviting members of other institutes to come and join us to hear a special speaker and enjoy refreshments.

Later again one of our own members, Audrey Shepherd, will be giving us a talk on the man who built Cardiff Castle, and we’ll be going on a visit there.  So there are good things to look forward to; and in that happy frame of mind, we spilt out into the night – to discover it wasn’t even raining anymore!