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When we moved to a newly built house at the top of Thoresby
Road on a snowy day in January 1959 we had two children under three and I had
temporarily given up my teaching career. My husband travelled throughout the
northern half of the UK on business then, so I spent much time without adult
company. Consequently I joined the 'Housebound Housewives Register' as soon
as I read about it in The Observer. I remember little of the meetings I attended,
except that I had to travel to W ollaton Vale via Derby Road, because the Green
Belt fields still divided the city from Bramcote and Beeston. At one meeting,
there was publicity for a course of afternoon lectures with a creche at the
Sherwood Community Centre. The subject was modem literature. Getting there on
two buses (two-car families were comparatively rare then) was a challenge with
two small children, but it was well worth the effort to someone in need of brain
work instead of housework..
Walter James, who gave the lectures on behalf of the university
extra-mural department, lived in the Beeston area and gave me a lift home. It
was he who suggested that I could solve my travel problems by forming a branch
of the WEA at Bramcote. He explained that I needed to gain the interest of a
minimum of twelve people. I already was 'banker' to a group of women, who exchanged
baby-sitting 'credits', so I persuaded several of them to come to my home to
discuss the project. We sought permission for a public meeting in the library
of Bramcote Hills Grammar School. There was sufficient support for us to go
ahead and the first course was chosen by consensus.
When both my children had started school I resumed teaching
and had to drop out of my extra-curricular activities. I remember that Abdul
Beidas became secretary of the Bramcote WEA. We left Nottingham in August 1964
for seven years, but I understand that there are links between the foundation
of the WEA and the Community Association.
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