ONCE a month Joyce Lucking puts on her coat and heads out to meet her friends at West Bergholt Women’s Institute – just as she has done for the past seven decades.

Mrs Lucking, 87, is thought to be one of the longest-serving members of the WI in the country and recently helped the West Bergholt group celebrate its 90th birthday.

She was a teenager when she began attending meetings with her mother during the Second World War, going along as a favour to help cope with what were incredibly difficult times.

Mrs Lucking, of Colchester Road, West Bergholt, said: “Times were quite hard, so I just went along with my mother as a bit of relief from everything that was happening.

“I would have been about 18 or 19, I suppose, and my mother had been a member since the West Bergholt group started in 1921.

“I went along and then I quite liked it, so I kept going.”

Months turned into years and Mrs Lucking married and moved to Colchester, but remained a member at the village branch.

She said: “It was really like an education in my case, because during the war years there was not really much to do.

“I went to the village school but I left without any qualifications. The WI had all sorts of interesting talks and practical demonstrations and there was always something to interest everyone.

“You found out how to make something out of nothing and, as we did not have very much at that time, it was so useful to me.

“We were rationed at that time as well, so I picked up tips on how to make things go further. It really was an education I would otherwise not have had.”

During the war years, Mrs Lucking worked for the Post Office Telephone Service, based in Colchester, carrying out clerical tasks and then as mum to four children.

The Women’s Institute was also responsible for fostering Joyce’s interest in amateur dramatics – prompting her to join West Bergholt’s renowned Orpen Players, which she was a member of for more than 40 years.

“In 1950 the Women’s Institute group started a drama group and that was when we moved to Colchester and settled down.

“But my husband had a car and so he used to bring me over for the meetings. Then we started a play reading group and it was getting difficult to find things that were suitable for everyone to read, so me and another member, Rene Keats, started writing little sketchy things for us to read.

“I wouldn’t call them plays, but I still enjoy doing that.

“I did enjoy the drama and that led me on to the Orpen Players,” she said.

As for the WI, she joined other members to celebrate the group’s 90th birthday recently.

“The most important thing it has given me is friendship,” she said.

“I think it will probably go on for ever. We have quite a lot of older women coming along, but there are also women in their forties starting to come.

“We have about 45 members, which is very good for a village group,” said Mrs Lucking, who now has five grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.

President of the group, Pat Moran, said they were delighted to have such loyal members.

“We do also have younger members.

“But admittedly not much younger than about 40.

“I do think it is still relevant. It really isn’t all jam and Jerusalem any more.”