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How did you join WILPF Mary? Well I remember the exact date, it was May 24th, 1982 and I had been invited to a picnic on the beach at Lansing which was near Worthing where I used to live and I had a child of about three and my youngest son was only eight months and the picnic had been put on by Sybil Cookson for International Women's Day for disarmament. I saw this very tall, elegant but shabbily dressed woman marching along the beach in her wellies and I took her to be Sybil. She made a beeline for me and immediately started telling me all about WILPF and gave me a leaflet so I read it and I had just started to become involved with CND and women who were going to support the actions at Greenham Common Air Base in Berkshire. So I said I would read more and come and see her. So I did go and see her and she lived in this house in Sompton which had been the home of Trelawney the poet which was

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very interesting. So she told me they had a local branch in Worthing and that I could easily join so I filled in the paperwork. She was very keen to get me to the meeting and offered to pick me up in her dilapidated Morris Minor. But I could get a babysitter which I did. So I went to this afternoon branch meeting and it was in a house that was very, to me, what looked old fashioned looking as a thirty year old. And the meeting was very formal. There were about half a dozen women in the room with china tea cups and small cucumber sandwiches which were passed round. Everyone was very polite. All the women in the room were well past seventy. So I felt a bit out of place but I thought well I want to join I have to see what's happening.

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So they started their business which I found quite bizarre because it struck me as something that went back to pre-war times. And then I discovered the reason I was at the meeting which was that there had been a motion supported by most of the branch that they should close down because they were getting too old. And Sybil had brought me as the person who was going to be the new member so they couldn't close down. So put in that position I said oh I'm sure I can find some more younger women to join and I'll work out how to do it. And that was that. I left it at that.