ANN Elliot presided at our January meeting, when we were pleased to welcome Chris Gooderham, a market analyst, as our speaker for the night. Mr Gooderham gave an interesting talk on the history of the British dairy industry.The Milk Marketing Board, which was set up in 1933 to support dairy farmers, finished in 1994. At times of surplus the government bought up stocks of butter and cheese so that the farmers did not lose income, and thus created the “food mountains” which most of us were old enough to remember!

For the main part of his talk Mr Gooderham compared the dairy industry of today with as it was in 1995. In the last 20 years there have been big changes, but surprisingly the price per litre has hardly changed. Now farmers have to work in a free market, whereas in 1995 it was a protected industry and supported by the government. This change has seen a big reduction in the number of dairy farmers over those years. Pam Rayner gave the vote of thanks for a very informative and enjoyable talk.

We then enjoyed a short social break with home-made cakes and tea and coffee before the business part of the meeting. Maureen Speight gave out notices. The Worcestershire Federation Spring Meeting will take place at No. 8, the main speakers for the evening being the Royal Navy PresentationTeam. The winners of the competition for an item made of paper were 1st Pam Rayner, joint 2nd Viv Breed and Jean O’Loughlin and 3rd Angela Bilboa.

Our next meeting will be on February 11 when Mr Robin Hill will give a talk on “Land Army Memories in WW2”. Our meetings take place at Wulstan Hall, Priest Lane on the second Thursday each month at 7.30. As always visitors are very welcome.

JEAN BARTON