Woodley Women’s Club

WELL, what a wonderful week the Woodley Women’s Club have enjoyed.

It began on Saturday at the Woodley Carnival where we had a cake stall with all proceeds going to our chosen charity for the year, the Foxitron Machine for the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

We were blessed with excellent weather and thanks to our members who manned the stall and those members who made cakes, we managed to raise £258 for this charity.

Our meeting on Monday was attended by 93 members and two guests who came to listen to one of our favourite speakers, Sally Botwright.

Sally is a Blue Badge Guide and has visited our club several times, but sadly this will be her last visit as she is moving down to the coast.

Her talk as usual was excellent and covered the Old and New London Docklands.

We learnt that the use of the Thames for trade began with the Romans in AD43 and when

Henry 8th was on the throne, Chatcham Dock was formed.

The first enclosed dock, the West India Dock was built in 1802, and in 1909 the Port of London Authority was set up, and by 1930 they employed 100,000 people.

Sadly between 1968/81 all of the docks closed down except for Tilbury.

Over recent years the LDCC has regenerated the whole area and we saw slides of Canary Wharf,

St. Katherine’s Dock and the beautiful gardens and artworks that are incorporated within the area.

On Thursday 45 members enjoyed a day in Windsor.

Our coach left Woodley in the morning and we enjoyed an excellent lunch at a carvery just outside of Windsor.

We were then taken to the Windsor Theatre where we saw the production Waiting for God which sent us all home with smiles on our faces.

Our next meeting is on Monday, when our speaker will be David Bullock who will be talking about Jack the Ripper.