GREAT HARWOOD DISTRICT WOMEN’S INSTITUTE
ROSE Dummer gave an entertaining and varied talk on “the lots of different things that she has done with her life”.
When she was 25 years old, she was the first female helicopter pilot in the British forces and became the first lady to go on anti-tank missile copters.
She talked about training to fly helicopters and flew Chipmunks and Gazelles as well as the Lynx anti–tank missile ones.
After 10 years she left and had four children.
Nowadays there are several women helicopter pilots in the forces.
Later she took up iced cake making and won a magazine’s wedding cake of the year award after spending over 300 hours just making the flowers.
Partly encouraged by TV programmes on channels 4 and 5, she made some large “extreme cakes” such as a life size Grenadier Guard, a Freddie Mercury, and a suspended Boris
Johnson.
Becoming famous as
“Rosie the cake diva”, she created the six-foot tall, 30-stone cake depicting a nurse hugging Santa, which she donated to 1,200 NHS staff for their work on the coronavirus front line.
As well as her TV work she is known for appearing at national cake shows.
More recently she was
asked by the charity Khalsa Aid to visit Iraq to help the Yazidis.
The charity provides shelter, food and money for workers to do work on constructing the refugee camps etc, and Rose still supports it.
Many of the Yazidi women were made into sex slaves by Isis fighters and are now refugees.
Rose is also a supporter of Help for Heroes.
Thinking of International Women’s Day, she mentioned women that she had met that impressed her e.g. Rebecca Stevensy, the first woman to climb Mt. Everest, and women’s rights activist Helen Pankhurst.
When Helen was asked what Emmeline Pankhurst would think about women today, she said that she would say that women have still not come far enough.
The next meeting of the Women’s Institute will be at 2pm on April 13 at Bank Mill House.
Ray Couldwell will give a talk entitled “Those were the Days” about the 50s and 60s.
Visitors and prospective members are welcome.
HYNDBURN RAMBLERS
HYNDBURN Ramblers are an active group of people who enjoy walking and who organise regular walks throughout the year.
We walk on Sundays and Wednesdays, with walks of various lengths mainly in Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley, sometimes into Yorkshire, Bowland and the Lake District. You are very welcome to join us.
Walks in April include Hurst Green, Blackstone Edge/Hollingworth Lake and Silverdale/Arnside.
Visit our website for more information www. ramblers.org.uk/ hyndburn or find us on Facebook.