Pant WI 'takes the biscuit'
Braving the icy conditions on 9 January, the ladies of Pant WI kicked off their 2025 programme of speakers with a presentation from Victoria Graham entitled ‘The Biscuit Club’.
Victoria is a former Lieutenant Commander in the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service and served with them for 23 years. In 2011, when the army requested the navy to look after the hospital in Afghanistan, Victoria and her colleagues were deployed to Camp Bastion for six and a half months.
Used to serving on a ship, the desert brought new challenges for them. Victoria explained the procedures that had to be followed by the medical teams to ensure a sterile environment in a theatre of war, and how operations and treatments were triaged. Victoria and her team dealt with life-changing injuries and the tragic loss of service personnel in the most demanding environment. However, her amusing talk reflected the camaraderie and teamwork amid these difficult circumstances and centred on the moment she asked her mum to not send chocolate out to her anymore as it just couldn’t survive in the searing heat.
It was the request for biscuits instead that led to the formation of ‘The Biscuit Club’. Victoria and her colleagues began assessing the merits of the various biscuits being sent from the UK and scoring them out of ten. The brand that outperformed all others – Marks & Spencer’s cookie range – led to Victoria contacting the company. Delighted that their biscuits were boosting the morale of servicemen and women overseas, Marks & Spencer promptly sent out their upcoming Christmas biscuit range for them to trial as well as more of their chosen favourite. Throughout their deployment, ‘The Biscuit Club’ continued to flourish with a full biscuit tin always on hand for those in need of a moment away from the stressful and hostile environment.
A spokesman said, “Although life for Victoria and her nursing colleagues was challenging at Camp Bastion, we gained an insight into the work of our amazing service personnel and how a humble biscuit can do wonders for morale.”
The competition was a decorated gingerbread person and was won by Janet Jones. Gaynor Watmough came second and Caroline Buxton third.
Pant WI meet on the first Thursday of every month at 7.15pm at Pant Memorial Institute. New members or anyone who is interested in coming along and finding out more, please get in touch at pantwi1931@gmail.com. Their guest for the 6th February meeting will be Chris Hurrell who will talk about the Dyfi Osprey project.