In 1932, the Cambridge Women’s Physical Culture Club had its first meeting. The women, who just like us today, wanted to improve their health, be fitter, stronger and more active, met in the Carpenter Hall in Cambridge and at first their numbers were only small, about twenty women per class.By their twenty-first anniversary in 1953, the beginners class alone had nearly sixty members.
Don’t think that because Cambridge is a University town, that these were posh upper-class wealthy women; they were not. Cambridge was also an ordinary small market town in those days, and the women who went to the CWPCC were ordinary women, wives, mothers, workers. As the class grew in popularity they outgrew the venue and moved to the ballroom of the Dorothy Café. By the time the war started, there were classes of up to eighty people – eighty women who wanted to be active, strong and healthy.
During the war it was not unexpected that the numbers declined, as many women volunteered for war service, joined up or began to work to replace the men who were serving away from home. After the war the club once again grew in popularity, and the photo below shows a class doing one of their set pieces in September 1953
“I am sure that nothing would give me greater pleasure in my old age than to be able to do a backward bend in front of some of my friends who have not kept up their classes and are in bath chairs!”
Young people should go to these classes, and keep them up, as they taught them to be graceful, improve their deportment and general outlook.
Here is a film clip from their activities in 1937:
http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/2385
Lois Elsden 
I tell all my friends that I have a harem of seven pretty women at the YMCA. Then I teel them that the youngest one is 68 years old. Sort of true but it’s fun to work out with the older girls to. We all care about one another and encourage each other and it’s the greatest part of my day working out.
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That’s the key isn’t it, to have friends to do it with you and chivvy you along when you’re feeling feeble… Not that you feel feeble, David, I’m talking about myself!
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No you are right Lois about being feeble but it’s from the waist down. Fractured my back twice at work and have arsenic poisoning from the ore used in the making of iron. The worst thing for me is not the physical pain but the fact that a lot of people don’t believe me or try to understand my situation and even mock me. Great shape from the waist up and even do situps with 160 lbs behind me. There is a conspiracy of silence among the doctors in our town about the health and safety issues about working in our steel plant as it’s the biggest employer. The older I get the more addled they think I am and that really hurts.
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How horrible David. The lack of understanding and sympathy for others is quite awful; I know most people in the caring profession do care and are conscientious, but when my sister was very ill after her car accident, there were some nurses and one in particular who were cruel and vile… we were in such a state of shock nothing was done, and I think we might have felt complaining might leave my sister more vulnerable when we weren’t there… so I understand completely about a conspiracy of silence, I really do. Big hugs to you
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Thanks for caring! Sorry for the rant. Nuff said……………..for now.
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xx
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