VIOLET Bartlett knew nothing about book-keeping when she went to the first meeting of a new club in Oxford, but she soon learned.

She was elected treasurer when Wood Farm Ladies’ Co-operative Guild was formed and has kept the books ever since.

Now she is looking forward to a well-earned rest – as the club is closing after serving the Headington community for 38 years.

Mrs Bartlett said: “At the first meeting, no-one would take the job. Someone said, ‘Vi, you do it’. Reluctantly, I said I would do it temporarily.

“Every year, I would go home after the annual meeting and my husband would say: ‘I see you’ve still got the treasurer’s bag.”

The Co-operative Women’s Guilds, dating from 1883, were part of the Co-operative movement, designed to promote women in society and provide social activities and other services for them.

The Wood Farm Guild was formed in 1977. The first meeting, chaired by Barbara Griffiths, was held in the old wooden Wood Farm community centre.

The official opening was performed by Jim Miles, manager of Wood Farm Co-op shop, and a representative from the Oxford and District Co-operative Society education department.

In its heyday, the guild attracted as many as 60 women. Members met weekly and had guest speakers, ran bingo sessions and bring-and-buy sales and visited London shows, including one with ice skaters Torvill and Dean.

They put on their own stage shows, sang Christmas carols in the streets, and entertained elderly residents with music, dancing and games at Hallowe’en.

They also did their bit for charity, organising jumble sales, social evenings and other events in aid of worthy causes, including the Oxford Mail Medibike appeal in 2000, to provide paramedics with a motorcycle to reach accidents more quickly.

One of many highlights came in 1983 when a delegation was invited to a peace service at Westminster Abbey attended by the Queen.

The guild later changed its name to club when the guilds started to be phased out, and it moved into the new community centre attached to Wood Farm School. In recent years, it has held meetings in the nearby children’s centre.

But now, with members becoming older and increasingly immobile and, like other clubs, finding it difficult to attract younger people, it has decided to close.

Chairman Doreen Whitlock said: “It is very sad, but we can’t stop time. We hope those who used to come to the club will have very fond memories of our happy times together.”

Members plan to go out with a bang, with a visit to Aladdin, the pantomime at the Oxford Playhouse, and a farewell meal at the Britannia pub in Headington.