LADIES from the Upper Stratton Women’s Institute have donated £12,000 to the Great Western Hospital after a fall in membership forced them to disband.

The group, who range in age from 67 to 84, decided to call it a day earlier this year and have donated the money they made from the sale of their meeting hall to a range of local charities.

Their original hall, which was based in Dores Road, was targeted by vandals on numerous occasions before being burnt to the ground eight years ago. The land was sold off for houses and the group received £136,000.

A lot of the money was given out to charities at the time, but now, after losing two of her committee members since Christmas, president Gwen Morgan, 84, has decided to bring the group to an end.

“It is sad – I have been part of the WI since 1970,” she said.

“We’ve had a lot of fun and we did a lot of things in the early days, bazaars, fetes, keep-fit classes, coffee club, scrabble clubs but we were a lot younger then.

“There are only nine of us left now so we can’t carry on any longer. We aren’t getting any younger.”

The group, which has since been meeting in St Philip’s Road, is donating the remainder of the money to a number of charities including Thamesdown Hydrotherapy Pool, Macmillan, TWIGs and the Blind Association.

This week they presented a cheque to staff on Beech Ward at the GWH.

“We are really pleased to be able to help the hospital,” said Gwen.

Matron Wendy Ainsworth said: “It is such a lovely gift and there are so many deserving areas we could improve so it will be really difficult to decide exactly where the money will be spent.

“We do have ladies who have really severe symptoms in early pregnancy and we have a day service so it would be nice to get some nice reclining chairs.”

The women from the WI group, made up of Gwen, Maureen Sole, Joan Penny, Marion Barnes, Phil Rowland, Jenny Weeks, Jenney Reeves, Gwen Hatfield and Nora Collins, say they will continue to meet up as friends on a regular basis, while some of the ladies are also part of the Thamesdown Ladies Choir.