Townswomen's Guilds

25/10/2026

It is the 25th day of the month.
Wear orange to show support for the UN
End Violence Against Women and Girls campaign.

24/10/2026

Two TG events coming up soon and both are good opportunities to meet with TG members from other guilds.
Email [email protected] if wish to attend or need more information.
Lunch bags for £5 can be booked in advance for the carol service.
No tickets needed.

20/10/2026

Sedgley TG had a visit from Manny Singh Kang who proved to be one of the most inspirational speakers there is and an excellent ambassador for Dementia UK.

20/10/2026

You may not have heard of Fara Williams but she holds the record for the most caps in the history of English football and what a story!

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 She holds the record for the most caps in the history of English football. More than Peter Shilton. More than David Beckham. More than Wayne Rooney.

She has 172 caps for England. And for seven years, while she wore the Three Lions on her chest, she was homeless. Fara Williams was born on 25 January 1984 in London.

She grew up in Battersea, in a family that struggled with poverty. She fell in love with football at a young age, but life off the pitch was falling apart.

At the age of 17, she became homeless. She lived in hostels. She slept on friends' sofas. Sometimes, she slept rough.

She would turn up to Everton training, and then to England camps, knowing she had nowhere to go when the final whistle blew.

She kept it a secret from her teammates. She was too ashamed. She was too proud. She didn't want to be seen as a victim.

She would leave the England camp on a Sunday with her £60 match fee, and use it to pay for a bed for the night.

She kept her football boots in a plastic bag, because she had no locker to keep them in.

She was a professional footballer playing for her country, but behind closed doors, she was fighting for her survival. The pressure eventually broke her.

She turned to alcohol. She drank to numb the pain. She drank to forget where she was sleeping that night. She hit rock bottom in 2007.

She realised that if she didn't stop, football would be taken away from her. And football was the only thing keeping her alive.

She went to rehab. She faced her demons. She fought back. And she became one of the greatest players this country has ever produced.

She won the FA Women's Super League with Liverpool. She won the Women's FA Cup with Arsenal.

In 2009, she scored the winning penalty for England in the Euro quarter-final against Finland, sending her country to the semi-finals.

She represented Great Britain at the 2012 London Olympics. She played in the 2015 World Cup, where England won a historic bronze medal.

And in 2021, she was awarded an MBE for services to football and charity. But her greatest legacy is not the caps. It is not the medals. It is not the records.

It is the work she does now. She is an ambassador for Centrepoint, a charity that helps homeless young people.

She walks into the same hostels she once slept in, and she speaks to the kids who are exactly where she was.

She tells them that being homeless is not the end of their story. She tells them that there is hope.

Fara Williams had everything taken away from her. Her home. Her dignity. Her peace of mind. But she never lost her fight.

She is the most capped player in the history of English football. And she is a survivor.

Not because she played 172 times for her country. But because she survived the nights she had nowhere to sleep.

And she used that pain to help others find their way home.

​

19/10/2026

Recently, 25 knitted squares blankets were delivered on behalf of Sedgley TG and the many, many community volunteers that have helped knit and sew together squares to the Hamlin Fistula UK office in Selly Oak, Birmingham.

Hamlin Fistula Uk were very welcoming and grateful, and also recalled Townswomen's Guilds involvement with the project in the past. So, if any other guilds out there would like to take part, just get in touch. Hamlin Fistula UK do receive many blankets by post if you are unable to drop them off for Sedgley TG to deliver.

Because some people are still keen to knit squares and because we have realised how much being part of this community project has benefited some local residents, we will plan to make them into blankets in September next year ready for another delivery in October.

17/10/2026

Good to be reminded of this event and so proud that Princess Anne was Patron of Townswomen's Guild for many years.

He brought two guns, handcuffs and a ransom demand. Princess Anne’s response became three of the most famous words in royal history.

On 20 March 1974, Anne was just 23, newly married and heading back to Buckingham Palace when a white Ford Es**rt swerved across The Mall.

Her chauffeur had to stop.

Then its driver stepped out armed.

Ian Ball had come to kidnap the Queen’s daughter. Inside his car were handcuffs, tranquillisers and a ransom letter demanding millions. Within moments, a journey home had become a fight to protect the princess.

Inspector Jim Beaton, her protection officer, confronted him.

Ball shot him. Beaton’s own pistol jammed.

Despite being wounded three times during the attack, Beaton continued trying to shield Anne. Her chauffeur, a passing journalist and a police constable who intervened were also shot. (abc.net.au⁠, people.com⁠)

And Ball still hadn’t got what he wanted.

He ordered Anne out of the car.

“Not bloody likely.”

He grabbed her arm. Her husband, Captain Mark Phillips, held her from the other side. In the struggle, her dress tore.

Anne kept talking to the armed man trying to abduct her. She later recalled deliberately remaining polite even as she became furious at what he was doing.

Her composure was extraordinary. Her bodyguard later credited it with helping keep the situation under control.

Then a passing motorist stepped into the danger.

Ronnie Russell was a former heavyweight boxer. He went to Anne’s aid and punched Ball twice in the head, helping thwart the kidnapping.

Ball fled into St James’s Park, where police caught him. Anne and her husband escaped unhurt. All four wounded men survived. Beaton received the George Cross; Russell and Constable Michael Hills received the George Medal.
When the Queen thanked Russell, he recalled something more personal than a royal presentation: she thanked him as Anne’s mother.

A bodyguard who kept protecting her after being shot. Strangers who stepped towards an armed attacker. A boxer who risked everything.

And, in the middle of it all, a young princess whose refusal still sounds unmistakably Anne. ❤️

16/10/2026

The Apgar Scale was developed by this women. Who knew?

In the early 1950s, a doctor in New York noticed something troubling in delivery rooms: everyone was watching the mother, but a newborn struggling to breathe might receive too little attention.

Her name was Virginia Apgar.

She was an anesthesiologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, studying how childbirth and anesthesia affected babies. At the time, there was no standardized test to assess a newborn's condition in those critical first moments.

A baby could be blue, limp or silent. But how urgently did that child need help? Too much depended on individual judgment.

Apgar decided to make the answer impossible to ignore.

In 1952, she developed a simple scoring system. One minute after birth, staff would check five things: heart rate, breathing, muscle tone, reflexes and skin color.

Each received zero, one or two points. Ten was the highest possible score.

The numbers gave doctors and nurses a common language for recognizing distress and assessing the need for intervention. Later, a second assessment at five minutes became standard.

Apgar had originally trained to be a surgeon, but was discouraged from pursuing surgery because she was a woman. She moved into anesthesiology and, in 1949, became Columbia's first female full professor at its medical school.

Her scoring system spread through hospitals around the world. It helped transform the newborn from someone attended to after delivery into a patient whose condition demanded immediate attention.

Virginia Apgar died in 1974, aged 65.

Today, millions of babies are evaluated using the test that bears her name.

It begins with a simple principle: the first minute of a child's life deserves everyone's attention.

14/10/2026

Another lovely craft idea to share; this time from Wollaston TG.