The Women's Institute may have turned its attention to global political issues, but in at least one Surrey village they can still rustle up world-class cakes.
The scone - and in particular how to bake it - is out of the loop. The cake is no longer a senior subject and the bridge roll filling is at the bottom of the agenda.
Today the Women's Institute is more political party than tea party. You may recall how it demonstrated its new clout by slow hand-clapping Tony Blair at its annual general meeting. Nowadays, it is consulted on food additives, battered wives and genetic engineering. It campaigns for the global environment and lower bus fares. It wants to be modern, not mumsy. It's tossed out the twin set and instead appears starkers in a girlie calendar (soon to be a major movie called Calendar Girls).
Well, up to a point. Not every rural lady in a floral dress and sensible shoes wants to man the barricades. Some are reluctant to chuck out the cherry flan for the cause. There are rebels in the Shires. There are firebrands in the backwoods and splinter groups in the Home Counties that still worship at the altar of the petit four and the fancy cake. And a score of these baking brigands are mixing it up in the soft southern county of Surrey.
Albury, five miles west of Guildford, is not at first glance a hotbed of dissent. It is a small and pretty estate village of red brick and hanging tiles, belonging to the Duke of Northumber-land. It has a post office funded by the parish council (with a range of goods limited to second-hand Georgette Heyer paperbacks, balls of string and brown paper) and a pub, the Drummond Arms. There is a fine Saxon church and an extraordinary collection of faux Tudor chimneys on the old schoolmaster's house now called 'Not the old Pharmacy'. (The chemist like the butcher, baker, grocer, and undertaker has vanished.)
It is the quintessential English village, with its hall at its heart, and once a month the 19 members of the Albury branch of the WI meet there for tea and a talk. And it is some tea. There are Sheila Darzi's savoury slices and Cathy Goddard's delicious bread. Betty Killen does a fine lemon flan, Mina Russell's pine-apple and chocolate gateau is legendary, Hilary Askew's fancies are absolutely scrumptious and Marie McGladdery's almond slices are to die for. Elsbeth Moran makes cheese straws that are so moreish that they vanish before the water hits the Earl Grey.
It was a WI insider who let on that if you wanted home baking so good that it would make Delia Smith give up boiling eggs then the place to salivate was Albury. That there they bake the sort of cakes on which the WI empire has been built - cakes that have and will continue to help fuel countless fêtes and fill the coffers of umpteen charities.
A tempting smell of baking bread emanates from Cathy Goddard's Hansel and Gretel cottage next to the Albury cricket pitch. The bright-eyed cook with an infectious smile has been kneading all morning and looks like a cherub-faced good fairy as she pulls out her wheatmeal bread from the Rayburn.
"My great aunts were cooks for Sir Bowater Scott and I was the unpaid sous chef," says Cathy, casually dismissing her skills. She is reluctant to mention that she has a certificate in baking and has cooked for the Duke and Duchess of York. "I had a security guard next to me when I was making the salad to see that I didn't put anything untoward in," she eventually tells me with a shriek of laughter.
Half a mile away in a former estate cottage, Marie McGladdery is laying out her almond slices. "It is true we do have a bit of a reputation," she says wrapping her creations. "We do lunches for the WI headquarters in Guildford as well as the usual teas for visiting members."
In Hilary Askew's kitchen overlooking the North Downs the fancies are being iced with shiny icing - with just an occasionally glacé cherry on top. "I tend to just bung everything in a bowl and hope for the best," says the modest Hilary, a former local school secretary who can bake and ice a three-tier wedding cake that would shame the Elgin marbles.
The reason for that morning's cooking is, to put it crudely, to make money. The Albury WI, like every other, is self-sufficient. It needs a small income to pay for guest speakers, rental of the hall, occasional fares and other minor expenses. And it does this by baking.
"We could make a lot more money than we do," says Marie, a farmer's daughter, WI member for 35 years and last year's winner of the teabread section in the local Cranleigh Agricultural Show. "But we don't want to do too many lunches and teas. We only need about £400 a year to run the branch and we don't want to earn more than that. What would we do with the money?'
The result is that an Albury tea is something of a legend south of the M25. Only on the most important birthdays, golden anniversaries, and visits from other branches does anyone get to sample the wares. This afternoon Cathy and Marie and the other cooks from Albury and neighbouring hamlets are on their way to the hall to prepare a tea for the neighbouring Merstham WI who pay £3 for the pleasure.
The victuals being placed on the Formica tables are the stuff of WI legend, and as mouth-watering cake follows appetising pastry, the grey, coiffeured heads chatter about immediate matters of small concern to the rest of the world. "Who last folded up this tablecloth?" asks Marie as she struggles to smooth out the wrinkles. "I am afraid the pastry on the cheese straws hasn't risen properly," observes Elsbeth to Mina Russell who fails to see anything wrong with the perfect edible soldiers in front of her. "The last time we went on a tea visit we were only given one biscuit," says Betty Killen to no-one in particular. There follows some joshing about the dreadful smocking course two of the women have been on and a number of jokes about moving the piano in case the visitors decide they want a sing-song.
The Women's Institute may want to downplay its rhubarb and Rule Britannia image, but the truth is that the way to a countryman's heart and head is still through the cheese straw, scone and bridge roll - just ask the Albury WI.