Fight for the Right - Emily Davison and the Internet - Celia Rees

Bossy Girls, Cranky Ladies, Daughters of Time? The History Girls have blogged about them all. We now have our own anthology, no news to anybody, and I can't resist a bit of a trumpet. I have to admit that when the anthology was first mooted by Mary Hoffman, I couldn't immediately think of any one woman to write about. It was not until later that day, when I was talking to my daughter, Catrin, that an idea began to form. We were talking about suitable candidates and she suggested Emily Wilding Davison, the suffragette who threw herself under the King's horse on Derby Day, 1913. She mentioned the return ticket to Epsom that Emily had about her person and suddenly a story began to form.

The actual ticket is in the collection of the Women's Library which was in the process of moving from its historic home in Aldgate to LSE amid some controversy Future of Women's Library but I did not have to visit it to view the historic ticket. It was there for me to see - on the internet. I'm a fiction writer, and although historical accuracy is vital and I'm meticulous in checking my facts I'm not necessarily looking for the same information as a writer of non fiction. I do visit libraries to consult books and archives on occasion but it is not always necessary for me to do so. In this case, I just wanted to see the ticket. And there it was.

Emily Wilding Davison's dramatic intervention in the 1913 Derby was recorded by newspaper photographers there to report on the race and also by a novel form of news reporting: the pathe newsreel.

 Emily Davison throws herself under the kings horse

The cameras were there to record Derby Day, Emily Davison's intervention in the race was recorded by accident. The viewing is chilling. The short clip shows the build up to the race, crowds arriving, the race course itself, the runners, the start of the race, but all the time the viewer knows what's coming. I viewed the footage over and over again, not just to see frame by frame what happened, but to see everything else: the people, the vehicles, the course, the stands, the horses; details that add to my palette, help to give the scene immediacy, make it convincing and vivid and add that trace of deja vu dread, of disaster about to happen. Without the internet, I doubt that I'd have been able to see the film, or the dramatic newspaper coverage, so describing it convincingly and with accuracy would have been that much more difficult.

Not everything you find makes its way into a story. Emily Wilding Davison also hid in a broom cupboard in the House of Commons during the night of the 1911 Census. An event recorded on this plaque by Tony Benn M.P.

He said:  'I have put up several plaques—quite illegally, without permission; I screwed them up myself. One was in the broom cupboard to commemorate Emily Wilding Davison, and another celebrated the people who fought for democracy and those who run the House. If one walks around this place, one sees statues of people, not one of whom believed in democracy, votes for women or anything else. We have to be sure that we are a workshop and not a museum.'

Tony Benn died last week and with his passing, we have lost a man of great principle, one who did not forget the sacrifice of others and carried on the fight for the rights of all. 

Read Return to Victoria

Interview in the Overflowing Library

www.celiarees.com

THE BOOK OF BOSSY GIRLS? By Penny Dolan.

Recently my interest was caught a media discussion: the kind where X says this, so Y spouts up with that, often through tweets and social network sites, and giving both X & Y & also Z material for an article or two.

This controversy was about the use of the word “bossy” to describe girls. It does come across as a word drenched in negativity and rejection. For one thing, “bossy” is what girls aren’t supposed to be, but it is hard to refute without sounding – er, bossy.  

Last year, researching Mary Wollstonecraft for a short story, I read Clare Tomalin’s excellent biography. By the end, I had decided that Mary, though hugely admirable, was probably not a very comfortable person to be around for long. 

Mary had opinions she wanted to share, better beliefs she thought herself- and others - should live by, and much to feel angry about, at both a personal and general level. She organised her family and friends, who were not always grateful or glad, and she spoke and wrote against what she saw as injustice and inequality. In other words, Mary was probably a bit difficult and, yes, sometimes bossy. 

 

 Do women ever get anything done without being accused of being bossy, I wonder?

What about the women in the past who fought alongside men – Boudicca and her daughters, or maybe Alfred’s daughter Aethefled? Or Mary Seacole, caring for her soldiers even if Florence Nightingale’s hospital rejected her?

What about the girls and women who negotiated their roles among the dangerous men of power: Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth Stuart, or the remarkable Eleanor of Aquitaine?  

Or women like anchorite Julian of Norwich, playwright Aphra Ben, or even my Mary – women whose writing explains how they see life and their world? Isn’t writing, as authors and journalists know, a way of raising your voice?

Speaking out has often been seen – or heard – as a problem, the ultimate demonstration of bossiness: the women protestors at Greenham Common became the stereo-types of stridency. In contrast, Emily Davison, facing the king’s horse, used her own body as a way of “speaking“ when people in power wouldn’t listen. 

What about those who persisted in their own paths? There is Mary Anning, the self-taught fossil-hunter whose discoveries were subsumed into the collections and reputations of wealthy and aristocratic palaeontologists? Or what about the persistence needed to be Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia, and who may have been a British spy?  Amazing women, all.

 

As I’m typing this, Woman’s Weekend Hour is airing an item about female “Game Changers” as part of their Power List 2014 campaign:

 

Rachel Short, an organisational psychologist says that the key aspects of “game changers” were their intellectual independence, the fact that they were socially eclectic and that their motivation was guided by initiative, resilience and deep-rooted self-belief. 

Unsurprisingly, the words “difficult” and “bossy” came up again. (Not the word "cranky", though that might fit too.) It seems that bossy girls and women – and you will have your own favourite heroines – are often those who make things happen, however subtly or noticeably they manage it. Perhaps “bossy” is a kind of compliment, after all?

You can read fictional tales about all these historical heroines now in the BOOK OF BOSSY GIRLS - more properly and correctly known as the DAUGHTERS OF TIME anthology, edited by Mary Hoffman. (Templar)

Penny Dolan