THE SUFFRAGETTE – special offer this week

It’s coming up to the anniversary of the death of suffrage campaigner, Emily Wilding Davison, and her heroic protest at the Epsom Races to try and gain national attention to the women’s cause. As well as my own suffragette relations, she was one of the inspirations behind my novel, THE SUFFRAGETTE: A heartrending story of one woman’s fight for justice and love.

‘Brings a time and place vividly to life and makes compulsive reading.’
Northern Echo

All this week, it’s on at the discounted price of 99p (and 99c in Amazon.com)

If you choose to read it, I hope you enjoy it – let me know what you think.

All the best

Janet

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Inspired by a bedroom in India …. secrets of a historical novelist revealed!

I’ve had great fun being interviewed by Trisha for her blog WRITER AT PLAY:

If you want to take a look, here are Part 1 and 2 …

http://www.writeratplay.com/2017/07/07/interview-with-janet-macleod-trotter/

 

http://www.writeratplay.com/2017/07/14/interview-with-janet-macleod-trotter-part-2/

SUFFRAGETTE REMEMBERED WITH SONGS AND FLOWERS

To mark International Women’s Day, we gathered in the ancient church of St Mary’s in Morpeth to celebrate the life of Suffragette martyr, Emily Wilding Davison

Wearing suffragette ribbons, our gathering of North East women (and a few men!) sang hymns, joined in songs with Werca’s Folk, listened to amusing and spirited words from Northumberland’s female High Sheriff (who happens to be a reverend too – how Emily would have approved!) and the Romanian consul – also a woman.

Afterwards we were given long-stemmed white carnations and processed behind Emily’s descendants to her graveside.  Flowers were laid to the sound of Werca’s Folk singing the rousing Women’s Marseillaise that Emily would have known well.  Then there were hot drinks and a buffet in the nearby hall – the whole event laid on by Northumberland County Council.

(I took this with my phone, balanced against the railings, so that’s why it’s on a tilt!)

Next year is the centenary of Emily Davison’s death – there will be many events to mark the occasion – I’ll keep you updated here.

“The tranquil graveyard was so overrun with mourners that Maggie and Rose could not get near to see the coffin lowered into the ground at the Davison burial mound, so they patiently waited their turn among the lofty pines. Some time later they were able to approach the iron-fenced memorial which was almost hidden under the heaps of wreaths and floral messages. The scent of the flowers was overpowering as Maggie tossed her own modest purple iris onto the coffin.

‘I’ll fight on, I promise!’ Maggie whispered, as around her women openly wept.”  

Extract from my novel THE SUFFRAGETTE

International Women’s Day – It Didn’t End With “The Vote”

As today is International Women’s Day, I’m going to post a couple of photos of my relations from the Suffragette movement:

Great granny Janet Gorrie – around the 1870’s / 1880’s

Great granny Janet Gorrie in later life as a voting woman!

Granny Janet’s daughter, Mary Gorrie went on to run the Scottish Female Domestic Service Association, which cared for the latter years of domestic servants. Before the coming of the Welfare State, old age could be hard and grim for those who’d spent all their lives in service. The kindly paternalism shown in the likes of Downton Abbey was far rarer than the rose-tinted glasses of TV producers would have us think:

WPSU Fifty Pence Piece

I found this in the loose change in my purse last week:

A fifty pence piece commemorating the centenary of the founding of the WPSU. I wonder if Emmeline & Christabel Pankhurst had any idea that just a hundred years later they’d be seen worthy of commemorating on the nation’s coins? I wonder how much of a lift it would have given to the Suffragette’s foot-soldiers like my character Maggie Beaton when they faced tough times & the consequences of their actions?

More Census Evasion

I’ve no idea how I missed this one – the TV Show, “Find My Past” had an episode in December about the relatives of Suffragettes:

The programme’s web page features a number of defaced census forms. These include Emily Wilding Davison‘s record as a “resident” of the House of Commons on census night (she was hiding in the crypt as a protest):

One with a leaflet posted over it, and the words, “No persons here, only women!” written in:

And finally, this one, “No vote – no census. House deserted (April 2nd to 3rd) by Suffragist who demands the vote. Considers that if she is intelligent enough to fill up this schedule she can surely make a X on a ballot paper” – a statement that gets to the crux of the matter!:

My book, The Suffragette explores the issues these women were protesting – this was a national movement, so I set the Suffragette in Tyneside to provide a backdrop of working class realism for what is sometimes portrayed now as a middle / upper class struggle.