Yesterday I learnt that the London encyclopaedia (2010) has less lines attributed to the likes of Eleanor Marx, Annie Besant and Emmeline Pankhurst than it does Arsenal football club.
I hope when you are praying at the alter of Arsenal chaps you manage to thank them for your 8 hour working day. Oh no wait, the beautiful game didn’t give you workers rights. In fact apart from a distraction from being shafted by an ever controlling political system that ensures the rich get richer, it has done sod all for you.
Ladies when you look to your rights in the ballot box you should not be thanking a football club either. Instead as you nervously shy away from the very word feminist lest the man in your life might find you lacking in ‘femininity’ or perhaps society would find you an ‘invert’ remember Emmeline Pankhurst went to prison no less than 13 times in order to secure your rights. She sadly saw her own sister Mary die from being force-fed in Holloway. She died before full voting rights came to women. Which was the first country to give women the vote? Come prepared (that is your homework)!
Before you sigh and declare that a tour with me might be a little lacking in the wielding of mirth, fear not my lovelies for my ever present childlike glee at introducing little gems is at the forefront of everything I do. I want to channel these glorious women as they march through the streets of London.
It’s a walk and a talk and a sharing of stories and laughter.
Gentlemen if you decide to come along please be aware; I will be gentle with you. Although I hope you appreciate the last two thousand years have been drenched in your history. The rebalancing will be taking place.
In metaphor we marvel at the swimming up stream of the salmon and yet in life when a female makes it despite the current being against her we rarely rejoice nor do we value such bravery. Invisibility is the weapon used to incarcerate female history.
I am here to change that.
Her story is what I am interested in. If you want London history then go to the endless transcripts of the last 2000 years, libraries are happy to oblige.
Let’s set the record straight.
Join me on one of my Herstory tours.
Next tour is Sunday 2nd October 2022