Extract
Elsie and Mairi Go to War:
Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front
Edited extracts from the first three chapters of the uncorrected proofs
Leaving the Palace of Tears
What a scramble. All the preparing to go off with Dr
Hector Munro's Field Ambulance – buying clothes –
rushing through Selfridge's with the help of one of the
assistants. Mrs Knocker had her work cut out… In the
evening we packed up our clothes… at length we
tumbled into bed about 11pm and went to sleep for the
last time in Merrie England.
Up at 6am to finish packing… it’s a wonderful feeling
knowing that one is leaving England and going straight
into the most awful horror. I look round and try and stamp
everything on my memory in case I never see it again, and
I wonder what my fate will be in the next few months.
Mairi Chisholm
What a rush and muddle everything seems to have been
for the past few weeks, arranging and getting up this big
scheme – to send nurses and men not only to help the
soldiers but to find them in the outlying cottages and on
the ground. At last this is the eve of departure and
everything is ready.
It is now 11pm of the 24th of September and I have
everything packed and ready – labels on and in a desolate
lodging room – I am now prepared to go to bed, my last
night in England for how long nobody can tell. It seems
funny to think that this time tomorrow I shall be in
Belgium – in the midst of all the terrors of war.
Elsie Knocker
Elsie Knocker and Mairi Gooden-Chisholm left for Belgium on the 25th of September 1914, they had gone to London when war was declared on the 4th of August. The past six weeks had been giddy; they were swept up in the drama of khaki jingoism. Their days were framed by red, white and blue bunting, surrounded by men and boys signing up to give the Germans a damned good thrashing, and thousands of women determined to do their bit.
Article
National Theatre: Her Naked Skin
Article written for the catalogue of the theatre production.
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Article
New Statesman: Deeds Not Words
On the anniversary of Emily Wilding Davison's fatal Derby Day protest, Diane Atkinson suggests there are links between the Edwardian suffragette and today's suicide bombers, and recounts the iconic moments of that historic event.....
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Extract
Love & Dirt:
The Marriage of Arthur Munby & Hannah Cullwick
… From this moment on Hannah desired only a master-slave relationship like that of Myrrha and Sardanapalus. Nothing else would do as a model for love.
At the end of the Season the house in Grosvenor Street was shut up and the family and servants returned to Shropshire. During the years Hannah worked for the Cotes she did her best to keep in contact with her siblings: by the early 1850s James was a wheelwright; her younger brother Dick had left his apprenticeship with their Cullwick relations in Wolverhampton and walked to London; her sister Ellen came to work at Woodcote at Hannah's recommendation; and Polly, the baby of the family, was living with their Aunt Elizabeth at Haughton. Hannah walked across the fields to visit them both.
carrying with her a big hare, two rabbits and a plum puddin' . . . 'All the servants [at Woodcote] had roast beef and plum puddin' on Sundays - us under servants and all; and Emma the kitchenmaid and me used to save our puddins to give away. And I'd axed the keeper to give me summat for Aunt and he give me the hare - throwed it under the sink for me; and the underkeeper gie me the rabbits. Aunt was pleased wi' 'em. And her used to keep a loaded gun in her cottage, you know and shot rabbits.'
In 1854 Hannah was back in London again for the Season. and with Monsieur Quinevit's permission she had a visit from brother Dick on her twenty-first birthday on 26 May. She walked part of the way home with him to his lodgings and kissed him goodbye, and as she crossed Oxford Street to take the back streets back to Grosvenor Street 'a gentleman spoke to me and I answered him - that was Massa's face that I’d seen in the fire but I didn't know it again, till a good while after. She was wearing a Iilac cotton frock, white apron, blue shawl with red and white spots, and a black bonnet with a white cap inside.