The panel talk about how they met in the 1970s, networks in Nottingham. They talk about their archive at the Nottingham Women’s Centre and, among other magazine titles, Outwrite.
LH: Is there anything else do you think I know you haven’t covered all our questions but I think we’ve covered the important ones.
LH: I have a question, it’s probably not necessarily integral for this particular process but how long have you all known each other how do you know each other?
V: well I mean I’m an outsider cos I only came to Nottingham in 1991! [laughter]
I’m a newbie. So my feminist activities in Manchester.
T: I came here basically in 1968, just after May ’68 as it were, which has obviously informed my Life and then I met you in about
B: I came in 1970. So we were at University together.
T: Yeah
B: And then and then we were in the International Marxist Group
T: Yeah, yeah, shared flats in the same house. And then.
L: I came to Nottingham 79. And I think, just sort of, our paths crossed through various
T: because your boyfriend was in the RJ
L: Oh yeah, yeah,
T: Sorry. [laughter]
L: Yeah, so we crossed paths, yeah.
T: That’s how I met you.
LH: I just get the strong sense of how networked you seem when you’re talking.
L: Nottingham is very networked!
T: Yeah it’s not it’s not so big, it’s big enough that you don’t, you know, there’s lots going on.
V: It’s a woman’s city isn’t it really?
L: Always has been because of the lacemaking.
V: I believe you used to be a councillor.
L: Yeah in the 80s, yeah.
V: A chair of the Women’s Aid?
L: I’m not now, I was co-chair
LH: How long were you co-chair for?
L: For four years. Just before and during COVID.
LH: Wow, wasn’t easy.
L: No, not at all.
LH: Is there anything else do you think you want us to capture on our video?
L: I think the collection is and so, just encompasses the range, and it’s just amazing really, to see it. And I’ve certainly forgotten that you know how many different types of magazines, and as we talked about before, that energy that came through. Yeah, it’s a really good thing to do.
V: I would just add that, I think internationalism is quite an important thing and perhaps that’s not always touched on. It certainly was very true of the Nottingham women’s movement is that they had International connections. Some of the early founders were linked into America and Canada and that influenced the movement developing here in Nottingham. Then the women now, like you know, their magazine Journal, they always have international focus on articles. They also had women here in the city as well that worked because of the University wasn’t it, that they came to study or were part of this working so there’s the International dimensions of the women’s movement are important.
LH Did you ever come across Outwrite?
V: Yes we’ve got, yeah.
LH: And that’s an amazing newspaper, you know, really you don’t have anything like that today. It’s an extraordinary newspaper because of its reach, you know, the stories from across the globe. Really, what an amazing achievement. And funded by the GLC [Greater London Council].
V: Yeah we’ve got the whole set of that, yes. With some duplicates. Well it’s a treasure Trove isn’t it really at the women’s centre because there’s some women’s magazines from Germany from Japan, America. There’s the Irish Women’s Press, you know, this it is a fantastic collection and that’s only partly duplicated. We’ve given extras to the universities to go in there because it’s a women’s only space and therefore we’ve got the students to accommodate and it doesn’t have a lift at the women’s centre. The archive’s on the top floor.
T: No I’ve not been since I sprained my ankle. I’ve not been up there.
B: I was just looking at your “number ten”. [laughter] “Did your mother read feminist magazines?” No they didn’t exist did they. That was the big difference with our generation that suddenly they were there but for our parents,
V: My mother was a great reader though. She always read really and she also had the Woman’s Weekly, which I used to quite enjoy.
One of the things that happens, we do tend to talk in waves don’t we, you know. The second wave coming along post 68 is that actually there are there are feminist magazines out there and periodicals, but they don’t really kind of fit anywhere you know, particularly in our understanding of feminist histories. So someone like Kathy who was here Worked with Time and Tide.
LH: Yeah and that you know that carries on throughout the middle of the 20th century and, you know it’s a fantastic feminist magazine but
B: what was it called?
LH: Time and Tide, and internationalism in its focus as well. But we tend to tell stories in particular kinds of ways and we kind of reinforce that way, scenario don’t we, because it does capture something about you talking about the energy but at the same time it does that thing that you’re talking about as well, which it renders invisible the things that happen between those waves, which is interesting but we tend to reinforce the same kind of narratives a lot of the time.
Well, thank you so much
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