It’s a charge laid at us, that we don’t stop going on about WW2. Guilty. But it’s where modern feminism in the UK starts for me. That point where women either joined the war, or independently raised their families. One grandmother of mine, marched into Berlin, the other was a single mother who set up her own business after the war. Both learned what women were capable of, perhaps more than I ever will.
One friend of mine, now well into her 90s, was taught by her dad to load, clean and fire a rifle (to the shock of her Irish cousins), in preparation for an invasion.
With the war over, women looked at areas of industrialised cities with high levels of infant mortality, investigated, campaigned, silently saved thousands of lives. And so I gave birth safely – without being cut or forced on my back, with maternity leave and rights.
I grew up with Thames Television on one hand, and an ad-free BBC on the other. Shirley Hughes books showed real mothers and messy houses (Helpers, pictured features a teenage boy stepping in when a young mother has an interview to attend) . As a child I had little experience of testosterone choked masculinity and what little I saw was ugly, angry and probably stank of beer. A Saturday morning highlight might be Erasure with Trevor and Simon. I have very vague memories of Kenny Everitt, stronger memories of Billy Connelly whom the former often embraced. That’s before you even get into Glam rock, Prog rock, Rocky Horror, the New Romantics and Brit Pop. You can criticize; too white, too middle class, too fey, too art school and I may criticize many elements too. Lesbian campaigners are not honored like their male counterparts.
We try to get better and often we only get worse. No country is perfect and only the worst kind of patriotism pretends otherwise. But this is my culture and I like it.
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