An appreciation by Lou Lavender

Every year for the past 8 years I have signed up for a Walking Women holiday, and some years, more than one. I’ve met wonderful women and interesting women, and as always happens when women get together I’ve learned new jokes, new remedies for aches and pains, picked up gossip and emulated some good walking gear and joined in rants and raves, and, but not so often, mulled over issues with other feminists – interestingly, this more openly feminist discussion is happening more often now than 8 years ago.

I’ve watched the business expand from holidays solely in the Lake District to its present Europe-and-beyond coverage. The new Spring Brochure for 2010 lists holidays in: Lake District, Snowdonia, Northumberland, Peak District, Scotland, Yorkshire Dales and Moors, Wye Valley, Shropshire, Cotswolds, Cornwall, Somerset, Dorset, Sussex, Berkshire, Channel Islands, Nepal, La Gomera, Spain, Crete, Turkey, – and I happen to know there are others to come this year in Tuscany and I think, South Africa. There are also holidays snowshoeing, and Alpine and Crosscountry skiing.

Why am I promoting this outfit? Because this is feminism in action, sisters! Successful and vibrant… Good value for money…. Caring and non-competitive and professional in its ethos. Walking Women was the brain-child of Diana Clarke, homeopath, who by 2000 was realizing that her work was depriving her of walking opportunities. She tells me she just woke up one morning and thought, ” It’s got to be women’s walking holidays.” And from her Leamington Spa base she had set up Walking Women by the end of April, 2000.

I wanted to write this blog today, November 12th, 2009, even though it may not get posted till next week, because today’s the day when Diana hands over her business to someone else. Walking Women will in future be run by Sue Donovan from her base near York. So it’s an important day. And a day for looking back and appreciating, as Diana retires after 10 years. Diana’s new business venture was hard hit by the Foot and Mouth epidemic of 2001 but she recovered and went on expanding, as more and more women came and returned for the happy experience Walking Women provided. The walks are graded, professionally guided, well accommodated, recorded by the guides in words and photos, and feed-back is encouraged. The brochures come out twice a year and are available on line, as well as a newsletter and newsflashes for bargain holiday; and there are holidays for lesbians. Diana herself has been guiding as well as managing, and now is looking forward to just enjoying the guiding; she’s signed on for 13 holidays this coming year.

Walking with women is, especially if it’s new to you, an empowering experience; as one woman remarked to Diana, “It’s a quiet revolution.” So many are radicalized by it, including women coming out of difficult marriages, widows who’ve been so used to a man blocking the view in front of them as they walk along that they remark on the improvement with astonishment and increasing appreciation, and any woman reacting to the standard comment from passing males, “Where’s yer men?” (Yes, still, I know…) When this happened to my group walking on Guernsey, one woman immediately replied, “They’re cooking the meal”, which is not bad but we munched over it all the way back because it didn’t reflect how cross we were. So, hours after the event, we came up with: “We could tell you but then we’d have to kill you!” It was the heterosexual women in our midst who enjoyed this the most…It is still, sad to say, a revelation to some women that they can enjoy themselves in the company of other women. And many of the feed-back sheets that I’ve peeked at, remark ‘haven’t laughed so much for years’. Another constant theme is that women feel ‘looked after’, and I know from various conversations that that is the draw of the Glenthorne Christmases – women doing it together and for each other instead of catering for others. I think I only truly appreciated what a gem Diana is when I watched her running a quiz one evening, with 40 women being noisy and unruly and Di managing it all with grace and good humour and clearly enjoying herself.

This is my tribute to a wonderful woman, a generous, thoughtful, practical feminist who, for goodness sake, is also blessed with business acumen and entrepreneurial skills, which she used to benefit women. This is the woman who, when my hovercraft from Poole to Guernsey was cancelled, rang round no less than 30 B&Bs in Poole until she found me. A fixer, a problem-solver, a heroine for me and hundreds of happy Walking Women! All of whom will join with me in wishing her well in the future, and in supporting Sue’s new ownership: catch Walking Women on: www.walkingwomen.com

From Susan Croft (thanks, Susan!)

Last month I attended the Women’s Engineering Society (WES – http://www.wes.org.uk/) annual conference and it was good fun and interesting as usual. I love the fact that WES members are of all ages and stages in their careers, working in all fields and with a broad range of politics and interests – it’s not often you have a discussion about the subjunctive over breakfast with a someone who’s just written a science fiction book about a woman engineer! – http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/automatic-lover/2649880

It’s WES’s 90th birthday this year! It was set up just after WW1 to support women who wanted to continue in engineering after the war – having been encouraged into engineering work to ‘help the war effort’ they were then expected to meekly go back to their homes and kitchens, but many had got a taste for the independance and the interesting work. WES has an interesting history – Amy Johnson was President from 1935-7, and it was involved in the Electrical Association for Women (set up in 1924 to encourage women to use electrical apparatuses in the home!).

The opening speaker at the conference was Dr Wendy Schultz, a Futurist – http://www.infinitefutures.com/ - a great speaker and a fascinating talk envisoning possible futures – from the fairly inevitable to the too fantastical.

It was an interesting week of reunions for me. The conference was at Surrey University in Guildford, where I’d got my first (electrical engineering) degree and I’d gone down the previous week for a university reunion there. Why do some people love reunions and others hate them? Is it silly nostalgia or are you taking stock of your own personal, mental archive?

Lynette Willoughby

The Leeds Feminist Society will be screening the Object.org film Stripping the Illusion on the 28th of October 7pm in the Peanut Gallery at the Leeds University Union. All
welcome!

To see further info on the Leeds University Feminist Society go here.

When did “Lesbian” become a rude word? I spent a week at the Edinburgh Festival, mainly for music, but I also attended 5 comedy sessions. In almost all of them the comic would say the word “Lesbian” and everybody would laugh. Laura Solon offered this joke. “If there is no one in a wood and a tree falls down and hits a Lesbian, does that prove they exist” (Cue laughter). Mark Thomas’s joke centred around the fact he had said the word “Lesbian” on breakfast TV. (Gales of laughter) But really all that had to happen was one woman say to another “are you a lesbian?” and everybody laughs. When did this happen and what does it mean?  It’s like a croud of 3 year olds saying “bum” and falling about.

Sandra McNeill

PRESS RELEASE: BOLTON WOMEN MAKE HISTORY
The Women’s Liberation Movement didn’t only happen in London . In the 1970s and 1980s, Bolton had one of the most active Women’s Liberation groups in the country. With the help of a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the records from those days have been gathered together and catalogued and an oral history of the memories of local feminists has been recorded.

On Friday July 31^st, this unique archive will be formally handed over to The Feminist Archive North, based in the Brotherton Library at Leeds University. It will be welcomed by Pro-Vice Chancellor Vivien Jones and Professor Jalna Hanmer.

Professor Hanmer said “This is an important and very welcome addition to our archive. The range of documentation and personal memories covering many years will be of great value to students and researchers in the future.”

The archive contains photographs, play scripts, letters to and from local MPs, newspaper articles, minute books, copies of the Bolton Women’s Health Guide put together in the mid 1970s and much more. Copies of the documents and of the oral history will also be placed in the Bolton Libraries Archive for local people to consult. Some of it is readily available on our web site at: www.bolton-womens-liberation.org and we are compiling a CD for use in local schools and colleges.

FAN takes you on a Learning Journey!

Volunteers from FAN have contributed a new section to the My Learning partnership. My Learning is a Yorkshire-based effort to place some of the richness of our museums, archives and libraries on the internet for teachers to use as supplementary materials in lessons. You can start our journey, Feminist Activism – Education & Job Opportunities, by clicking here.

To coincide with York Lesbian Arts Festival: York City Archives, the Feminist Archive North and the Northern Older Lesbian Network are hosting an exciting women-only exhibition of original material brought together for the first time to document Lesbian lives in the North of England and beyond.

‘Lesbians are Everywhere!’ brings together unique and rarely seen images that reveal this hidden history for women today. Find out about the secrets of lesbian life in York through the ages; famous
lesbians in history; and the story of lesbian activism from 1969 to today.

Sunday 26th Oct, 10am – 2pm.
York City Archives
Exhibition Square
York  YO1 7EW
Tel. 01904 551 878

York City Archives are in Exhibition Square, five minutes’ from York Minster, next to Bootham Bar, the northern gateway on the city walls. We are about 10 minutes walk from York Railway Station.

Cars can drop off disabled visitors at the main entrance to the Archives. The nearest car park is on Marygate, which is five minutes’ walk and has 350 spaces. Marygate is off Bootham, the A19, which is the main road into York from the north. For more car parking information go to www.yorktraffic.info

There is a ramp to the front entrance with a handrail.  There is one disabled toilet with baby changing facilities on the ground floor of the Art Gallery next door.

Plans are already underway for this year’s Reclaim the Night March in London. Marking 5 years since the revival of the March (originally a response to the government urging women to stay at home while the Yorkshire Ripper was at large) this year’s event will be organised by the London Feminist Network and promises to be the largest yet.

Check out the Reclaim the Night website for more detailed information.

Treasures from the archive include
great photographs from
Greenwich Common and Menwith Hill.

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