Maggie Craig's Blog: Maggie Craig Scottish Writer, page 6

Dare to be Free: The Scottish Suffragettes

Dare to be Free: The Scottish Suffragettes

As in other parts of the British Isles, groups demanding votes for women had been active for decades before the franchise was finally extended in 1918, a centenary just celebrated by marches through London, Cardiff, Belfast and Glasgow. In Scotland there had been women’s suffrage committees for thirty years and more, from Lerwick to Dumfries and all points in between. Many of Scotland’s town councils had declared their support.  From 1882, Scotswomen who were householders in their own right could vote in local elections. After that, it seemed increasingly absurd to many that women could not vote in general elections.

The term suffragette was initially a derogatory one coined by the Daily Mail for the more militant campaigners, the foremost of whom was Mrs Pankhurst. In Scotland and elsewhere, suffragists collected signatures on petitions, wrote articles, spoke at public meetings and organized peaceful protests. In 1909 the Gude Cause march along Princes Street excited lots of interest. Hundreds of women were supported by a contingent from the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage. One of their banners read: Scots wha hae votes – men. Scots wha haena – women. Although around 25% of Scotsmen still didn’t have the vote either, essentially younger men who were not householders.

There was lots of soap-box oratory. Helen Fraser regularly addressed Glasgow Fair holiday-makers at Rothesay, where the Women’s Freedom League – slogan, Dare to be Free – had a summer base. She impressed her namesake and fellow Glaswegian Helen Crawfurd, indignant though the latter was about heckling from the crowd. “It’s a man ye want,” sneered one ‘underweight bantam’.

Helen Crawfurd later went on a speaking tour of Lanarkshire with sisters Frances and Margaret McPhun. They were touched and heartened by the warm welcome they received from the miners. Not only did they waive the usual fee for the hire of their halls, they took up a collection at each meeting, donating the shillings and sixpences to the cause of votes for women. Class clearly wasn’t an issue for those Lanarkshire miners. Unfairness was unfairness.

However, then and now, the fact that many suffragettes were well-off ladies has provoked mockery. Ramsay MacDonald spoke of “pettifogging middle-class damsels going out with little hammers in their muffs.”  It seems a grudging reaction to women who might have lived comfortable lives but chose instead to give freely of their time, money and resources. Many put their liberty and health on the line. In 1912 several Scottish suffragettes travelled to London for the express purpose of breaking windows in an organized three-day attack. Among those arrested as a result were Helen Crawfurd, the McPhun sisters and Janie Allan. Her father was Alexander Allan, owner of the shipping company of the same name. She went on hunger strike and was force-fed for a week. Ten thousand Glaswegians signed a petition objecting to her imprisonment and harsh treatment.

While researching my book on the social history of Red Clydeside, When the Clyde Ran Red, it came as a surprise to me to find that so many Scottish suffragettes had fully earned their place within radical and left-wing politics. Janie Allan was a committed socialist and member of the Independent Labour Party. So was Helen Crawfurd, who later moved farther to the left, becoming one of the Scottish founder members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Mrs Pankhurst and her daughters were members of the ILP and personal friends of Keir Hardie, stalwart supporter of votes for women. Sylvia Pankhurst was a friend of socialist martyr John Maclean, visiting him at his home in Pollokshaws a year or so before he died.

Tom Johnston, later secretary of state for Scotland, was a young political firebrand and editor of Socialist newspaper Forward! He started a regular column, Suffrage Notes. Janie Allan, the McPhun sisters and Helen Crawfurd were regular contributors.

Helen Fraser, who had been heckled at Rothesay, told Mrs Pankhurst: “You don’t use violence, you use reason to get the vote.” Others disagreed. In the two years before the outbreak of war, suffragettes burned down the railway station at Leuchars in Fife, planted a bomb in Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens and tried to blow up Burns’ Cottage in Alloway. So the sound of breaking glass was heard in Scotland too. Glasgow glazier James Caldwell took out an advert in Forward! “Suffragettes may break windows, but I am the wee boy [that] can put them in.”

In October 1913, Dorothea Chalmers Smith and Ethel Moorhead were tried at Glasgow High Court for attempted arson at a large empty house in the city’s West End. Chalmers Smith was a doctor, mother of six and wife of the minister of Calton Parish Church. Her social status did not save her. She and Ethel Moorhead were found guilty and sentenced to eight months in prison.

Pandemonium ensued. Their friends in the public gallery stood up and began pelting the judge and officers of the court with apples. Eye-witness Helen Crawfurd noted that they were small ones, bagged ready for Halloween guisers. The apple throwers chanted “Pitt Street! Pitt Street!” Shortly before, a husband and wife who kept a brothel there had been given a sentence of only two weeks. The message was clear. Property mattered more than the sexual exploitation of women and girls.

The suffragettes’ agenda was never a narrow one. Dorothea Chalmers Smith went on to set up child welfare clinics. She also supported Glasgow’s first birth control clinic, as did Janie Allan.

Ethel Moorhead became the first woman in Scotland to be force-fed. Helen Crawfurd was addressing a protest vigil outside Perth Prison when news came through of the attempt to blow up Burns’ Cottage.  Sensing the crowd’s sympathies might be about to swing away from the suffragettes, she turned the situation around by quoting Burns. In the revolutionary fervour following the publication of The Rights of Man, the rights of woman also merited some attention.

Media savvy, the suffragettes knew what made for a good photo opportunity and how to harness their Scottishness.  Mary Phillips of Glasgow came out of Holloway to a welcoming committee. Draped in tartan sashes pinned with Cairngorm plaid brooches, the women carried a banner emblazoned with a thistle and a warning to Prime Minister Asquith: “Ye mauna tramp on the Scotch thistle, laddie!”

When it was suggested to Mary Phillips that women were more likely to get the vote if they behaved with ladylike decorum, she replied that she’d rather be a “great big, prickly, Scots thistle.”

Active in the Scottish branch of the non-militant National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, Dr Elsie Inglis was a bit of a prickly thistle herself. When war broke out in August 1914, she offered to set up field hospitals staffed by female doctors, nurses and orderlies who were members of the NUWSS.

“My good lady,” said the man at the War Office, “go home and sit still.” Elsie Inglis gave that remark the contempt it deserved. The Scottish Women’s Hospitals treated the wounded throughout the war in France, Russia and Serbia.

Although many suffragettes were confirmed pacifists, a truce was declared with the government for the duration of the war. In 1918, women over 30 and all men over 21 were given the vote. In 1928, the suffrage was extended to all women over 21. The struggle for gender equality continues.

This article first appeared in the online Scottish Review.

On Courage

Noor Inayat Khan GC (1914-1944)

Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

Noor Inayat Khan was an agent of the British Secret Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War, working as a radio operator in occupied France. She demonstrated exceptional courage in this perilous role, saving many lives before she was betrayed and captured by the Gestapo in Paris. She refused to tell them anything and tried several times to escape. Transferred to Dachau concentration camp, she was brutally abused before being executed. I’ve always been very moved by her story and what is reported to have been the last word on her lips. As Tom Bromley writes in his chapter on her in a new book, On Courage: Stories of Victoria Cross and George Cross Holders:

‘As the pistol was raised to kill her, she uttered a single word: ‘Liberté’.’

Noor’s story is one of 28 tales of heroic men and women who won either the Victoria Cross or the George Cross for their bravery in time of war. All proceeds will go to charity, divided between Combat Stress and the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association.

 

Noor’s story in On Courage is told by author, editor and tutor Tom Bromley. I put a few questions to him.

Q:  When did you first become aware of Noor’s story and the heroic role she played as a radio operator in German-occupied France during the Second World War, saving many lives?

A:  I can’t remember where I first heard about Noor’s story: it is one I’ve been aware of for a long time, but only by working on this book did I really get to know about her life in detail.

Q: She was descended from an Indian Sultan and had a cosmopolitan upbringing, born in Moscow in 1914 and growing up in Paris and London. As you tell us in On Courage, her family was a loving one, whose members set great store on always telling the truth. Was it the combination of all of this that gave her the courage and determination to volunteer for SOE, the Special Operations Executive, during the Second World War? Or can you pinpoint individual character traits and influences leading her to follow this path?

A: I’m not sure how useful Noor’s desire to tell the truth was in her role – her SOE instructors were critical of it during her training. It’s guesswork from this distance, but I wouldn’t discount the influence of her father: he was a dynamic, driven individual which I’m sure rubbed off on his daughter. He died when Noor was thirteen, and her early stepping up in terms of taking responsibility, probably played a part too. Finally, I’d also mention the family’s escape from Paris in 1940, eventually boarding a boat to England at Bordeaux: the Germans bombed the convoy of cars leaving the French capital, which must have left its mark on Noor.

Q: I found it fascinating to read of her achievements and ambitions in writing stories for children. Are any of these available to read today?

A: You may have to search for them, but both Twenty Jataka Tales (Inner Traditions, 1991) and King Akbar’s Daughter (Suluk Press, 2013) are currently available.

Q: Why was it that the average life expectancy for an SOE radio operator in occupied France was only six weeks?

A: Because the work was so dangerous. Every time a radio operator broadcast, it gave away their location to Germans. Not only were continually moving around as a result, with the ever-increasing risk of getting caught, but they were doing so with the tell-tale sign of carrying their heavy kit around with them.

Q: When she was betrayed and captured by the Gestapo she seems at first to have been treated with something approaching courtesy, even being allowed to take a bath. What was it that changed this treatment to the brutality and torture which culminated in her death in Dachau?

A: When Noor was captured by the Gestapo, it was Officer Ernest Vogt who was tasked with trying to get her to talk. He later said that he admired her bravery and courage and that may have played a part in how she was treated while interrogated in Paris. But probably that attitude was also tactical: Vogt could sense he wouldn’t break Noor through harsh treatment, so used other, more psychological methods to try and get her to talk. But by the time she was transferred, her frequent attempts to escape had left her classed as ‘highly dangerous’ and was treated in Dachau as such.

Q: What lessons can we learn her from today? 

A: What stood out for me when writing about Noor was her courage, determination and spirit. That never wavered in even the most difficult of circumstances, and she remained true to herself throughout – something we can all try to aspire to.

@OnCourageBook  #OnCourage

Buying Links:

Waterstones

Amazon

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2018

Looking forward to speaking about When the Clyde Ran Red: A Social History of Red Clydeside at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in Charlotte Square next month.

 

 

I’ll be on with cartographer John Moore who is talking about his beautiful and lavishly-illustrated book: The Clyde: Mapping the River.

 

Details of how to buy tickets here.

And now, what to wear? Fashionably-crumpled linen or something warmer? Will it still be scorchio in Charlottenplatz six weeks from now?

#eibf #charlottesquare #whentheclyderanred #theclydemappingtheriver

 

 

 

Aye Write! 2018 at the Mitchell Library Glasgow

Or: Red Clydesiders, the Dear Green Place & Sparkling White Snow

The Mitchell Library Glasgow

Great event at this year’s Aye Write! Glasgow Book Festival and the large turnout was all the more impressive given the snow that had been falling all night and continued to fall through the morning. The Dear Green Place turned white.

What the well-dressed/warm author is wearing outside the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. Tammy and scarf by Rosemarie of the Brecon Beacons, aka Bopa, our Welsh Auntie Rosie.

I was on with Natalie Fergie, author of The Sewing Machine. I was speaking about the new paperback edition of my When the Clyde Ran Red: A Social History of Red Clydeside. We were chaired by Daniel Gray, author and historian.

Daniel Gray and Maggie Craig at the Mitchell.

Where we are here is the Mitchell’s computer hall and cafe. In times gone by, before a disastrous fire in the 1960s, many of the dramas of Red Clydeside were played out here in what was St Andrew’s Halls. For example, there was the Christmas Day meeting of 1915, when the men of Red Clydeside’s shipyards, engineering works and munitions factories took on the government. As Tom Johnston, a Socialist firebrand who later became Secretary of State for Scotland and prime mover behind the many hydro-electric schemes in the Highlands, put it: “Mr Lloyd George came to the Clyde last weekend in search of adventure. He got it.”

Mrs Pankhurst spoke here too in support of Votes for Women. On one of these occasions, just before the outbreak of the First World War, she was arrested in the midst of what the Daily Record newspaper called “a scene of wild riot” where they claimed there had been the sound of: “Revolver Shots in St Andrew’s Halls.”

It was thrilling to be speaking here among these passionate ghosts from the past and also because I did a lot of research for When the Clyde Ran Red here in the Mitchell. In my youth, like many a Glasgow student, I used to come here to swot and to eye up the talent who were doing likewise.

There were some really interesting questions and comments from the floor and lots of books signed at the end. Thanks to the lady who gave me a wee badge showing Mary Barbour, one of the most prominent leader of the rent strikes of 1915, and subsequently a local politician and social activist.

Mary Barbour Badge

In 1915 Mary Barbour led a protest march to the Sheriff Court in the centre of Glasgow, which was soon dubbed “Mrs Barbour’s Army”. A statue has just been erected in Govan to commemorate her and her army.

 

 

Our journey home up the A9 gave us some wonderful vistas of snow-covered hills under blue skies and brilliant sunshine. Perishing outside or, as a neighbour of mine puts it, “a fine day for being behind glass”. Looks like the snow is retreating and winter is finally beginning to give way to spring. No photoshopping here, the colours are all true.

Snowy hills by the A9.
Red roofs and snowy hills.

 

 

When the Clyde Ran Red: A Social History of Red Clydeside is available from High Street and online bookshops.

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When the Clyde Ran Red: A Social History of Red Clydeside

Always exciting when the author copies arrive, as they did this afternoon. Thanks to @BirlinnBooks and @BookSource1, with special thanks to Book Source for getting the books to me in this weather. Stay safe.

This new paperback edition of When the Clyde Ran Red will be released next week, 8th March.

Only 99p for my Glasgow & Clydebank Family Sagas!

Only 99p on Amazon (and the equivalent in US and Canadian dollars) for each of my popular and well-reviewed six Glasgow & Clydebank family sagas until the end of February. Here are the buying links:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon Canada

If you’d like to read more about the books and see some of the excellent reviews before you buy, please click here.

Only till the end of February 2018!

 

One Sweet Moment, my story of love across the class divide in 1820s Edinburgh, is also available for 99p and corresponding prices until the end of February only. Or you might like to buy the physical book, for a wee bit more than 99p!

 

Red Clydeside & The Scottish Suffragettes

The Scottish Suffragettes by Leah Leneman

 

This year we celebrate the centenary of women over 30 in Britain finally winning the right to vote but what links Red Clydeside & the Scottish (and English) suffragettes? Quite a lot, actually. You can read about the connections in the new paperback edition of When the Clyde Ran Red: A Social History of Red Clydeside.

The book is available for pre-order now and I’ll be speaking about it at Aye Write! at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow on Sunday 18th March from 1.15 – 2.15. I’ll be on with Natalie Fergie, who will be talking about her novel, The Sewing Machine.

Tickets for Aye Write! available here.

#votesforwomen #scottishsuffragettes #redclydeside #ayewrite!

 

 

 

Christmas 2017

 

 

Over Christmas and New Year, the ebook version of my novel One Sweet Moment is available on Amazon UK for only 99p and on Amazon US for the equivalent in dollars and cents.  If you fancy buying the book in paperback or the audio version, these are also available on both Amazon UK and Amazon US. To buy the paperback  with free postage and packing throughout the world, check out The Book Depository. The pb version is of course also available from High Street bookshops.

One Sweet Moment is listed by the Scottish Book Trust as one of 15 Romantic Novels set in Scotland. A coming-of-age story and a poignant tale of young love and old Edinburgh which moves between the gloomy and dangerous underground vaults of the Old Town and the sparkling chandelier-lit parlours of the elegant Georgian New Town, One Sweet Moment has been described as “almost Dickensian in the richness of its storytelling” (Christina Banach) and as “a big, huge, romantic story.” (BBC Radio Scotland)

The cover of the paperback incorporates a drawing by Walter Geikie, a sadly short-lived Edinburgh artist whose favourite subjects were the ordinary people of Edinburgh. He makes a cameo appearance in the book.

 

 

 

And with that, Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year when it comes.

 

 

 

 

The Scottish Warrior: Event at the Gordon Highlanders Museum in Aberdeen

Looking forward to speaking about Jacobite men as well as Jacobite women as part of a panel at the Gordon Highlanders Museum in Aberdeen next Monday, 6th November, on the subject of ‘The Scottish Warrior in Commemorations, Museums and Politics.’ This is a free event but booking is required here. 

Doors open at 5.30, when refreshments will be available and a selection of my books will be available to buy. Panel presentations start at 6.00 and end after an audience Q & A at 7.30.

#ScotWarrior2017 #jacobites #university of aberdeen #gordonhighlandersmuseum

 

 

A Scottish Nurse in the White War: The Italian Alps, 1917-1918.

In the Sunday Herald of 22nd October 2017, Angus Robertson, SNP MP and journalist, wrote a moving article on the ‘forgotten front’ of the First World War, the struggle between Italian forces and those of the soon-to-crumble Austro-Hungarian Empire. Because so much of the fighting took place in the snows of the foothills of the Alps, the Italian front became known as the White War.  

The White War by Mark Thompson

The Italian Front also inspired Ernest Hemingway’s novel, A Farewell to Arms. 

As Angus Robertson pointed out in his Sunday Herald article, 24th October 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the 12th Battle of the Isonzo, when, after more than three weeks, Austro-Hungarian troops broke through the Italian defences. The previous eleven battles had been indecisive. The fighting in the White War resulted in huge loss of life, with more than a million casualties.

Some of the wounded were nursed by Scottish volunteer Red Cross nurse, Henrietta Tayler, (1869-1951). Weeks and months after the Armistice of 1918, she was still caring for prisoners-of-war in Montecchio Maggiore, west of Venice and east of Verona. Her wartime memoir includes the dry comment: ‘Nursing prisoners in tents in the snow was somewhat of a new experience for me.’

She did her very best for them, making sure the dying were comforted and those recovering from injury and illness were nursed, washed, cared for and reassured. Hetty, as her friends and family called her, was a gifted linguist, which was just as well. Her prisoner-patients were of a variety of nationalities: Austrian, Hungarian, Bosnian, Serbian, Czech and more. She made sure to learn as many helpful words in each language as possible.

Her patients conferred and decided to call her Mutter, mother in German. That moved her to tears, especially when they told her that, as prisoners, they hadn’t expected to be treated with such care and kindness. Hetty’s comment on that was simple. A patient was a patient, whatever their nationality, ‘and weakness and misery must always appeal to one wherever found.’

As A & H Tayler, Hetty and her brother Alistair were prolific historians. Before the war, they published The Book of the Duffs, a detailed and entertaining account of the wider family to which they belonged. After the First World War, they researched and wrote numerous books and articles on Scottish history, particularly that of the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745.