Vicki Aimers - Book Artist and Authorial Illustrator

/

Vicki is a Book Artist and Authorial Illustrator based at Krowji in Redruth. She works with a number of heritage organisations such as Kresen Kernow, Hayle Heritage Centre, Museum of Cornish Life and the Royal Cornwall Museum, bringing archival stories to life in creative ways through workshops and public events.

She is also a PhD researcher at Falmouth University with their Fashion and Textiles Institute, studying the stories surrounding the archival stitched samplers in the county’s museums, finding out what happened to the young makers and their educators and what can we learn as a community from their lives. This is a collaborative doctoral research project working closely with the museums and local groups, who are now the custodians of these important textile narratives.

Vicki is the founder of the Palimpsest Project (insta: palimpsest_project). This is an initiative recording the stories of women, however fragmented, through a variety of creative projects and at various events. She has been working for some time exploring the history of piecework and researching the photography of Lewis Hine (American photographer and social reformer, 1874-1940) with a collaborative project entitled ‘Take One Square’.

As well as her PhD, she is currently working on a number of projects with several organisations looking at the lives of amazing local women from the past including Elizabeth Carne (1817-1873, a project in partnership with Hayle Heritage Centre and other researchers) and Catherine Payton Phillips (1727-1794). Her travelling installation and education programme ‘Catherine’s Cabinet of Curiosities’ has been shown at a number of locations and festivals such as Morrab Library, Fun Palaces, Open Studios, Krowji, Kresen Kernow, and Redruth and St. Ives Libraries.

As part of this initiative, she has homegrown with her family over 300 apple trees from several Cornish apple varieties to give away at various artist residencies and events. These saplings have acted as a token of Catherine’s idea to grow fruit trees to feed communities and to ‘beautify wastelands’. The project is called ‘Kitty’s Orchard’, and she says “they may never grow edible apples due to the genetics of apples, but there is an inspiring passion for life in every seedling. It is also a lovely legacy for Catherine that there are at least 300 new trees in the world. Hopefully one day, by continuing with this project it may become one of the biggest and widest spread ‘orchards’ in the world - all thanks to the idea of an extraordinary woman in Cornish history.”

She lives in Camborne and is happily married to Lee who she met when they were 14 at school, and remembers being told off by a teacher for holding hands in the playground!

Krowji

Insta: vicki_aimers

‘Sweeping the heavens’- screen print and part of a zine collection about the life of the Astronomer Caroline Herschel, 2019

1. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My greatest achievement is having my two daughters. They are my everything and I’m very proud of them and all they do. Medically, I wasn’t meant to have children due to suffering from severe endometriosis all my life and having numerous operations, so to have two beautiful girls has been the biggest blessing. They are very artistic and talented, and just lovely, kind and thoughtful people. Both have made wonderful lives in Cornwall, and I am very lucky to have them so close.

My second achievement is following an unconventional route through art and education. I’ve always studied in my own time since I was 18, even while working full time in local government or being pregnant. I attended many evening classes, part time courses and then as a mature student gaining a Degree and Masters to eventually lead onto my PhD. I value every course, workshop and evening class to be where I am today. Education is one of the greatest privileges; it should be valued and never taken for granted.

Finally, moving to Cornwall was a huge achievement, as it was a moment of thinking only with our hearts. It’s a place of inspiration and wonder for me. I feel very happy to live here, to have my family close by and to have made wonderful friends and contacts over the years, who have supported me with all my ideas and projects.

2. What motivates you to do what you do?

Working with archives is a constant source of motivation for my creative practice. I feel I have the best job in the world. Just being absorbed in research and finding out what happened to inspiring women from history drives me forward.

Also having that haptic process of making in whatever I do. While I’m researching I’m also sewing or drawing. Even when I’m waiting in the car, I’m writing, stitching or sketching something. I was the mum at the school gate in my car sewing, while waiting for my daughters to come out at the end of the day.

I’m not digitally minded at all. I love papers, scissors, glue and a sketchbook. That’s my ‘happy place’ and fuels my practice. My daughters kindly help me with any digital work, which I really appreciate.

3. What do you owe your mother?

I’m very fortunate to have two special mums in my life – my mum Linda and my mum-in-law Brenda. They are my rocks when times are hard, and they have always surrounded me in kindness and care. I owe to them my ability to love, overcome challenges and to follow my dreams.

4. Which women inspire you and why?

Caroline Herschel (1750-1848, Royal Astronomer, Comet Hunter and House Keeper for her brother William Herschel). I studied her life and scientific discoveries for my MA at Falmouth University, and I was struck by how humble she was about her achievements and how much she had contributed to the world of astronomy and science.

When she asked about her work and her devotion to her brother William (Royal Astronomer, World Class Telescope Maker and Composer, 1738-1822), Caroline said,

“I am nothing, I have done nothing; all I am, all I know, I owe to my brother. I am only the tool which he shaped to his use – a well-trained puppy-dog would have done as much.”

She never wanted anything more but to be of use to her brother and her nephew (William’s only son) John Herschel (1792-1871), who also became a famous scientist. When John was a child, they would carry out experiments in teacups, pepper boxes and tea canisters on her kitchen table. This devotion to her family was the thread that ran through everything Caroline achieved, and I feel there is a similar thread that ties me to my family. Their happiness always comes first.

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010): When I’m lost creatively, there are certain artists I look to and Bourgeois is one of them. Her writing, sculptures, books and drawings, inspire me in so many ways. I don’t think there has ever been an artist like her. She had a deep connection to her childhood memories, which I can really relate to.

Rebecca Elson (1960-1999): She was an astronomer and poet who died very young. Rebecca was extraordinary because she was on the cusp of finding out unknown phenomena about the universe and particularly Dark Matter (a hidden astronomical mass), when she sadly passed away. Fortunately, she left us with her beautiful legacy – her research, notebooks and poems, published in her book ‘A Responsibility to Awe’ (2001). Her poetry speaks of science, spirituality and a love for life – for me, her words put everything into perspective.

‘Wastelands to Wonderlands’ - Artist Residency Programme 2022 onwards

5. What are you reading?

I just love everything about books… book shops, libraries, the way they feel in your hands, the quality of the paper, illustrations, typefaces, their smell, annotating books etc. etc.

At the moment, I’m reading a lot of books for my PhD studies that I wouldn’t usually read, which is really interesting. It’s taking me out of my comfort zone, particularly texts by Dr Maureen Daly Goggin, which are fascinating.

I’m also enjoying reading Phillipa Gregory’s ‘Normal Women’ (2023) and a beautiful book written by my Director of Studies at Falmouth University, Dr Kate Strasdin ‘The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes’ (2024). They are inspiring books for research and for pleasure.

6. What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

I’ve been fortunate that I’ve never personally experienced an obvious gender barrier. Saying that, the historical women I have researched did hit barriers throughout their lives because they were female and in a different time. They were also educated and determined at a point in history when women were not expected to have a mind of their own. This made them a threat to some of the men they encountered, and they received criticism and little acknowledgement for all their wonderful work.

One such woman was the astronomer and astrophysicist Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin (1900-1979), who I greatly admire for her intelligence and quiet confidence. She discovered what stars were made from, which changed the world of astronomy at the time. Yet, she was never given recognition for her discovery, which was credited to her male colleague who took her idea and published it as his own.

7. How can the world be made a better place for women?

I believe there are several things that could happen to make the world a better place for all women..

  • Access to education should be a global priority

  • I also feel strongly about providing full health care at every stage in a woman’s life - our bodies go through so many changes in one lifetime, but still there is little funding and research to fully understand all the repercussions of these changes for both our general health and wellbeing

  • More done by governments and policing authorities to make women feel safe both at home and out and about - no girl or woman should ever feel fearful for their safety and stop doing the things they love

  • Finally, for women to have more say in world politics and on environmental issues, which would make it a better place for all

8. Describe your perfect day

Waking up to the sound of a blackbird is the most beautiful music to start a day. I would also like to spend the morning in my studio at Krowji sketching and exploring new ideas. In the afternoon, being in a café with good coffee and cake while sewing or reading. For the evening, watching the sunset down by the sea with my family and a flask of tea. Finishing at bedtime, listening to a podcast while I sew.

9. We've noticed there aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?

For my degree I looked at the plight of the migrant mother and her search for a safe home. At the time, I was working with the Royal Cornwall Museum looking at the Cornish Diaspora to Mexico in the 1850s and the number of women and children who didn’t make the long journey, in search of work and a new home. While studying, the Syrian crisis was shockingly unfolding. Seeing daily on the news women surrounded by their children and their belongings walking for miles to find a safe home, made me think how those Cornish mothers would have felt not knowing where they were going.

Today, with the various wars going on in the world those images are sadly repeated – women, their children and possessions all searching for the safety of home. A statue to honour migrant mothers would say a lot about the families who have gone before us and those who are suffering today.

10. Give us a tip?

I have three…

  • Always be yourself

  • Treat others as you would like to be treated and be kind

  • Never take anything for granted

a collage of images from HER PhD research with Falmouth University and the county’s museum service (St Agnes Museum)

Jane Griffiths - Professor, Poet and Maker

/

Jane has many strings to her bow. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Wadham College, where she teaches medieval and early modern literature in English. Her research is primarily on poetry of the 15th and 16th centuries; her first book was on the early Tudor poet John Skelton.

She’s also a poet, having six books published by Bloodaxe, most recently Little Silver (2022). In the past she’s worked as a letterpress printer and lexicographer, and formally trained and worked as a bookbinder for several years. Lately she spends much more time on jewellery-making and painting, and has work in galleries in Oxfordshire and West Penwith. Bringing these things into conversation with each other is her desire.

We asked Jane about her connection to Cornwall:

“Since 2014, I spend half the year at my cottage in St Just. I’m from Exeter, was brought up in Holland but I came back to England when I was fifteen. My parents stayed in Holland and I was unofficially taken on by a family with strong historical St Ives connections, so I started spending a lot of time there.

A friend of the family put me in touch with Melissa [Hardie-Budden] and she asked me over to Newmill in the spring of 1991 - and of course, Melissa being Melissa, we became and remained friends. And I was hugely touched when Phil asked me to read at her memorial event at The Exchange.”


Poet & Cat is a showcase for Jane’s jewellery, painting and collage and other artefacts made by way of escape from her daily work with words.

www.poetandcat.design

Instagram: @poet.and.cat

 

1.   What do you consider your greatest achievement?

It’s probably having got to where I am now, despite (or more probably because of) its inconsistencies: I’m happy to be part of Oxford, and very grateful to have the opportunity to teach in its tutorial system, which brilliantly fosters independent learning – but I’m equally happy to have a creative practice that’s entirely independent of the university. It feels a real achievement to be holding those things more or less in balance, and I’m probably particularly aware of how easily that might not have happened because I was brought up in Holland and taught in Dutch between the ages of eight and sixteen; when I came back to England, English was my second language and I didn’t really have a home in the country. It would have been very easy to slip through the cracks, and if I hadn’t been supported by several people who had no obligation to, I probably would have gone under. Even so, there were knock-on effects for well over a decade, and I’m astonished as well as proud to have fashioned a life in which I’m able to work and make in ways that interest me.

 

2.   What motivates you to do what you do?

I began writing when we left England for Holland, almost certainly as a kind of compensation for being separated from my friends and from a city and landscape I’d been unquestioningly at home in. It became the only available way of making sense of the world, and I think that’s probably true still of my poetry and painting: both keep returning to houses – often lost or vanishing ones – that directly or indirectly recall my childhood home in Exeter.

Bookbinding and jewellery-making are probably rather differently motivated: there’s tremendous satisfaction in creating an object that’s entirely separate from oneself and has an independent existence. Decades ago at the London College of Printing, when my year group being taught how to cover a book in vellum, our tutor warned us that if we got a crease in the spine we’d never get it out again, and it would still be there centuries after our deaths. It was an effective warning – but I also loved the thought that traces of our making process would carry on like that. 

In my academic work, I feel I’m uncovering those processes. It’s very easy to forget that even canonical works – Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or Milton’s Paradise Lost – didn’t always exist and that someone once sat over a blank page bringing them into being in real time, not knowing whether they’d succeed. I’ve always been drawn to authors where that process is most visible; they may have been dead for over 500 years, but they feel like kin.

  

3.   What do you owe your mother?

Language! She taught me to read at a very early age (two or three), and I’ve clear memories of her holding up flash cards for me, and then of reading to her a year or so later while she looked after my new-born brother.

And also the permission not to have children. A lot of mothers would have been pressurising, and she never was.


4.   Which women inspire you and why?

I’d probably say that I ‘admired’ rather than ‘was inspired by’ – though I suppose the two shade into one another. My grandmothers, first, both of whom were very independent-spirited. And then a lot of writers and artists, for their work and for their lives. When I was thirteen or fourteen, I came across that iconic Cecil Beaton photo of Nancy Cunard – the one where she’s posed against a spotted background with a very sharp 1920s bob and enormous bracelets all the way up both arms – and I was fascinated by her very personal style. Then when I read the Anne Chisholm biography of her, I discovered she had been a poet and a printer, and she became my heroine for combining writing with craft AND with complete self-possession. Later, Woolf – again, for combining writing and printing, and also for capturing so perfectly what she called the flight of the mind. Later still, Elizabeth Bishop for her scrupulous attentiveness to her work. And Romilly Saumerez-Smith, first for her work as a binder, then as a jeweller: there’s such texture and depth in both they seem to capture the passing of time in 3D, possibly as Woolf does in words. In a different way entirely, the mothers of some of my childhood friends, especially Lottie’s mother Linda Hoare and Hannah’s mother Bernhese Woodman, for their warmth and tolerance of chaos and for evidently having lives of their own that we were on the margins of – but also seeming so easily to accommodate us.

 

5.   What are you reading?

For work, two doctoral theses and forty-one job applications! – even though it’s the vacation and I was hoping instead to be reading the 15th-century French-English bilingual poet Charles d’Orleans. I’m also returning to another 15th-century poet, James Ryman, who uses a great deal of repetition, and thinking about what that tells us about his composition practices. Outside work, I found a copy of Elizabeth Bowen’s Bowen’s Court in a second-hand bookshop the other day, and I’m very much looking forward to re-reading that. I’ve just read Pearl by Sian Hughes – a brilliant book about childhood loss that spins off a gorgeous medieval alliterative elegy but is entirely its own thing – and Inscription by Christine Whittemore, which was another happy find along with the Bowen. I tend to get obsessed with certain books of poetry and keep them by the bed for months: at the moment it’s The Kingdom by Jane Draycott, Nigh-No-Place by Jen Hadfield and City of Departures by Helen Tookey. I also gravitate towards memoir and non-fiction that reflects on creative processes: I’ve recently been reading Polly Barton, Moyra Davey, and Sara Baume, among others.

 

6.   What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

That’s an interesting question. When I was young, I was very aware that both my grandmothers had to leave school in their mid-teens, whereas my parents assumed I would go to university, so (even though my father once said ‘girls aren’t really any good at science’) my sense was that the hurdles had been overcome. That sense was also fostered by being at a former men’s college as an undergraduate; it had only been mixed for 9 years when I arrived, but there didn’t seem to be any difficulties. More recently I’ve become a lot less sanguine. In the first instance that’s for personal rather than professional reasons, but it has made me more alert to a certain kind of dismissiveness professionally as well. So I suppose I feel it’s an atmosphere and a set of assumptions I’ve had to contend with, rather than specific hurdles. I’m reluctant to think that this has had much direct impact – but also suspect that I too have internalised a lot of the assumptions, and that they’ve very much coloured how I’ve presented myself.

 

7.   How can the world be made a better place for women?

I think that varies enormously depending on where in the world you’re thinking about. At the moment of course it’s impossible not to see that some of the most fundamental things that would make it a better place for women would also make it a better place for all of humankind: the absence of violent nationalism, of terrorism, of narcissistic and manipulative politicians. How that ‘absence’ might be achieved when all those things are so powerfully present, I can’t imagine. Similarly, what would make things better for women in the ‘West’ would be an entirely different culture over the past few thousand years … But impossibilities aside, and thinking about daily life in the UK, it would be a start to work to eradicate what I the assumption shared by many men that theirs are the lives and the work that matters, and that they are and should be in control. I often see glimpses of this even in entirely decent men who’d be shocked to realise they thought that way; it’s something that’s bred in. I’m very sceptical of most aspects of our school system now, but I think it’s possible schools are attempting to do something to counter that. There are a lot of things working against them, though.

 

8.   Describe your perfect day?

Waking in early summer with the light through the curtains showing that it’s sunny outside. Perhaps going for an early swim; certainly having nothing scheduled except perhaps a drink with friends in the evening, and having a poem and a series of paintings as work in progress which is going well. Working on them without interruption except for coffee and lunch in the garden and knowing that there are many more identical days to come, with no imminent deadlines.

 

9.   We've noticed there really aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?

My immediate thought was ‘Melissa!’ [Hardie-Budden] – but she said in her Woman of the Month interview that she doesn’t think statues are a good use of money, and I’m inclined to agree. My sense is that no one really looks at them until they decide that one stands for something they disapprove of. I’d rather read, see, or learn about someone’s work than look at a representation of them. So what seems more important is a forum for bringing women’s work to wider attention – like Hypatia, of course.

 

10. Give us a tip?

Virginia Woolf says it best, in The Waves: ‘Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.’

Sarah Bell - Artist and Printmaker

/

Sarah is a professional artist and printmaker living in Penzance, creating paintings and prints related to the sea and her home town. Sarah’s images often portray strong females inspired by her sea-swimming friends, combined with images taken from black and white photos of the Olympics in the twenties and thirties, or film from the forties.

Since starting the gallery three years ago, Sarah’s paintings and screen prints have found homes in the US, Canada, Germany, South America, India, China and Singapore to name a few.

In the 1980s Sarah trained in illustration at the prestigious art school at Kingston University where she found her love for making joyful art. She went on to live and work as a high profile illustrator in Amsterdam for 10 years before meeting her husband Nigel, in Devon, in the late 90s.

Sarah has just been chosen to design 18 flags for Penzance Promenade this year! We can expect colourful images celebrating the sealife around Mounts Bay. She will collaborate with Penzance marine specialist Katie Maggs (@tonicofthesea) who will help provide inspiration, knowledge and some amazing reference photos from under the sea. There are plans for prints, a colouring book, educational resources and workshops on the theme of Mounts Bay sea life.

https://sarahbellart.co.uk/
Insta: sarahbellart_pz

1.    What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My greatest achievement personally is helping to keep my daughter alive and sane during the many years of serious illness she had throughout her teenage years. She had a heart transplant at Papworth Hospital five years ago at 21, and our small family really went through the mill: it had repercussions throughout every aspect of our lives. My husband Nigel kept us steady through many storms over many years.

Business wise, one of my biggest achievements is having been able to make my living from art my whole life. Whilst it certainly hasn’t made me rich, I’d rather compromise on money rather than being creative and doing something I love. The previous generations of my family had to work in cotton and paper mills in very hard conditions for little money. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have been born in a time and a country where so many opportunities have been available. A couple of centuries ago I’d probably have had three options: penniless wife and mother of innumerable children and dead at 36; sex worker or working cleaning fireplaces in the local cotton mill owners’ “Big House”!

I’m also really pleased that I finally got to move to Penzance five years ago, after many years of hoping. Our area; the people, nature and history inspire nearly all my art. I feel part of the community of amazing supportive women here. I no longer feel like a fish out of water!

 

2. What motivates you to do what you do?  

I’m an artist; I love looking at things, thinking about things, noticing things, making things. It’s my calling. Making things with my hands is really important to me: digital stuff just exhausts me mentally and makes me feel frustrated.

 

3. What do you owe your mother? 

The gift of love. Knowing that you were wanted, as a child, and loved unconditionally gave me such stability growing up. We were a poor family in terms of money, but knowing that my mum loved me so much and was always supportive of me was beyond value to me. She also insulated me from my dad’s anger and depression: ever present in our house. I was always aware of it, and affected by it, but her resolute cheerfulness, good nature and sense of humour got me through. My dad’s family had a history of mental illness, which has been passed down into my generation. Fortunately my mum comes from a big family of eight. I had four aunties and three uncles. I was always around my aunties when I was growing up and I could see what a support network they were for each other.

 

4. Which women inspire you and why?

Virginia Woolf. I came across a copy of “A Room of One’s Own” in a second-hand bookshop when I was at art college in London at the age of 21.  I found her message so powerful. About how women throughout history had had their creativity repressed by a worldwide society run by men. Of becoming a possession of someone else as soon as you married: yourself, any money, property, children became the property of your husband. The speech she gave about the need for a small income and a room of one’s own in which to have the time, peace and space to be creative.

At the time I read the book I was revelling in having a room of my own for the very first time in my life, a tiny room with a bed, a wardrobe, a bedside cabinet, and a sink, at my college Halls of Residence.

I have remarkably little in common with Virginia Woolf! I don’t come from a highly cultured metropolitan family, with an aunt who bequested me a small monthly income for life. I don’t move in intellectual circles, and in all honesty I find her novels pretty hard going. But I admire her for the quality of her thoughts; her opinions on what women needed, and the beauty with which she expressed them. I also admire for her integrity in the way she lived, persisting with life as long as she did with the mental health issues she had to deal with.

Female war journalists: Lyse Doucette, Lindsey Hilsum and Kate Adie. I really respect any woman who put themselves in foreign, hostile warzones, often in countries where women are kept inside the home, with few freedoms, rights or access to education. I’m a Quaker, and Quakers believe in non-violence, non-judgement and equality for all. Sometimes I struggle with the concept of pacifism when seeing powerful countries invading and dominating smaller, less powerful countries or communities with fewer resources. My natural instinct is to fight back. But diplomacy and mediation can only be the solution in the long term.  Seeing reports from these journalists reminds me of how truly fortunate we are to live in a country which, despite all the things we complain about, is still one in which we can express ourselves. But I believe also that we need to be proactive and vigilant to make sure that people who would like to take those rights away from us don’t succeed.  I’ll always remember something that Lyse Doucette said when she was on Desert Island Discs: “Home is the most beautiful word in the English language…”  There are so many displaced people, both globally and tight here in the UK. I’m so grateful to have a home and stability.

My mum, Olive Altham, who taught me to be honest, be kind, to speak up for myself and believe in myself.

My daughter, Eliza Bell (who I’m proud to say, is a former Hypatia Woman of the Month!) who has incredible energy, strength of will and character. She’s gone through so much with so many challenges to her health with a chronic lung condition and surviving heart failure. She created an amazing podcast which supported thousands of others going through the organ transplant journey, raised lots of money for the hospital that saved her, and now has a successful company called Penporth Marketing. Her new office is just above The Hypatia Trust on Chapel Street. She is a self-made woman!

My Aunties: Doris, Lillian, Mary, Mildred. All factory workers when they were young. They had no educational opportunities but were all intelligent women.  Strong, kind, funny and supportive. The backbones of their families.

My English Teacher at Secondary School, Sue Hunt. She encouraged my love of literature, theatre and public speaking. She coached me to speak in public and helped me find my voice. Still my friend, and still inspiring.

Faye Dobinson. A fellow artist, Penzance resident, wonderful woman. She rallies our community, speaks from the heart, began the Monday Night Peace Gatherings and is a big inspiration to me. I’m sure she’s already been a Woman of the Month, but if not, I’m nominating her. (Hypatia edit: Faye has!)

 

5.     What are you reading?

Books are a huge part of my life. I go to bed early every night to read for a couple of hours; it’s non-negotiable. If only I could feel the same about exercise! I’ve been alternating four books over the last month.

Gabor Mate, “Scattered Minds”: The origins and healing of Attention Deficit Disorder.

I know there’s an epidemic of us women discovering or suspecting we have ADHD. I thought it was just a lot of hype until my coach suggested that my chaotic life might have something to do with the possibility of ADHD. Who knew the contents of this book would all feel so familiar?

Oliver Burkeman, “Four Thousand Weeks” Time Management for Mortals.

Former Time Management specialist Burkeman managed himself into burnout and decided to take life more slowly. Our lifetime averages out at a shockingly short four thousand weeks. Time to use that time well rather than worrying about the way that other people are using it ( or not using it).

Sharon Blackie, “Hagitude”

As older women we can often feel invisible. But in fact we hold remarkable power in what we’ve have experienced, seen, done and thought. Our voice can be influential and a force for good if we think it is and if we allow it to be. So many women feel lost in mid and later life and we need to support women to regain their self-belief, importance and strength. Our world needs us!

Alan Furst, “The Foreign Correspondent”

I can’t not have a novel on the go! Stories are so important. This one is set in Paris in the 30s and features an Italian journalist who’s been hounded out of Mussolini’s Italy. Fascism is taking over Germany, Italy and Spain. He secretly works for an underground resistance newspaper whilst working as a journalist for Reuters news agency. Quite riveting….

 

6. What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

As I’ve almost always worked as a freelancer and have been my own boss, rather than working within companies, I think I’ve been more fortunate than many women.

However in my personal life, my first marriage gradually fell into very traditional gender roles and I found myself shrinking in order to keep the peace. I was losing my sense of self and becoming a shadow. I felt oppressed, depressed and ignored. I finally found the strength to leave. The following year was the worst of my life: feelings of guilt, depression, worthlessness, and because I was the one to leave I had no home and spent a year sofa surfing and house sitting. But I’m so please I made that move and eventually rediscovered what made me “me”. My female friends kept me afloat.

Now I’m married to a wonderful, kind man, Nigel, who keeps me steady when I’m rocky and supports me in everything. I’m glass half-empty; he’s glass half-full. We’re equal and a good team.

 

7. How can the world be made a better place for women?  

If women had equal access to good education, control over their own fertility, money, political power, and had a choice as to whether or not they followed the local religion or societal expectations, this world would be a much better and, I think, more peaceful place.

 

8. Describe your perfect day

Breakfast in a good cafe with my husband and the newspapers. A good trawl in a bookshop or two; a walk by the sea, a bit of sketching outdoors, hearing birdsong, being amongst trees. A cocktail or two followed by a Japanese meal with my girlfriends. And a book at bedtime!

  

9. We've noticed there aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?

There could definitely be a statue of Virginia Woolf, and one of Barbara Hepworth too, in St Ives. And there could be statues of female farmers, flower pickers, bal maidens from the mining industry, and female fish packers who contributed to Cornish society, supported their men and brought up the families in poor and challenging conditions. We need to redress the tradition of statues featuring mostly men who made a lot of money, killed people or held a lot of power.

 

10.  Give us a tip?

Try to stay kind and strong.

Hilary Tyreman - Head Teacher

/

Hilary has recently retired as the headteacher of St Mary’s C of E school in Penzance, a role which she has held since 2010. In 2017, she was asked by the Local Authority to help at Madron school and since 2019, the two schools have been in a federation with her in the lead.

Her teaching journey has taken her to many places, from volunteering with UNIPAL in the Gaza Strip to teaching in Croydon and Inner London before settling in Cornwall in 1988. She has taught in and around Penzance since 1998.

In her spare time, Hilary is involved in a number of local music groups. Having studied music at university, it remains her passion, and she loves to see children flourishing musically.

1.     What do you consider your greatest achievement?

As a Head Teacher, finding and giving opportunities to children  and staff alike and seeing them grasp it with both hands and run with it. Concertedly, working collaboratively with Rev Sian Yates of Penlee Cluster to establish holiday club provision and family worker support as part of our core school offer putting children and families at the centre of our work.

2.     What motivates you to do what you do?

A passion to ensure that every child has equal opportunity in life, no matter their background, and to give them a community that can support them in doing so.

I think our aspirations and how we approach them are shaped from a young age, and I always aimed to make sure that children have the start they need not just in life but day-to-day. This includes universal breakfast provision, strong early language support, and promoting values and respect to one another.

In Penzance, levels of poverty have sadly increased in recent years.  But it is also an area of great creativity and community. I am really proud of the partnership with Rev Sian Yates of St Mary’s Church in the establishment of The Rainbow project providing holiday club provision and also now has two family workers to help support families in the area.

As a Head Teacher, I have been privileged to be able to create a world shaped by strong values within the walls of a school. I hope that these values continue to be ones that the children bring with them into the world outside.

 

3.     What do you owe your mother?

My mother was 22 at the start of the Second World War and this had a huge impact on her political views. The post-war Labour government was about rebuilding a different Britain that allowed all to be aspirational. My mum was fully committed to these ideals, about making things more equal and making things better for ordinary people. I owe her my political beliefs, my strong desire to make a difference and, importantly, of sticking to my convictions.

4.     Which women inspire you and why?
I owe all my success in life to inspirational women who were around me from my mother and sisters, to those who inspired me in school and helped me on my journey as a teacher, to those whose words inspired me from afar.

The first woman that inspired me was my primary school music teacher, Ruth Fielding. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t think I would have ever picked up the violin. She had a way of recognising, encouraging and supporting children to reach their potential, and as I studied music and later began my journey as a teacher she was someone I always looked back to as an example of how I wanted to be.

Further afield, Hilary Clinton inspired me, and not just because we share a name! Her book ‘It Takes A Village’ articulated a strong vision of how we should truly work together to ensure that our society values children and we recognise how women are crucial in collectively making a difference across the world.

 

5.     What are you reading?

I find it difficult to keep up with reading during term time, so I tend to rely on short stories and poetry, which I can fit in around education journals and children’s books I read. Now that I’ve retired I’m looking forward to picking up new books and catching up on what I have missed.

At the moment I’m reading A Poem for Every Winter Day, edited by Ali Esiri, and Letters from Klara by Tove Jansson. I often find myself coming back to Tove Jansson – I find her very economical in how she gets complex ideas across in a few words and I admire her creativity across a range of art forms.

 

6.     What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

In primary schools, even though a lot of teachers are women, when it comes to leadership roles, there is still a disproportionate amount of men in these positions.

This is a twofold problem. Firstly, as a woman early on in my career, I faced sexist remarks from men in leadership, commenting on clothing, making you feel generally uncomfortable, and playing power games.

Secondly, a lot of the models of leadership in teaching are written by men. As a woman I very much favour collaborative models, which some men and even some women have certainly struggled with.

In my experience, a lot of the barriers I have faced have not been overt, but a by-product of the patriarchy and the assumptions that men make about women as they pursue their goals.

 

7.     How can the world be made a better place for women?

I think more recognition, respect and celebration of all women and of the skills women can bring to situations to ensure things can be solved truly collaboratively with an emphasis on forming connections between people and getting away from power games and creating divisions. And for sure we still need young people to see examples of women taking on roles in all areas of life.

 

8.     Describe your perfect day?

My perfect day would have to include walking. I always enjoyed walking with my mum along the coast in the South East of England where I grew up. Since moving to Cornwall, I have always tried to make time on my weekend to walk the Cornish coast path.

I’d also have to include some sort of music-making in my perfect day. For me, no day is really complete without music, which is why I always put an emphasis on it in my work with children at the schools I have taught at, and in my personal life too.

If I still have time on this perfect day, I’d find time to read and discover some new vegetarian food. And of course, I would have to end the day the perfect way, too: with a cat on my lap!

9.     We've noticed there really aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?

There are many women that could be celebrated in West Penwith; Maria Branwell, mother of the Brontes, Cornish suffragettes, composers and artists. We have so much talent in Cornwall;. Barbara Hepworth, Laura Knight, Judith Bailey to name a few. There should be a whole book recognising women’s creativity in Cornwall. Might set this as a retirement project!

 

10.  Give us a tip?
Believe in yourself. Be kind to yourself and others. Be courageous and try to make a small difference each day and never underestimate the difference you can make.

Katrina Wagstaff – Green Funeral Director

/

Katrina started life with a lot of travel and living abroad with her parents and sister in Europe, Canada, Algeria and Libya which impacted on her in different ways. It was a great opportunity to meet different people and to understand different perspectives and cultures as well as to enjoy different cuisines and music. However, Katrina felt a desperate need to put down roots so, after qualifying as a furniture designer and maker at the London College of Furniture and working in London for a couple years, she moved down to Cornwall in 1990. It was whilst doing a two-year day- release welding course at St Austell College that she met Terry on a teacher training course. Katrina taught the Design Technology ‘A’ Level course for five years before they started a family and married. Katrina and Terry were self-employed as artists but, to supplement their income, Katrina worked part-time as a medical secretary and a development officer for a credit union.

When Katrina’s father died suddenly in 2012 and they couldn’t find a non-traditional funeral director, they decided to arrange his funeral themselves. It was challenging but surprisingly fulfilling and identified a hole in the market. In 2014 Katrina and Terry started The Cornish Funeral Company – a green and alternative funeral company that covers the whole of Cornwall and sometimes beyond.

Katrina continues to work on creative projects and writing when time allows.

www.thecornishfuneralcompany.co.uk
info@thecornishfuneralcompany.co.uk

1. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Professionally – Having the nerve to start The Cornish Funeral Company - a new, green disruptor business in an area that was male-dominated, is naturally challenging, potentially off-putting and in which we had absolutely no experience.

Personally – I consider my greatest achievement to have brought up our two wonderful children under sometimes challenging health and financial circumstances and helping them to launch into the world as happy and confident adults.

2. What motivates you to do what you do?

I love being a funeral director. Obviously, there are difficult times and it is 24/7, but I enjoy meeting people, being able to care for the deceased and to enable bereaved families and friends to say farewell to their loved ones through beautiful, authentic and individual ceremonies. We are also strongly committed to promoting green funerals and won the Green Funeral Director Award 2022 as well as a being Highly Commended at the Cornwall Sustainability Awards 2021.

3. What do you owe your mother?

I owe my mother my passion for food, cooking skills, healthy eating, love of gardening and an awareness and openness to alternative therapies and ideas.

4. Which women inspire you and why?

I am inspired by women who bravely stand up for and act upon their beliefs irrespective of the personal cost and consequences such as Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg. Then there are the millions of ordinary women who are either working in tiring, challenging and sometimes monotonous jobs whilst caring and trying to do their best for their families under difficult circumstances or, conversely, having to give up work to care for an elderly parent, spouse or disabled child which often leaves them isolated and losing their identity.

5. What are you reading?

I don’t get much time to read so tend to listen to audiobooks whilst I cook and garden. I’m currently listening to Salmon Rushdie’s The Golden House – intriguing and challenging.

6. What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

The perception that women are equal. I was ten and my sister seven when we lived in Algeria and were unable to play outside as it was deemed inappropriate – we were stoned and chased several times. Five years later in Libya, I experienced serious sexual harassment which infuriated me although I understood the cultural sensitivities. Both experiences made me aware of the high levels of misogyny and male chauvinism in our own western society. Although I went on to train in male- dominated arenas, I held my ground. Ironically, the worst sexism and patronising that I have experienced in a workplace has been from “professionals” when some men, feeling threatened or challenged by a (small) woman expressing justified displeasure or anger, would become unpleasant and unreasonable. Traditionally funeral directors have been male but times are changing and many more women are entering the business which makes sense as so much of our work involves compassionate caring, support and good organisation.

7. How can the world be made a better place for women?

To have more women working together at the top as I think that women are generally better at collaborating and are less competitive.

To have free/less expensive, quality childcare so more women can return to work should they wish to.

Financial and social recognition of the many women who put their lives on hold to care for the elderly, sick and disabled.

8. Describe your perfect day?

I was lucky enough to have it on my birthday this September. We’re rarely all together but both our children took the day off work and the four of us went for a walk and picnic on Roughtor up on Bodmin Moor. It was a gorgeous sunny day with a strong wind to cool us. I remarked that it had been a prefect day and how blessed I felt. It makes me smile just to remember.

9. We've noticed there really aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?

I’d like to see a statue/statues that recognise the thousands of Bal Maidens who worked in the Cornish mining industry doing jobs that were hard, sometimes dangerous and often involved toxic materials.

10. Give us a tip?

Love yourself and be kind to yourself – as women we are hard on ourselves and have a tendency to run around trying to look after everyone and everything without taking sufficient care of ourselves.

Marilyn Ehrman - Train Driver

/

Maz is a train driver for GWR, defying conventional gender roles. Here is her story.

“I arrived in the UK in 2002 I got a job in a factory which was great fun and paid well at the time, but I wanted more. My sister Reene was working on the railway as a Customer Host and got me a job too. This is when I started with the railway. I absolutely loved it from the start; the atmosphere, the people, the way the train would feel whilst moving, the beautiful landscape, all times of day. I thought it was thrilling and thought, “wow, I could be a train driver”.

I met the father of my children on the trains, left London and the railway and moved to Penzance. When I first applied for the role of train driver I was pregnant. It was 2010 and it was challenging for women to qualify, let alone whilst being pregnant. I didn’t let it phase me. I went through all the assessments and passed, but unfortunately was unsuccessful at that time. Still I didn’t give up. I had my baby boy and tried again for the role but no joy. I was then diagnosed with my first breast cancer when my second son hadn’t even turned 1 year old. It was 2014, and it was a new challenge.

I endured chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the dream was still there and I pushed on. I didn’t give up... interview after interview. However after 5 years the earlier assessment became void so I had to start again. I passed my assessments and applied yet again, this would be my third time. It was a no. I was then diagnosed with my second breast cancer. Take two.

I went through chemotherapy and radiotherapy again, and battled on through. Still this didn’t beat me down and I went for the role of train driver. By that point I knew inside my heart and soul nothing absolutely nothing would stop me from achieving my goal… you become some sort of warrior and learn to fight with absolutely everything you’ve got to give, basically you become invincible and there is nothing you can’t achieve. I finally achieved my goal in May 2023, and I absolutely love my job. Don’t give up, keeping on fighting and enjoy life to the fullest.”

1.   What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Finally passing out as a qualified train driver. I first applied for the job back in 2010. It’s not an easy process and I’ve encountered many obstacles along the way but I wouldn’t give up and if I could battle breast cancer twice and survive there was a good chance I’d be able to achieve my dream.

 

2.   What motivates you to do what you do?

Life and my family. I feel like I’ve been given a second chance at all that I do so I am living everyday to the fullest. I am an extremely positive person and always look for the good in all situations, I will never give up. 

 

3.     What do you owe your mother?
It’s thanks to my mom that I am the person I am today. She is the reason I am ME. Growing up isn’t easy for anyone but I can honestly say she is the strongest person I know and will stop at nothing to protect her family. 

 

4.   Which women inspire you and why?

Women all over the world and their situations; staying strong, protecting, mothering, working. It’s all hard work. Women juggle a lot and should be praised. It’s definitely not easy, and when you hit the menopause, well that’s a whole different story…

 

5.   What are you reading?

A Better Normal… your guide to rediscovering intimacy after cancer by Tess Devèze. This is definitely needed as nobody wants to talk about it after treatment. 

 

6.   What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

When I first went for the trainee train driver role back in 2010, you were lucky if you passed the interview stage as they didn’t easily employ women as drivers. You’d be knocked back constantly. You have to learn to be strong and resilient, fight for your right and believe in yourself... it will happen.

 

7.   How can the world be made a better place for women?

Women should be praised and told how special they are from a young age, taught that they should not tolerate violent behaviour towards them. Support one another and encourage each other to believe that they deserve whatever they set out to achieve in life.

 

8.   Describe your perfect day?

My perfect day would be, sun shining, walking along a coastal path, stopping for a wild swim and relaxing. No rush to get back home.

 

9.   We've noticed there really aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?

I cannot think of anyone in particular. If anything I would have a statue made of something/someone that would represent hope, faith and belief that you could achieve and survive anything thrown at you on an everyday basis. 

 

10. Give us a tip?

Tomorrow is another day! 

Bryony Robins - Co-Director at Royal Cornwall Museum

/

Bryony is Co-Director of the Royal Cornwall Museum, collaborating in leading its transformation. The aim being to create a vibrant arts venue, museum and community space in the heart of Cornwall: “It’s an exciting time, we have experienced some challenges, but with thanks to our supporters we worked through the most difficult time and have exciting plans in place. There’s momentum and a sense of optimism and some brilliant creative people working on a number of projects. Watch this space!”

Her background is in the arts, as a jeweller and in arts centres and galleries before moving into museums, and she is a Fellow of the Clore Leadership Programme. Bryony believes museums can be a catalyst “a link between our heritage and how we understand our lives today. They are a great way of bringing people together, building connections and creating space for brilliant ideas. They are an important resource for communities.”

1.     What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Being part of the team that are transforming Cornwall’s most important museum, creating a place to celebrate and share Cornish culture, and securing its future for many generations to come.

 

2.     What motivates you to do what you do?

I have some brilliant colleagues whose ideas and energy never cease to amaze me. Leadership is all about creating the right conditions for people to be their best, to thrive and flourish. I get excited and energised by the brilliant ideas and achievements of my colleagues.

 

3.     What do you owe your mother?

A sense of fun, a healthy scepticism, an interest in people and a love of nature.

 

4.     Which women inspire you and why?

Many, many women inspire me with their resilience and their steadfast stance on promoting female perspectives towards creating a better world. This may be people I meet in passing, or colleagues or leaders like Caroline Lucas for her strong moral values, relentless decency and for taking a stance in the toxic environment of our country’s governance.

 

5.     What are you reading?

I always read two books; one to help shut off thoughts and send me to sleep and one as a thought provoker, I also have an audio book on the go. At the moment these are; A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie, Diving Belles by Lucy Wood and Strong Female Lead by Arwa Mahdawi. I will let you decide which is which.

 

6.     What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

Museums are a female dominated environment, yet most of the of the leaders and Directors are male. People perceive leaders to look and behave in a particular way that isn’t particularly feminine. Like many others, I have experienced small and significant acts of sexism. It’s an ongoing struggle which we are challenging.

 

7.     How can the world be made a better place for women?

By creating space for women to be fully rounded humans, by recognising that what are perceived to be female traits are beneficial and, given full rein, could change the world.  

 

8.     Describe your perfect day?

A family picnic at the beach in the sunshine and a long walk on the cliffs in the sunset.

 

9.     We've noticed there really aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?

I would welcome a statue to the unknown woman, representing the many who have been suppressed or silenced, and who’s important work, voice and endeavours have gone unrecorded over time so they are now lost forever.

 

10.  Give us a tip?

I’m going to share my favourite quote by Margaret Mead:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has."

Kate Jones - Gallery Owner, Curator & Producer

/

Our September Woman of the Month is Kate Jones, owner of Daisy Laing Gallery - nominated as she gives so much to support the PZ community and artists. Recently she raised an outstanding sum at an art auction in aid of Mousehole Wild Bird Hospital, along with Tim Ridley. 

Kate has run Daisy Laing Gallery and Vintage Studio in Penzance since 2012.  Initially specialising in selling mid-century modern furniture and art, but just over six years ago started proactively programming art exhibitions to work alongside the vintage furniture.  

Before ‘Daisy Laing' she worked as a TV/Film producer and always enjoyed collaborating with other creatives, supporting and facilitating them to tell their story and have their say. This informs the way she works with artists who show in the gallery today. 

She says:

“Living in Penwith, I know lots of artists and back then there seemed to be limited opportunities for them to exhibit. The artists whose work I like and want to show wasn’t, and still isn’t generally, considered commercial enough for other galleries in this part of Cornwall, so I have been happy to step up. I think Daisy Laing Gallery has a reputation for showing work you don’t often get the opportunity to see in independent galleries in Cornwall. 

I think the art world down here has changed a little bit since 2017 and a few more art spaces/galleries have popped up in Penzance which seem to be doing things a bit differently too, offering new opportunities for artists. Six years later I think the art scene seems more diverse and interesting for art lovers and artists inside and outside of Cornwall.”

1.  What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Raising our beautiful daughter Martha, who was 18 in July, with my beloved husband Jamie.

 

2. What motivates you to do what you do?

My family. The desire to live in a kinder, fairer, more balanced world motivates me and I believe art can play a big role in this. I am passionate about the arts and what they bring to peoples’ worlds; how they can improve the quality of your life… A world without art and artists is not one I’d want to be part of. 

I am aware, because I live in an amazing part of the world and do something I love, that I lead a very privileged life and I do feel very fortunate, especially as I have access to so many wonderful things going on, on my doorstep. I know though there are a lot of people who like art but don’t have much access to it or can’t access it or don’t know how to. Or simply they don’t think it is for them for one reason or another. This is something that motivates me too - trying to make art more accessible as I know it has the power to enrich lives - whether you’re looking at an amazing painting or taking part in an ink drawing workshop, art should be for all. I dislike the aloofness and elitism that often goes with the art world, it is so off putting. I do my best to try and make Daisy Laing Gallery feel like a welcoming and accessible space.

 

3. What do you owe your mother?

My mother encouraged me to go University and financially supported me whilst I was there. I am the only person in my immediate family to do a degree.

 

4. Which women inspire you and why?

So many women inspire me for so many reasons!

Famous women – Patti Smith, Jane Goodhall, Tracey Emin, Laurie Anderson, Malala Yousafzai, Siouxsie Sioux, and very sadly recently deceased Sinead O’Connor, Vivienne Westwood…. All incredibly brave, intelligent, talented, outspoken, funny, strong, trail blazers, activists, punks…

Women I know – some really good friends of mine, who are brilliant in so many ways and fundamentally very decent human beings, who haven’t had things laid on a plate for them; are always having to juggle things - family, work - so many things at once, as most women do but they don’t give up easily and keep on, keeping on.

My daughter inspires me everyday. She is kind, intelligent, beautiful and reassuringly insightful. I am very proud!

 

5. What are you reading?

I always have lots of books on the go and so I have piles of them lying around all over the house! I love reading and have a bad habit of starting something new before I finish something I already have on the go. 

I regularly read poetry and love a good novel. I am a big fan of Hilary Mantel’s books, her writing is just exquisite. I was sad when I heard of her passing last year. This autumn I’m going to embark on ‘The Mirror and the Light’, which is another biggie, so might take me a while!

I am also very interested in non-fiction - art books and natural history, anything on the natural environment as I am also extremely passionate about nature and wildlife too. One I have had on the go for a long time, which I dip in and out of is ‘An Indifference of Birds’ by Richard Smyth.

I have also just finished reading an essay by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘We should all be feminists’. I read this because Adichie is an amazing writer, not because I need to be persuaded to be a feminist! As she writes, the dictionary definition of a feminist: “a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.” We should all be feminists the world would be a much better place.

 

6. What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

Like most women I imagine, I have had to deal with lots and still do, but not sure how many I’ve hurdled!

As a young girl at primary school, I was a real tomboy and a couple of my closest friends were boys. I think I felt like I was like them and could do all the things they could, and I didn’t feel the need to prove myself – I felt equal! But when I hit puberty (quite late) everything changed quite dramatically including my relationship with myself and towards boys, I started to see them as the opposite sex, and they did me! At secondary school, a mixed comprehensive, from what I can remember, the girls were generally smarter than most of the boys and so I certainly didn’t feel inadequate or inferior to any of them. Most of them to me and my friends - with the exception of a few - were just “annoying boys”!

I probably became more consciously aware of gender barriers when I had my first bar/waiting job whilst studying at sixth form college. Treatment of young women who worked in the establishment by some of the punters can only be described as inappropriate. I can remember sexist comments, come-ons, plus a few men making passes even! I remember feeling shocked but quickly developed a way of dealing with it but not really dealing with it, by laughing and shrugging it off! It’s hard to believe it now and it shocks me still, but I think back then, as a young woman, working in that environment, you kind of grew to expect this treatment.  As far as I know, no-one ever challenged those creeps whilst I was working there. I certainly didn’t have the confidence or life skills at that point to know how to deal with it directly.  It was a different era for sure. Sometimes I wish I could time travel and go back to those moments and confront those men. I’m sure it still goes on today but hopefully more is done to put a put a quick stop to this kind of behaviour. I really hope young women in the workplace feel more supported now.

Becoming a mother was a shock for me really. I had my daughter at 34 and my last job prior to having her was working as a TV producer in New York, so my world changed almost overnight, as it does for all new parents I guess. Suddenly I was a stay at home mum with a small child. Martha was 2 months premature as well and had spent 6 weeks in a neonatal unit prior to coming home and when she did I really struggled at first. This is still hard to admit, as before then I had always been a pretty competent person, but I felt really incompetent and inadequate actually at this time, possibly also because I hadn’t been able to go full term. Either way, I do know that as soon as you become a mother, even whilst you are pregnant, you suddenly become other peoples’ property!  It feels like the rest of world thinks it has the right to judge you and whether you are doing your job properly or not. I knew I had no choice but to get on with motherhood for my own sake but mostly for the sake of my child. Failure to cope = failure as a mum. I did as best I could but did feel limited, stifled and overwhelmed in those early days. It wasn’t easy but guess I got there in the end and having a supportive partner helped me a lot.

I’ve also experienced gender barriers in my own family and wider social circle. Let’s just say I did grow into being a forthright woman with strong views and a tendency to be outspoken and stick up for myself and others, but this doesn’t always go down well as it’s not how women are supposed to behave.

Even now as a middle aged woman, infact, even more so as a middle aged woman, someone who runs a business, has a family, has led a life, I am aware of being frequently pigeon holed, judged, overlooked and not taken seriously. I regularly find myself having to speak out!

 

7. How can the world be made a better place for women?

Better education for all.

Governments and police forces all over the world need to make a serious stand and unite to stamp out all violence and discrimination against women. I’m talking zero tolerance. So many women all over the world are abused and mistreated every single day. It is of pandemic proportions and in my view a global emergency. I am so sad that this is our world is in the 21st Century.

I can’t bear to think about what it must be like for any woman of any age in Afghanistan right now - but all those girls, young women who can no longer attend school. There was so much progress being made before the Taliban returned. Ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown has recently described what’s going on there as ‘Gender Apartheid’ and I think he is correct. How can governments stand by and let this happen? I understand there are activists like Malala Yousafzai working for charities doing their best to try and help and support women in Afghanistan and try and provide ways for them to continue their education - but it is clear that so much more needs to be done to help liberate these women. 

 

8. Describe your perfect day?

Lie in (which means not being woken up in the early hours by my cat Tino for his first breakfast). It’s a sunny day, all the windows in the house are open and there’s a gentle warm sea breeze wafting in. The Herrings Gulls are on the rooftops as they should be, but aren’t being too raucous! My husband Jamie brings me a cup of tea in bed, Radio 6 is on softly in the background – I reach over and grab one of those books from a large pile of them next to my bed, which I either get engrossed in or I drop off back into a deep slumber! Either way I’m up late, shower and then out for a leisurely lunch somewhere within strolling distance with my husband and daughter, at one of our good local pubs or restaurants. I love The Bridge in Newlyn and the Old Coastguard in Mousehole. We walk after lunch back from Mousehole along the coastpath or on the prom from Newlyn, stopping off for a paddle and bit of rockpool looking not rockpooling (I have no wish to terrorise wildlife!). We sit on the beach and gaze in wonder at the immense beauty of the bay and do a bit of seabird spotting and maybe have a glass of wine or two from that bottle we picked up earlier and also bump into a few friends on the beach and have a drink and some laughs with them and a bit of a dip. By now it’s early evening and because I’m 52 and perimenopausal, I’m really tired, so we go home, have some snacks, maybe more vino and then it’s Netflix or an early night! Bliss.

 

9. We've noticed there really aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?

We have the wonderful statue of the Fisherman in Newlyn by local artist Tom Leaper, commemorating all those men who have sadly lost their lives at sea. I think there should also be one of a Fisherwife, who represents all those women who may have lost their husbands at sea and who have played vital roles in supporting their families and the fishing industry here for centuries.

Or another suggestion - one of the two sisters, Dorothy and Phyllis Yglesias, who set up the Mousehole Wild Bird Hospital in 1928. It’s so brilliant the hospital exists.

 

10. Give us a tip?

I know it’s an old cliché but it’s still a good tip - make sure to “stop and smell the roses”…

SUZETTE REED - Social Enterprise Volunteer

/

Suzette Reed - Social Enterprise Volunteer

Suzette Reed is a volunteer for Whole Again Communities, Penzance. Founder Lizzie Sullivan has nominated Suzette as a fabulous, inspirational volunteer who now runs their most successful and inspirational activity; ‘Suzette's Poetry and Creative Writing Group’. So successful in fact they’ve had to add an extra day. 

Whole Again Communities (WAC) is a social enterprise which encourages and supports people to learn to cook good quality, affordable food from scratch so that they can embrace healthy eating at home. Founded by Lizzie in 2013 on the stone soup principles, she began by running workshops for other women living on a shoestring budget with an interest in healthy eating.

Suzette says:

“I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to run the creative writing and poetry at Whole Again Communities (WAC). The group has become so busy and successful that we have had to run two days a week now (Wed & Fri 11-12pm – followed by a fab WACCY Lunch). The group members tell me they look forward to coming every week. The work they produce each week is wonderful. Such a friendly, caring group who are all gaining the confidence to read aloud their words and feelings. They have told me they find it very therapeutic. Although the group is currently unfunded, we have been approached by a local poet who may be able to help us to publish. 

I’m 63 years old, lived in Penzance for the past 11 years. Born in Truro and went to an all girls’ school. I gained home tuition for the last four school years, due to, what they then called school phobia (anxiety). I found one to one beneficial; it gave me a better education and helped me become good with words and expressing myself.

I relate to people like me in the group who also suffer from anxiety and clearly gain support and acknowledgment from each other.”

Suzette's Poetry and Creative Writing Group
Every Wednesday and Friday, 11-12pm, with the option to stay and have a WACCY lunch and socialise, at the Salvation Army. Drop in.

 Whole Again Communities
www.wholeagaincommunities.co.uk/about
info@wholeagaincommunities.co.uk

1.     What do you consider your greatest achievement?
That I have experienced trauma, domestic violence and survived!!

2.     What motivates you to do what you do?
I’m inspired by words and through my own work being published in Penny Authors. I was approached by Lizzie Sullivan at WAC who asked me if I would like to set up a Creative Writing and Poetry Group as she and others loved my poetry.

3.     What do you owe your mother?
My dear mum passed away in 2007 at 86 years of age, I wanted her to go on forever!  Her patience and love in bringing me and my little sister up, a lot of love.

4.     Which women inspire you and why?
Lizzie and the women at WAC, Maggie, Stephanie, Simone and so many others. Normal people like me, they cope so well with not a lot of money and loads of love and compassion. 

5.     What are you reading?
Terry Pratchett.. Discworld.

6.     What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?
Domestic violence, my ex-husband. 

7.     How can the world be made a better place for women?
More equality, it’s getting better, with women’s football teams, women now do jobs that you associate with men. More awareness of Menopause Self Care needs more groups and better support to help navigate through the health issues and feelings. I was given tablets for depression and no support to deal with the menopause. The male doctor did not even make a mention of menopause, even though I was 50 years old.  I was too embarrassed to ask about menopause myself, I would have preferred to see a woman. If surgeries could have a MSC support group, it could avoid harmful misdiagnosis and help women to cope better and be healthier going through the next stage of life.

8.     Describe your perfect day?
Sitting in the sun watching people go by on Causewayhead. Lovely dogs, chatting to the passers-by, something very relaxing about it. Petting and cuddling my cat called Smudge! Very therapeutic. Being with my friends at WAC.

9.     We've noticed there really aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?
Helen Glover… women who are brave and strong and strive to help others, and do things to help others - Lizzie Sullivan, Lynne Dyer and the like. A communal statue of women community leaders.

10.  Give us a tip?
Never just judge people by first appearance!

DR JACKIE SKIPPER - Senior Consultant and Senior Geologist

/

Dr Jacqueline Skipper BSc PhD DIC CGeol FGS

Jackie is a Senior Consultant and Senior Geologist at the Geotechnical Consulting Group, London. Her PhD was in the stratigraphy of the Lambeth Group and her specialist areas include the Geology of London and SE England, complex ground conditions (including Quaternary features) worldwide, and the geology of desert sediments and environments. 

She is, and has been, very active as a consulting geologist on the ground investigation and construction for many major tunnel projects around London such as the Thames Water Tideway Project, Lee Tunnel, the Northern Line Extension, Lower Thames Crossing, High Speed 2 and Crossrail 2, and she is also on both Geotechnical Review and Formation Expert Panels for High Speed 2. Other recent projects include investigations of very large Quaternary Hollow features, tunnel lining deformation and sand ingress for London Underground, landslip projects throughout the UK, and major construction projects throughout the UK, Europe and the Middle East.  In 2010 she received the Geological Society Engineering Group Award and in 2017 the 18th Glossop Medal. 🏅🏅🏅 

Jackie is widely known for her enthusiasm, energy and communication skills in engineering and geology and is a strong advocate of Project Specific Geological Training as a tool in project ground risk identification and reduction. She teaches a wide range of courses on aspects of engineering geology and stratigraphy, and is passionate about the communication of science to the next generations of engineers and geologists.

Jackie is based here in Penzance. She has lectured in a number of countries around the world and has contributed to radio and television programmes as a geological authority. 

1.   What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I’m proud of my work training geologists and engineers about how the ground works. Most problems in civil engineering (buildings, roads, tunnels, travel infrastructure) happen because the ground hasn’t been fully understood.  My experience on projects all over the world is that education about the ground - at every level of a project - informs better communication and decisions.  

2.   What motivates you to do what you do?
When I’d finished my doctorate project I felt like I’d educated myself out of ever getting a job again.  A good friend made me visualise what gives me joy about doing geology. Immediately I was a 17 year old again standing on Porthtowan beach, watching the water currents and the wind depositing dunes and ripples, puzzling about why that group of rocks is falling down so often… Today the joy comes from working out in three dimensions how rocks and sediments were deposited millions of years ago but in similar ways to today. Communicating that understanding to others and seeing their understanding light up their eyes is very much part of the enjoyable process! 

3.   What do you owe your mother?
I was reading the obituary of the astonishing geneticist Marion Julia Lamb yesterday and identified so much with what she said about her parents: ‘they gave her freedom’. My mother did that. As a tiny child she allowed me to wander in streams, rivers and rock pools, bringing treasure of frogs, snails, rocks and flowers back to her. She always thanked me and was enthusiastic about them! She always carried at least two changes of clothing in case I got soaked (I did, regularly). When we moved to Cornwall she allowed me to have the time to walk for miles getting used to the landscape, plants, and random mineshafts. For a great worrier about life in general she was a great force for positivity and trusted her children not to drown, get into trouble or fall over too many cliffs – a way to learn about true risk. In reality she was truly brave woman and a real problem solver, facing herds of horses in the garden and adders in the greenhouse with equanimity and motorcyclist’s gloves. And all her life she never turned away the gift of a rock from the beach or a bunch of wild flowers. Even in her 80s she still admired my collected stones and allowed me to explain what they were and to put them in pride of place in her garden.  

4.   Which women inspire you and why?
Greta Thunberg, climate activist, fills me with awe for her determination to keep pushing people about climate change. Some people say that being on the autism spectrum is somehow why she is ‘obsessed’ with the subject but of course this is a type of media gaslighting. We all have things we are better or worse at, but she is unique and fights with all her energy and intellect to change things and make people understand and take actions to tackle this enormous and complex issue.

Former colleague from the Natural History Museum, Professor Monica Grady CBE, has always been an inspirational woman to me. She is currently Professor of Planetary and Space Science at the Open University and studies the make up of meteorites and what they tell us about how life on Earth began (amongst other questions). She is famous for her wonderfully enthusiastic response on camera when Philae, (the lander module of the 2014 space probe Rosetta), made the first successful landing on a comet. We need more women scientists who are not afraid of being enthusiastic! 

5.   What are you reading?
I’m currently reading Maria Sybella Merian – Artist, Scientist, Adventurer by Sarah Pomeroy and Jeyaraney Kathirithamby.  I accidentally came across this amazing woman’s magnificent paintings of tulip and insects when buying wallpaper for my last flat. I discovered that she’d lived between 1647 -1717 and was not only an outstanding painter but one of the first German naturalists, observing from the age of 13 (!) how the metamorphosis of eggs and caterpillars to butterflies took place (formerly it was thought that insects were made from mud). In 1699 she and her daughter travelled to Surinam (an unheard-of journey by women at that time) and published her findings on the plants, insects and animals of that part of South America 

6.   What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?
I left Cornwall (temporarily – you never leave Cornwall!) in the late 70’s to train in the NHS as an Operating Department Practitioner. At the time this was a new career, mostly male-dominated. As a woman you were expected to prove yourself physically and the girls amongst us definitely pushed ourself too far trying to lift and manoeuvre heavy patients and safely position them for operations. Many of us suffered from back and other injuries from our twenties onwards. I am a great advocate for Health and Safety for all now for this reason!

7.   How can the world be made a better place for women?
I think some of the work currently being done in schools to educate young boys to respect girls and women when they say NO! is of critical importance. The western world has definitely changed since I was a child and the concept of a woman as simply someone whose life’s work is to have children and support others is no longer the only option. But I’d like to see more support and fewer barriers for women wanting to step out of these old paradigms, educate themselves and have enjoyable lives - without the guilt that many have for putting themselves first!

8.   Describe your perfect day?
My perfect day consists of a swimming adventure (with lovely friends) to a new beach or river in Cornwall with lots to see in the water, and laughs and a lovely picnic afterwards.

9.   We've noticed there really aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?
Well, obviously Barbara Hepworth, the queen of sculpture – only, what kind of statue would she have been happy with?

10. Give us a tip?
If I have a task which I’m procrastinating about I try to reduce it to the tiniest actions that I can do in 10 minutes in order to get it done. For example I recently had to get my passport renewed on top of a lot of ‘more important’ actions. It was annoying me. I reduced it to:

➡️ Getting the passport and putting it on the desk (day one)
➡️ Opening the page on passport renewals online and reading it for 10 minutes (day two)
➡️ Searching online for who takes passport photos in my area (day three)
➡️ Walking to the shop and having a passport photo taken (day four)
➡️ Using the photo information to complete the application online (day five)
➡️ Putting my passport into a secure envelope and addressing it (day six)
➡️ Walking to the Post Office when out shopping and posting the passport (day seven)

 As a result the whole passport application felt easy and effortless!

RACHAEL JONES - Artist-Filmmaker & Researcher

/

Rachael Jones is an artist-filmmaker and researcher whose practice has expanded to involve collaborators and participants in the filmmaking process. Some of these participants are objects, both natural and constructed. As a result, her films are made up of multiple interactions and assemblages.

Rachael makes films that are process-driven and reliant on collaboration. She is interested in engaging with what can come out of the process of research, making and conversational exchanges. As a result, her films retain traces of making through process and participation and are alive with ideas and meaning that is open to interpretation.

@rjonesfilms

www.rjonesfilms.com

 

1.     What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I am currently in the final stages of a practice-based PhD, so my answer will probably be that in (hopefully) just under a year! But definitely what has led me to engage in the work I am doing is an ongoing achievement, and that is self-believe and a sense of conviction that it’s what I should be doing.

 

2.     What motivates you to do what you do?

Probably knowing through experience that it’s the only thing I want to do. I spent a long time working in hospitality (and briefly in an office – even worse!) before realising I was an artist, so I know what the alternative is like.

 

3.     What do you owe your mother?

I owe her my creativity, imagination and silliness. Also cooking skills, which I’ve only recently started appreciating.

 

4.     Which women inspire you and why?

Most women inspire me, but the ones that stand out are the ones who are brave with their creativity, like Audre Lorde, Mary Oliver, Margaret Tait and Robin Wall Kimmerer (those are the first that come to mind). I’m not sure if it’s because of my own expanding interests but I’ve come across more and more women who are tuning into the natural world in their work. I find it admirable, inspiring and political, but also probably necessary for ourselves and the planet.

 

5.     What are you reading?

I have two books that I’m dipping into: Modern Nature by Derek Jarman and Sensuous Knowledge by Minna Salami.

 

6.     What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

Probably loads but I don’t think I was so aware of them when I was younger. Looking back, I found it difficult to speak up and make my voice heard. I thought I didn’t have anything interesting to say and was shy. I reckon this was to do with gender combined with my personality and school, so it’s difficult to untangle but probably all-together infused by a gender imbalance.

The filmmaking industry is a historically misogynist place and that’s probably why I decided to dive into my own creative artistic filmmaking practice rather than work in a difficult environment. I remember directing a music video a number of years ago and feeling very self-conscious that my directing style was maybe “too nice” and that I didn’t want to throw my weight around and shout at people! A friend of mine at the time told me that being nice isn’t a weakness, rather it’s a strength and that people would probably respect me more for creating a good atmosphere on set. That was great advice and listening to it definitely paid off.

 

7.     How can the world be made a better place for women?

More attention to care and kindness with less competition and aggression can help build a stronger society which would benefit everyone. Also acknowledging that the western world is designed to favour the male rhythm – as women we work on monthly cycles that mean we feel differently at different times during the month due to what’s going on in our bodies. Most of us push through the low energy and discomfort which isn’t ideal and probably not good for us. As a society we need to redefine how we measure productivity and allow for it to include rest.

 

8.     Describe your perfect day?

In the summer, probably a good walk followed by a sea swim and reading a book on the beach afterwards. In the winter curling up and watching a good film with a bag of crisps.

 

9.     We've noticed there really aren't many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall - who would you like to see remembered?

That’s a tricky one, maybe a lesser-known woman from history – someone’s great aunt maybe?! Then women can see themselves reflected in someone who was a member of that community.

 

10.  Give us a tip?

I like to squeeze some lemon in my water as it makes it taste better so I drink more and get a bonus hit of vitamin C!

SUSIE CHAIKIN - Embroiderer and Mosaic Artist

/

My art is my story. It’s the way I work out and express my world.

My latest work has come about from processing the grief around my husband’s heart attack and a friend’s death from lung cancer. I stitched the organs the heart and the lungs. In the making I have found I can create ease and peace. Stitching beauty and thought into harsh moments. I find stitching meditative and slow and naturally supports a healing conversation with myself. I try and make beautiful pieces, So transforming my experience and perspective. I am now curious and exploring how as an artist I might be able to do this for and with others.

I am obsessed with Latin culture I see myself as creating milgros, the word milagro means “miracle or “surprise” in Spanish and people in the past and present use them as symbols to wish others good luck good health and hope for the future.

https://susiechaikin.com/
@susiechaikin

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My daughters.

In terms of my work it is my last body of work on grief. I had a vision for it as a whole body and it took me 3 years to complete. I was so moved by how my threads of expression and intention meet the hearts of others. I felt the meeting of all I held valuable, art, making, integrity and love.

What motivates you to do what you do?

It is like breathing to me or like eating, if I do not do it I feel great dis-ease. It is my way of processing my world, making can transform something I’m finding difficult, from something harsh and ugly to peace and beauty. It has felt like I had discovered a magic power. I notice how my current work is touching in a deep way to others and That motivates me even more! The history of stitch is fascinating and has been quite political I’m very motived to create messages with stitch.

What do you owe your mother?

My mother is an extraordinary woman. She is strong determined capable and has strong family values. she stitched a lot when I was young. The singer sewing machine was always out. She is culturally very curious we visited a lot of galleries and travelled up to London to the big galleries often. And she was a strong socialist I love being a socialist a lot of my current work is influenced by politics.

Which women inspire you and why?

I am drawn to woman that have their warrior and feminine power perfectly balanced, I see this a lot in daughters of my friends. Passionate driven, strong, responsible, educated and full hearted. they are who I admire as they will shape this world beautifully, the balance of love and knowing their agency their power.

What am I reading?

I rarely read fiction these days, I’m a maker so all my sitting time is spent making so I listen to audible. I love the sound of the words in my ears. If I go back over a piece of art work I can recall almost word for word what I was listening to its extraordinary as My memory is mostly silent. I have just finished where the crawdads sing, and reading threads of life by Clare hunter, I reread and listen to this all the time I’m so thrilled and moved by the stories of stitch.

What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?

My main gender barrier is how I have adopted my role of wife and mother. They have come before my artist, a slave to the gender belief that everyone comes before me! But I have loved having both these roles in my life too but if I re did them I would been more bold of the balance.

The gender barrier in the art world is, And as an embroiderer and someone who sits on the craft art border the gender barriers are loud, but they are shifting with embroidery there are some incredible contemporary stitchers, and it is seeing a renaissance in the art world.

How could the world be made a better place for women?

I think about this a lot, I have just made a huge piece about it it called the rise of femininity , I believe that the world has lacked heart and feminine for a long time and been lead by bullying, greedy, self serving warriors. The heart has dropped out of the world and I believe That we need to rise the temperature of the feminine.

Describe your perfect day

My perfect day is a sunshine day in Cornwall a day where I pack my beautiful old campervan with tea, milk and a full fridge, park up by the sea and set up as a studio for the day stitching, with my two daughters , our dog , picnicking, swimming in the sea and friends or family popping by. I feel so so blessed and the luckiest person alive on those days ... oh and kissing and laughing !!