Women S Theatre Workshop

Press Release June 14th 2010

‘A Suffragette in the Family’

Presentation by Peter Barratt

‘Women’s Poetry in the Great War’

Lecture by Audrey Ardern-Jones

Featuring flautist Rachel Aukett

Thursday 8th July at 7.30pm

The Library Room, Old Town Hall, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond

Tickets: £5 / £3 concs. Tel 020 3261 0000

Peter Barratt is the great-grandson of Alice Hawkins, leader of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Leicester. Peter gives a fascinating and highly personal presentation, illustrated with memorabilia still held by his family to bring the story of his great-grandmother to life. A shoe machinist by trade and mother of six, Alice was a strong willed lady, determined to have an equal say in the democracy of the day. She was imprisoned five times in all in her struggle. This is a tremendous story of one woman’s fight for the most basic of human rights, the right to vote.

Audrey Ardern-Jones, co-founder of The Poetry and Music Ensemble, brings to light in this fascinating lecture the work of Women Poets of the First World War. Unlike their male counterparts writing from the front line, these women were inspired to write by the processes of war; working in munitions factories and on farms, driving buses, nursing the wounded and grieving for loved ones. Many were first time writers and found poetry an escape mechanism from the dreadful war. They wrote of pain, hope and dreams.

These talks accompany the exhibition How The Vote Was Won: Art, Theatre and Women’s Suffrage, currently running at the Museum of Richmond until 4th September. On 8th July the Museum willbe open speciallyfrom 6.15pm until 7.15pm. Come early and visit the exhibition before enjoying the talks. The exhibition celebrates the incredible artistic and political work of the suffragettes, how the movement inspired the work of artists, writers and theatre-makers, as well as the involvement of local people in the suffrage movement.

Organised by Aurora Metro Arts and Media and the Museum of Richmond, the exhibition is curated by Irene Cockroft, writer, lecturer and specialist in Arts and Crafts of the 19th and 20th centuries, and Susan Croft, writer, academic and formerly Contemporary Curator at the Theatre Museum.

Their book Art, Theatre and Women’s Suffrage will be available in July 2010.

For further info or a review copy contact:
Stacey Crawshaw,

For further info on the project:
www.suffragette.org.uk

Aurora Metro Arts and Media Ltd.

67 Grove Avenue Twickenham TW1 4HX

Tel: 020 3261 0000

Charity number: 1055116 Company reg. number: 3184467