Explain for me and why the daughters of time anthology came about and
why you decided to be involved with it.
Daughters of Time was the brainchild of Mary Hoffman, who has edited the anthology. We
were all History Girls, writers of historical novels for adults and children
who regularly contribute to the History Girls Blog. The History Girls was Mary
Hoffman’s brainchild, too. We began blogging in 2011 and Mary thought it would
be nice if we made an anthology of stories about women in British history, kind
of Our Island Story, but about women instead of men. She found an interested
publisher in Templar, and that is how it all began.
Why did you decide to focus your short story on Emily Wilding Davison?
Emily Wilding Davison’s dramatic end has
always fascinated me. Did she mean to, or didn’t she? I was talking to my
daughter about a suitable subject when the Daughters of Time anthology was
first mooted and Emily’s name came up. My daughter mentioned the famous return
ticket and I suddenly saw a story there.
Emily Wilding Davison
has always been an interesting character in our recent history because her
intentions on derby day were so unclear. For example she had a return ticket in
her pocket. Do you believe she intended to become the suffrage movement's
martyr?
I believe that she
did. I think the return ticket is misleading. She was a highly intelligent
woman and familiar with horses. No-one who has seen horses at full gallop can
think that they would survive running among them in a race like that.
Some would say that
the actions of the suffragettes such as Emily actually hindered women's chance
at the vote and it wasn't until women contributed to the war effort between
1914 - 18 that they began to change the minds of the government. Do you agree?
No-one brings about
radical reform by keeping quiet, sitting at home, doing nothing. Political
change of this kind is only achieved through action, whether it is the Civil
Rights Movement in America, the Anti Apartheid Movement in South Africa, the
Arab Spring or Votes for Women. By taking to the streets, the suffragettes
brought their demand for equal voting rights for women to the forefront of the
public mind and kept it there. It is undeniable that it took a World War to
prove to the male politicians that women were worthy of that right, but if the
suffragettes had not acted, such recognition might have taken even longer.
Also, by breaking rules and boundaries, radically re-defining what women could
and could not do, the suffragettes made women’s massive contribution to the war
effort possible by allowing them to take on men’s work, work that was by
definition less than ladylike.
As a history teacher
I love historical fiction but shy away from using it because of the variety of
issues surrounding it not least that fact the author can put their own
interpretation on events and can be known to take liberties with events to suit
the story they are trying to tell which can confuse those studying the topic.
What role do you think historical fiction should play in the classroom?
All historians put
their own interpretation on historical events; we just have to consider the
diametrically opposed views of Max Hastings and Niall Ferguson on the First
World War. There are as many interpretations as there are historians, or
schools of historical thought: Marxist, Economic, Social, Cultural, Feminist,
Right Wing, Left Wing, and so on. There are solid, known facts, certainly, but
these are added to constantly as new discoveries are made about the past and
these, in turn, affect how we interpret events, so interpretations can change
from generation to generation. My understanding is that the teaching of history
(and I speak as an ex History teacher and as a History and Politics graduate)
as an academic subject is a matter of weighing these different interpretations,
measuring them against the known evidence and for students to then form their
own opinion. I can’t see why, in that case, historical fiction could not be
regarded in the same light. On the contrary, I think it could add to and enrich
the study of history. No reputable writer of historical fiction would knowingly
distort historical facts to suit their story. We fit our stories into history,
not the other way round. Even if they did, would it not be an interesting task
for students to find and expose false information and anachronism? Historical
fiction can make a period come alive for the student of history. It is also a
shorthand way of getting to know periods outside the sometimes rather narrow
confines of the curriculum. I have always read historical fiction and feel that
it has added to and augmented my knowledge of history. I can’t think of a
better addition to the study of the Tudor period than Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies. I wish her novels had been around when I
was doing A Level. As it was, I owe a great debt to Jean Plaidy and Nora Lofts.
Which other female figures in history would you have liked to include in
the anthology had you had the chance to include more than one story?
There are so many! I retain a strong
interest in the English Civil War period and the women involved in it like
Elizabeth Lilburne, wife of the Leveller leader, John Lilburne and Lucy
Hutchinson. Women from very different social backgrounds but who chose to fight
along side their husbands and campaigned to save them when they were imprisoned
for their beliefs. I’m also interested in women artists in both the First and
Second World Wars (in referring back to the question above, any student of the
First World War should read Pat Barker’s novels) and
female war correspondents, like Claire Holliingworth, the first journalist to
report on the outbreak of the Second World War.
Daughters of Time by The History Girls, edited by Mary
Hoffman. Out now, £7.99, Templar Publishing
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