Yesterday, the LSH told me he'd bumped into his colleague at work who manages the Moot Hall in the town and she'd mentioned that she's not seen me in a while, "She should pop in, we've got Queen Elizabeth I visiting on Saturday."
"She's dead," I told him.
"Oh, she knows because that's what I said."
Both feeling slightly guilty for being so flippant, we decided to show our support.
As we were going in we met two children that I teach. They had already been in to see the Queen once before walking to the toy shop to spend their pocket money. The little boy had bought a dinosaur and the girl purchased two matching toy rings. She was going back to present the Queen with one of the rings; she was smitten and stated her ambition to become Queen when she grew up. Obviously, this is an unrealistic dream but her brother wanted to be a dinosaur, so I think it's fine.
It it any wonder that little girls role play is still based around being Princesses and getting married, when these are still the only ways they can gain recognition.
It made me think about my visit to London and the statues again. Boys have so many more role models to choose from. There are statues of men who seem to have done something no more significant than be at a battle.
Our town has several statues of men but not one of a woman. Last time I blogged about statues someone offered to recommend putting a statue of me on the Prom. I know it was a joke but I was terrified at the idea. I would hate it. "But I'm not perfect," I thought, "I've done nothing significant, a statue of me would scare the birds and I'm still alive."
I do think statues should be of people from history but there is a problem of women thinking they need to be perfect to be shown. They haven't even been able to get a statue of Margaret Thatcher in Parliament Square, despite her obvious historical significance as the first female Prime Minister because lots of people didn't like her and they can't agree on the handbag. The most famous statues of men in our town are of Byrhtnoth, a Saxon leader who got his head chopped off in battle, allowing the Vikings to invade and Edward Bright, a grocer, who is famous for being 47 stone and dying at 29.
The last time I visited the Moot Hall was to watch a drama about Captain Ann. The children from school had been and the girls had been wide eyed and enthusiastic when they got back.
"You have to go," they said, "she was brilliant. She got all those people food and then she was hunged up by her neck to die. The judge said that he could hang her because people called her Captain, which was a man's title. It changed the law, though. She was amazing."
Most people don't know her story. I was telling a neighbour the other day, who was home for the Summer from Uni, where he's studying history.
"Is that the grain riots?" he asked, "We studied them last year and I was really shocked to find out that such an important person came from here and I'd never heard of her."
Ann Carter married her husband, a local butcher, at St Peter's Church (now the Maldeune Centre) and as his wife wouldn't have been hungry at the time she led a raid on a grain ship. She put herself out to help the cloth workers in 1629 who were not earning enough to buy one loaf of bread a week. She led women and children onto a Flemmish grain ship to fill their caps and skirts with just enough grain to feed their families. The fact that she was sentenced in her own name, rather than her husband taking responsibility for her crime as was the policy at the time, probably had more to do with the fact the town didn't want to lose their butcher than changing the policy on women's rights to be an individual.
After watching the drama we discussed the history.
"We should have a statue of her," the Moot Hall manager said.
"Oooh, I don't know. I can think of better things to spend money on," someone else said.
I explained that I thought it was important. That girls need role models.
People agreed with me.
"There will be opposition, though. Some pubs wouldn't stock the Captain Ann beer because she was a thief."
"She wasn't!" The actress that had played her was indignant.
She was, though and that's fine. It's impossible to be perfect. It took someone who was prepared to break the law to make changes and without that we wouldn't know about her (even though her story has been suppressed for years).
During this visit to the Moot Hall we resumed our conversation about a sculpture. We talked to the Mayor. Maybe we could commission a local artist? Maybe a woman? It could go in the grounds of the Maldeune Centre and be sculpted from the remains of the holm oak that had to be cut down recently.
It sounds like the start of a campaign. Who's with me?
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