Winifred Knights, A Scene in a Village Street with Mill-hands Conversing, 1919. © The Estate of Winifred Knights
Outside the mill the women gather
to agitate for equal pay.
A red jacket indicates their leader,
who could be a Labour activist today.
This was a year of nationwide strikes,
that spread like influenza.
There’s no crèche, no workers’ rights,
so a mother brings her toddler with her.
The war to end all wars has stolen
the dreams of many of these girls,
culled a generation of young men
and left a mutilated world.
Now some women over thirty
are able to exercise their vote,
but without having property
these are powerless. Their leader spoke
that morning of fairness, equality
and rights. The sun shone on the cloak
of the eldest, who never lived to see
how the tidal wave of change broke,
full women’s suffrage, the next world war,
the NHS and civil rights,
but knew she’d seen such things before,
believed in progress, set her sights
on horizons, these sunlit fields and hill,
painted in the background landscape,
while in the foreground the stern mill
shows that there was small escape
from present lives of industrialisation,
though a road out of town leads
onward to hope and salvation,
for these women here all believe
new times are inevitably coming,
while a few men stand by at the edge,
some watch from a distance, grumbling,
and others turn their backs and heads.
They have a king, a male prime minister.
Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May
owe these women who met that summer
for the work they did in paving the way.
- - -
“I wrote this the day it became clear Theresa May would be our next Prime Minister. The day before I’d been to see the Winifred Knights exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery”.
*This poem is copyrighted and may not be copied or duplicated in any manner including printed or electronic media, regardless of whether for a fee or gratis without the prior written permission of the author.
