Quote:
Originally Posted by Wynonie Harris
It's almost like she's been airbrushed out of local history...I wonder why?
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That does seem a shame.
Like I say at the moment, until I read her autobiography, I can't really comment on her politics.
Though I would be able to forgive any youthful and naive idealism, especially in those turbulent inter-war years, a period of history I find fascinating, especially the way the political world was portrayed as being very black and white, with a clear case of left versus right.
I'd certainly be more forgiving than I am of any youthful desire to enter politics for personal cynical advancement, rather than an idealistic hope of helping others.
What I do admire is a local mill worker who found herself sitting in parliament, via a route that was still unusual for women of her class, and unlike other women who did the same thing, which was usually through grammar school system and then university, such as Barbara Castle.
Her mother was a Catlow, and a Methodist. Since Ossy had a much smaller population then, and my family were also Methodists and mill workers, some involved with the local Labour party, I'm even more fascinated by her story, especially if she was known by any of my relatives.
I'm off now to research the provenance of my 1920's dining table and chairs, which was given to me by some Ossy Catlows who were Methodists, and who were of a similar age, and to check old sunday school photographs we have when her mother would have been attending in the 1890's.
