Sister Suffragette

Image source

This Friday just past (14 June) marked the hundredth anniversary of the memorial service for Emily Wilding Davison, the Suffragette who died from injuries sustained when she was run down by the king's horse at the Epsom Derby in 1913. She is also known for having hidden out in the Houses of Parliament on census night in 1911, so that she could be recorded as the sole occupant.

The census record for 1911, showing Emily Davidson [sic] occupying Westminster Hall
 (Image source)

In commemoration of the anniversary of her death, there has been a festival of arts and music running over the past few days at St George, Bloomsbury, which is where her funeral took place. Sadly, I wasn't able to make it to any of the events - I had been particularly looking forward to the Suffragettes parade on Saturday morning but, alas, I couldn't get there in the end.

However, I at least made it to the church service this morning. And naturally, I took the chance to dress appropriately. The colours adopted by the Women's Social and Political Union were purple, green and white - purple for dignity, green for hope, and white for purity. (What purity has to do with why women should have suffrage is beyond me, and slightly riles me, I must confess. It suggests that women should be allowed to vote because they are 'good', which just perpetuates sexist ideas, if you ask me. But that's an aside and I'm just going to view it as an indicator of a different time and let it lie...)

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So, for church today I adopted purple, green, and a touch of white, in recognition of our predecessors who secured women's right to vote in this country. I personally look more like a sweet little angel in this photo than a soldier in a petticoat but there you go...

And I will leave you with Mary Poppins and the first I ever heard of the Suffragettes.

Our daughters' daughters will adore us, 

and they'll sing in grateful chorus,

'Well done, sister Suffragette!'

Chap Olympiad 2012 - The Countdown Begins

Swooning at the 2011 Olympiad

Yes, tickets for THE best day out in the London calendar have now gone on sale. Or, more correctly, the best TWO days, as the Chap Olympiad is running over a whole weekend this time - Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th July.

I've already rounded up a wee gang and purchased tickets. Rather weakly, we're just going for the Saturday rather than two days but that just means there'll be no need to preserve our energies and we can have a one concentrated, decadent, fabulous day with Sunday left over to recover. Although this time, I will try not to send my camera swimming in Pimms...

So if you're in London or nearby and you'll be there on the Saturday, come say hello if you see me!

The Bricks of Bloomsbury

Not just mere bricks and mortar...

I noticed a building with a particularly striking array of bricks this afternoon whilst on my lunch-break. I'm studying part-time at the Architectural Association on Bedford Square, so am surrounded by streets of Georgian terraces every Friday when I go in for class. Although uniform in some respects, the more you look at them, the more you realise there are so many subtle differences to the buildings of Bloomsbury.

One of those differences is the materials of the facades. Obviously, some terraces are stuccoed, some are brick, and there are masonry buildings as well, when you get away from the terraces.

But how can you say just "brick" when you get such a variety of colours - within one building, on neighbouring buildings, on later additions and alterations, and in the details around windows and doors.

So I decided to take some photos and make this subject into a post. I thought to myself, "I can maybe get three or four shots, that will be enough to illustrate my point". But once I started, I couldn't stop! I kept seeing so many different colours and arrangements. It was intoxicating and addictive...