First published in 2011 by HammerOn Press [email protected] www.hammeronpress.net

© Deborah M. Withers

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-9564507-1-5

FEMINISM IN BRISTOL 1973–1975

collected by DEBORAH M. WITHERS Contents

3 The Beginning of the 64 The National Women’s Project Liberation Conference, Bristol 8 Sour Faced Feminists by Jane Mornement 68 Humour and Disruption 10 Sistershow by Helen Taylor 69 Bristol Women’s Centre 12 Sistershow: My Immortality 70 Women’s House Project by Alison Rook 71 Music and Sistershow 17 Sistershow 74 Sistershow Bedminster and 28 History of Bristol Feminism Class Politics 1969-1974 77 Punk theatre 20 Social and Political History 81 Sistershow Edinburgh of 1970s 82 Sistershow: The Woman 21 Feminist and Alternative Machine Theatre in the Early 1970s 86 Conflicts in Sistershow 23 The First Sistershow (Bower Ashton) 89 Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques’ Tape Slide 24 Miss Women’s Liberation 1973 91 Contraception, the Pill and the Women’s Abortion 28 Challenging Stereotypes of and Contraception the Humour-less Feminist Campaign 29 Jackie Thrupp (1941-1991) 94 Improvising Sistershow 32 Pat VT West (1938-2008) 97 Family Allowances 35 My friend Pat by Ros Campaign Beauhill 98 Wages for Housework 38 Enough by Tessa Cole 99 Working Women’s Charter 42 Domesticity and Gendered 100 The Impact of Sistershow work on People’s Lives 63 Gay Women’s Group 101 Where are they now? Endnotes Acknowledgements BEGINNINGS 3

Sistershow Revisited

The beginning of the project*

I’ve often been asked how I found out about Sistershow. I suppose it found me. It leapt, in fact, off the page of oral history summaries that were conducted by the Feminist Archive South (FAS) in 2000/1. I was reading Pat VT West’s story in the old archive at Trinity Road Library back in 2007, and her tale of an anarchic, feminist cabaret with an ‘anything goes’ attitude demanded my attention. It strongly resonated with the type of cultural feminist and queer activism I was doing at the time.

I was delighted. Were there really feminists in the 1970s doing such things? Hadn’t we been told by universities and the media since the 1980s that the successes of ‘Second Wave’ feminism boiled down to unsophisticated theory and miserable women bartering for equality with men, which they hadn’t, in fact, achieved?1 I had never believed this limited story, but here was the evidence, screaming at me from the page. Creativity, imagination, disruption, gender bending... I knew straight away that this was one of the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM)’s best kept secrets.

I asked Jane, the volunteer archivist at the FAS, if she had a contact for Pat. “Pat has been unwell,” she said, adding “Cancer”, as she gave me Pat’s postal address. Undeterred, I wrote to Pat asking her to perform at an event I was organising. A few weeks later I had a reply. I opened the letter to find Pat’s elegant, artistic handwriting, those broad strokes curling seductively

* All text written by Deborah M. Withers unless otherwise stated 4 5

on the page. But the news was not good. Pat was indeed unwell and could not accept my invitation. She seemed very pleased I had got in touch, though, and offered her support: “Remember, outrageous but considered actions help boost morale as well as to change things by making an impact!”2 The underlying mischief of her letter spirited me along.

In August 2008, I moved to Bristol. When I had settled, I thought I would seek out Pat and ask her about Sistershow. But it was too late. Pat had died a few months earlier. I felt a disappointment that has never left me throughout the whole time I have been researching Sistershow, although recently I have begun to think that if Pat were alive, she may have interfered so the exhibition would reflect her side of the story! But maybe this is unfair. That disappointment led me to contact other women who were involved in the show, first Helen Taylor and then Alison Rook.

I visited Alison in Canterbury after Christmas 2008. My mother was nervous about me going. “What if she locks you in the cupboard!” she said. I assured her it would be fine. I stayed with Alison and her cats for two days, and she shared her memories of the group and her life. I would also meet Jill Robin, another Sistershow member, who had conveniently migrated to Kent around the same time as Alison. Before I left, Alison handed me the Sistershow archive that she had created. And she had kept everything. From the scrappiest of notes to the Sistershow songbook, decorously illustrated with handwritten chords above the lyrics. I thought Alison’s archive was the perfect starting point for an exhibition, and I kept the idea in the back of my mind until there was an opportunity to make it happen. 6 7

The idea for the project evolved. Sistershow could be used to help tell the being involved in the group, yet are often factually unreliable. A lot is left story of Bristol feminism from 1973 to 1975, and the exhibition developed to the resourcefulness of the imagination to piece together what took place. along this theme. But why those years in particular, when Bristol feminist This is really no bad thing, though. The invitation to use the imagination is history has a rich tradition that stretches far beyond (and before) those why Sistershow remains an engaging challenge for present-day audiences. three, meaningful years? Partly it has to do with Sistershow. Simply, 1973- In September 2010, Sistershow Revisited was awarded a £10,000 grant 1975 was the time when women were working together. After 1975, from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Further research then began in earnest. momentum seemed to lessen and the group dispersed and went on to do Since then, 10 more oral histories have been collected, and even more other things. archival material has been donated.3 Volunteers have helped transcribe It is also a historically convenient period, because a lot of feminist actions and interpret the oral histories and have conducted further research into were happening in Bristol in those three years. If we take 1973 as an the history of Bristol Women’s Liberation at the Feminist Archive South. As example, the Women’s Centre opened in the basement of Ellen Malos’ in the early 1970s in Bristol, 40 years later the antics of Sistershow have house in Redland, the national Women’s Liberation Conference took inspired feminists. place in Bristol at Student’s Union building, and the first meetings of the Sistershow Revisited demonstrates what feminists in Bristol were thinking Women’s House Project (later Women’s Aid) happened. There was an and doing in the early 1970s… and what they were doing was far from incredible diversity of feminist activities in Bristol at that time – crowned by monolithic. The material in this exhibition provides compelling evidence the presence of guerrilla performances from Sistershow – which arguably that will help us reconsider how we think about the feminist past. mark 1973-1975 as the zenith of Bristol Women’s Liberation. “Women’s liberation is not a collection of serious frumps”, Sistershow Reconstructing Sistershow has not been easy. Photos have been lost, proclaimed.4 Women’s liberation can be laughed at. The work of this most notably and infuriatingly by the BBC. They were going to feature project is to ensure this innovative moment of Women’s Liberation Sistershow in a programme about the alternative arts, but this never history is not forgotten. Through the exhibition and the blog (http:// materialised. Many of the images that do remain have deteriorated badly sistershowrevisited.wordpress.com), we hope this will be an enduring over time. There is no audio or audio-visual material of performances. It’s legacy. hard to know for sure what the women did on stage because there are so few scripts. Oral recollections of Sistershow members have been wonderful for communicating the unquestionably powerful emotional memories of Dr Deborah M Withers, May 2011 8 9

“Sour-Faced Feminists”: Debunking the Dungaree Myth This is fantastic, but we must remember we wouldn’t be where we are now by Jane Mornement without the work done in the past. Yet women are mysteriously excluded from history lessons. As Ellen observes: “Growing up, I didn’t know the Will feminists ever be able to shake off the stereotype that we’re dungaree- differences between the suffragettes and suffragists. That notion of a wearing, ugly spinsters? Sadly, I doubt it, but at least we can laugh at it. specific group of raucous, humourless women was what I grew up with. It’s Yet, thankfully, none of the Bristol feminists I know are anything like that what young women grow up with now.” This is critical to how we came to grim description – one generated by a patriarchal media desperate to paint be here today, and where we need to go. Unless the positive experiences feminists as unfeminine creatures that no ‘nice girls’ would ever want to of feminism are visible, there’s a risk potential campaigners will be put off be. by stereotypes… and patriarchy will win. While transcribing the interviews of the vibrant people involved with We need to override the myth that to be a feminist you must be an ugly, Sistershow, what repeatedly came out was the passion and sassiness joyless, frigid lump. It’s never been true. Bristol feminists wouldn’t be able they shared. Not least from Ellen Malos, who says: “If you were open to fight patriarchy and weather the relentless abuse if they didn’t have to it, feminism took the whole of your life. It was exciting, exhilarating, passion, guts and humour. Ladyfest celebrates creative women, Reclaim exhausting. It was an extraordinary time.” While she is talking about 40 the Night unites women to positive effect, the list goes on. It’s not all years ago, it’s easy to apply this to feminist activity right now. council meetings, petitions and trawling through policies. The media tells women how empowered we are at home and work, while If we are everything we’ve been called in the local press recently, then hinting we could use a bit of plastic surgery to be more attractive to men. there are thousands of “fatuous”, “hypocritical”, “ranting”, “sneering”, But hang on, it’s 2011 and – never mind unnaturally spherical breasts – the “spitting”, “rude”, “bulldozers”, “offensive”, “puritanical” and, my personal government is unpicking the headway made in the 1970s and equality is favourite, “sour-faced” people in our city. But these adjectives bear no STILL an illusion. resemblance to the beautiful, intelligent, witty and sassy feminists of Thankfully, in 2011 as in the 1970s, Bristol is a hotspot of activism. Bristol Bristol. As Alison Rook says, it’s useful for misogynists to portray feminists Fawcett is a force to be reckoned with, working to close the gender gap. as “women in dungarees and no make-up … because no one would want Bristol Feminist Network co-ordinates the local arm of national events such to join them”. as Reclaim the Night and Ladyfest. And don’t forget the award-winning It’s wonderful that Sistershow celebrated women poking fun at themselves, Bristol University Feminist Society, or the thousands of individuals who and having a riot raising consciousness. None of today’s activism would be make up these groups. what it is without the foundations laid by the previous waves, so I take my double-crowned hat off to them. 10 11

Sistershow The show was a fairly anarchic mixture unlike anything anyone had ever by Helen Taylor seen in Bristol. Jackie’s son cross-dressed as Shirley Temple and sang ‘Animal Crackers’ to bring the house down. The climax involved a dance in Sistershow started out as a modest twinkle in a few women’s eyes, spilled a huge Sistershow T-shirt with about ten heads: a symbolic celebration of out into a college theatre space, and finished as a riotous celebration of the power of sisterhood – a word we used unashamedly in the 1970s. We womanpower. It caused a considerable stir, hit the local TV headlines, and euphoric performers were buoyed up by the enthusiasm of our very mixed turned away dozens of disappointed people at the door. audiences. For me, it was so much more fun than campaign organising, The newly-established Bristol Polytechnic, where I began my academic and it felt so good having a sober institutional space – in which I had a career in 1972, combined a technical college, college of commerce, and respectable day job – invigorated with feminist wildness and waywardness. art and design school. When two other women and I were appointed, there The Polytechnic Director got wind of the subversive quality of the show, was no female toilet in our building – women had never held posts there and wrote to my Head of Department threatening not to pay the full before. There were small budgets for events at the art college’s theatre, and budget. He had expected ‘professional performances’ and now realised while my male colleagues proposed chamber concerts, I suggested they he’d been subsidising a bunch of dangerous female amateurs strutting their allow me to produce an all-women’s show. stuff (he didn’t put it quite like that, but that was the gist). To his credit, my Little did they know what they had unleashed. Bristol was then awash conservative, bewildered (male) Head supported me and they paid up in with amazingly creative women – poets such as Pat van Twest (later Pat VT the end. West), performance artists such as Jackie Thrupp, painters (Beverley Skinner Trying to organise everyone and produce such a complex show with so and Monica Sjöo), and activists in education and the arts – who seized on many women who had little patience with building restrictions and porters’ the opportunity to use a fine performance space to demonstrate feminist timetables put years on me, and I was heartily relieved it all passed off creativity and power. The two nights of Sistershow were an amalgam of without utter chaos or tragedy. I went on to other things, but I’m glad readings, parodies, sketches and songs, with the theatre surrounded by that Sistershow had an afterlife in two or three more performances. It is women’s artworks, images of women in the media, nappies pegged onto tragic that so many of the most innovative women in the show are now a washing line, campaign posters from the Contraception and Abortion dead. I’m therefore delighted to see a brave new generation of feminists group, and feminist propaganda. We dazzled with brilliant costumes, commemorating that vibrant moment in Bristol Women’s Liberation striking sets and fine performances, challenging anyone to dismiss Movement’s finest years. ‘women’s libbers’ as humourless and dry. 12 13

some dope and Newcastle Brown ale, my drug of choice at the Sistershow, My Immortality time. by Alison Rook Actually doing the show was so scary. Backstage were jazz singer It was very exciting to be in Sistershow in the 1970s in Bristol. I had Tramp and Sapphire, our male bride. The time whizzed by, with the gone back to the city in 1972 after living in Liverpool. I didn’t know audience whooping and screaming with delight at each new joke. It anyone in Bristol, but heard somehow that women in the Womens’ was a huge success and we were weak with triumph at the end. Liberation Movement met once a month at a pub off Gloucester We went on to do some more shows. I do miss it; amateur Road, the Olde England. So I went off there and met them in an dramatics is not the same…. I’m really glad to have this chance to upstairs room at the pub. There was a huge amount of chatting help share this herstory with other women. And it’s my immortality. going on and I agreed to be stage manager for the first Sistershow. I had done a bit of theatre stuff with Unity Theatre in Liverpool and always liked drama. A group of women had got together to use another way to get our message across, by a drama show that we devised ourselves. Pat Van Twest and Jackie Thrupp were the main movers, and Helen Taylor directed the show and got us a hall at Bower Ashton, part of the Art College, to stage it. I think we had rehearsals about once a week, and ideas for items in the show came all the time. We discussed them, and whether they were practical and got together music, props and costumes. We all mucked in together doing the jobs. An actress called Julian (from Bristol Old Vic) came and gave us workshops in movement and how to learn to trust each other on stage. Carmen Davies and others did sound and lights at the Womens’ Liberation Conference in the Student Union Building in 1973 and we practiced the Sistershow Hiss, a scary noise we used to let everyone know we were there. I remember A HISTORY OF FEMINISM IN BRISTOL 1973–75 16 17

Sistershow

Sistershow was a feminist theatre and arts group that used humour and mischief to mobilise social change. Women’s everyday experiences were the starting point for their sketches, most of which were improvised. They didn’t use scripts because they worried about forgetting the words on stage. Contemporary stories about women’s experiences also needed to be quickly invented. Unruly and anarchic, disorganised and confrontational, Sistershow used theatre as a strategy to raise feminist consciousness, whether on the street or a more traditional stage. The group pushed boundaries and occupied the explosive point where art and politics meet. They had no one leader but activated audiences with their heady mixture of song-dance-drama-poetry-agitprop feminism.

Sistershow Revisited is this story, brought up to date for the 21st Century because we cannot afford to let those women’s histories be lost. As Alison Rook, a Sistershow member, said: “The saddest thing about Sistershow is, like every theatrical thing, it’s ephemeral. Once it’s over, it’s gone.”

From 1973-1975, Sistershow were as central to the Bristol WLM as the Family Allowances or Women’s Abortion and Contraception Campaign. Yet these supposedly serious aspects of feminist history are often the ones that get remembered, if indeed they are remembered at all.

It is hard to pin down how many Sistershow performances there were. This is because many of them took place spontaneously, leaving no trace 18 19

of pre-meditated intention or evidence they ever happened, similar to a edited and printed a collective journal called Enough; set up a Women’s contemporary flashmob. Centre that held pregnancy testing and later became an ad hoc women’s refuge; organised a large, national conference in July 1973; and, of course, “We’d often do a march and Jackie and Pat would turn up at the end and were engaged in political activities that encompassed the creative arts do a performance. I don’t think it was planned. If you saw it, you saw it. If and spread the message of Women’s Liberation throughout Bristol and the you didn’t, you didn’t” (Dale Wakefield). wider community. However, from the documents we do have, we can say with certainty that The Bristol feminist movement began in 1969. It evolved from the National these performances did, or like Sistershow Edinburgh, didn’t happen. Joint Action Campaign for Women’s Equal Rights, an equal pay campaign started by militant trade unionist women who had taken part in the Ford • Sistershow (Bower Ashton, 12 and 13 March 1973) • Sistershow Too (at the WLM conference, Bristol, 14 July sewing machinist strike at Dagenham from June-July 1968. The first Bristol 1973) meeting arranged for a coach to take women to attend the national protest • Sistershow Free (at the Almost Free Theatre, London 9 march that took place in London on 18 May 1969. The meeting was well December 1973) • Sistershow Bath (4 May 1974) supported by women’s organisations and trade unions. But unfortunately, • Sistershow: The Woman Machine (at the Winston Theatre, the promised coach never materialised. Bristol, 11 and 12 December 1974) • Sistershow Edinburgh, (August 1974 at the Edinburgh A second meeting followed, organised by Ellen Malos and Lee Cataldi. Fringe Festival, didn’t take place). The meeting was called for 7pm, but by 7.25pm no one had turned up. • The first Sistershow (Bower Ashton) Lee suggested that they go to the pub, but Ellen said: “Let’s wait five minutes.” Those five minutes were pivotal. At 7.30pm, Pat VT West and History of Bristol Feminism 1969-1974 Monica Sjoo arrived, both of whom were single mothers and wanted to do some campaigning. The meeting took place and the Bristol WLM was The activities of the Bristol WLM, like the wider UK movement it was part born. Another meeting followed the week after. It focused on the issue of of, were multiple. The group organised campaigns, such as the Women’s equal pay, work conditions and public campaigning. The following week Abortion and Contraception Campaign and the Family Allowance they would meet to allow more women to discuss their lives. Campaigns Campaign; held consciousness raising and theory discussion groups; did developed from these consciousness-raising sessions, and subsequent out-reach work with more conservative women’s organisations, such as the meetings alternated between these two types of gatherings. Felton Young Wives Club and the Bristol Coffee Pot Club; wrote, collated, 20 21

Women’s Liberation in Bristol began to grow. Eventually, it became Feminist and alternative theatre in the early 1970s incredibly complex. Groups would meet every night in somebody’s house, Women’s Liberation activists in the early 1970s were influenced by discussing a range of issues. In December 1972, there were 113 women on agitprop theatre. Sheila Rowbotham notes how “the convergence of the Bristol Women’s Liberation Group Address list; 144 in January 1974; personal life and politics in the Women’s Liberation Movement brought and 200 by January 1976. new themes into women’s theatre”.5

Agitprop, which is a combination of the words ‘agitation’ and Social and political history of 1970s ‘propaganda’, was a theatrical method used to explore political issues and Historians often remember the early 1970s in Britain as a time of intense themes. It could be performed anywhere – on the street, stage, in workers’ social, political and economic crisis. It was the time when “the lights went canteens, or used as a warm-up for political meetings. It was also known as out”, as miners went on strike for better pay, leading to mass fuel shortages a revue: a form of theatre that includes sketches, cabaret, songs and dance. and the three-day week. The economy went into a severe recession with In the early 1970s, the theatrical Gay Liberation Movement influenced unemployment rising to 1 million in 1972, a modest figure by today’s Women’s Liberationists. For example, the Women’s Street Theatre Group standards (2.5 million in January 2011). Women had greater control over and Gay Street Theatre Group joined up to protest the annual and national their fertility, because modifications to the 1967 Family Planning Act stated Miss World contest, which was famously disrupted before millions of TV that the Pill could be offered to all unmarried women. Conflict raged in viewers in 1970. The Women’s Street Theatre Group would later perform Northern Ireland as communities were torn apart by continuous violence. the play Sugar and Spice in Trafalgar Square, London, after the first It was the time of the permissive society; popular pornography and topless National Women’s Liberation March on International Women’s Day 1971. Page 3 models became household names. Race relations continued to be Their performance paraded giant sanitary towels and deodorant cans, volatile as new laws curbed post-war immigration to Britain. It was also presenting what theatre historian Susan Croft describes as a “grotesque a time when many women began to question their purpose in life and enlargement and mockery of feminine stereotypes”.6 worked together to transform their opportunities. Sistershow should also be seen in the context of other alternative theatre in the 1960s and 1970s. It was a time when there was an “overflowing of surreal creative energy which engaged very directly with the public”.7 22 23

The first Sistershow (Bower Ashton)

The first Sistershow took place on 12 and 13 March 1973. It is the most well documented and well-attended Sistershow event. Approximately 600- 1,000 people saw it over two nights, with 300-500 being turned away due to fire regulations. “’Let them all in - I want them spilling out of the aisles,’ screamed Beverly Skinner (they were already),” Helen Taylor remarked in Enough.8

Dominic Thrupp, son of Jackie Thrupp, remembers: “The atmosphere was really good, really fun. I remember it being packed out and people not being able to get in, it was really well received, something quite special as an event.”

The show had favourable media coverage, too, with publicity from the Bristol Evening Post, Radio Bristol, BBC and HTV television, among others.

The first Sistershow was held at Bristol Polytechnic’s Faculty of Art and Design Theatre, Bower Ashton (now renamed as the University of the West of England). There was a free bus that took people to and from the city centre on both nights, making it easier for audiences to attend. The handbill described the night as:

entertainment with a difference. It’s the first show ever to appear in Bristol produced, presented and acted by women – even if we did have a little help from our male friends. Enjoy an extravaganza of feminist music, songs, dance, paintings, theatre – and surprises. Come prepared to be entertained, amused and startled – and see what Women’s Liberation means to us.

24 25

The first Sistershow was much more than a straightforward show. It was then “Tramp sang the blues and spat beer in Joplin-esque fashion at a a total feminist experience, fusing art, entertainment and information. In cheering audience”11 Pat VT West’s play about marriage was followed by the art gallery adjoining the theatre, Monica Sjoo and Beverly Skinner her poetry. Jackie’s 8 year-old son Dominic performed in drag as Shirley displayed their paintings that were celebrating women’s mystical power Temple miming to the song Animal Crackers. The crowning moment of the and strength. About both performance nights, Helen Taylor recalls: show was the Miss Women’s Liberation Contest, which subverted the idea of traditional beauty contests, before the whole group came together in a the hall was lined with a book stall of feminist literature, an large, 10-headed t-shirt to rapturous applause from the audience. abortion and contraception display, pregnancy testing kits and exhibition of Victorian/art nouveau pictures, books and Reviews of the show give us some indication of what it was like to see knick-knacks about women’s roles. The walls were adorned the first Sistershow. Liz Richards of the Bristol Evening Post said it was a with collages of adverts aimed at women and a washing-line “mixture of the good and not so good. The show is not to everyone’s taste laden with nappies. It was clearly more than a show; we were 12 bombarding our audiences with a slice of women’s lives and but is certainly an experience”. Considering that Helen Taylor noted that women’s thoughts, women’s frustration and our impatience “most of the women had never appeared on a stage before” and ‘”this with our lot. was the first venture we’d done on our own, without the usual reassuring The space was coloured by “continuous intermittent happenings” including males with their experience, know-how and feigned confidence”13, the “women washing up, hanging clothes on line across the theatre”, life-size lack of “quality” can hardly be surprising. Yet it is not hard to see - from the puppets and tape slides that were used to present images. The content of evidence left behind from the first Sistershow performance - the excitement the show was just as varied. The skit Holy Padlock used a dummy bride it generated among participants and audiences. to show the lack of choice women have in marriage. This theme was The show undoubtedly had an impact on officials at Bristol Polytechnic. continued with Bored Housewife, a series of poems read by Jill Robin. The They were so shocked about what happened during the performances Fantasies of a Conservative Lady, performed by Jackie Thrupp, explored that they threatened to retract the £120 (worth about £1165 today) they the repressed desires of ‘un-liberated’ women. Sammi Brown Singing the had initially promised to fund the show. They argued that Sistershow had 9 Blues was described by the Bristol Evening Post as “really super”. Another contravened the conditions of the Polytechnic’s Concerts Fund that was Incredible, Outrageous Year saw Pat and Jackie “camping it up”, while set up to bring “professional artists of high calibre to the Polytechnic”. Beverly Skinner’s poetry allegedly went on for too long, Pat remembered Faced with the feminist amateur dramatics of Sistershow, they stressed that 10 that she cleared the room. “under no circumstances could this be seen as an event sponsored by the Following this, there was a dance drama called Woman as Goddess and Polytechnic”.14 In June 1973, after three months of intense debate, Helen 26 27

Taylor, who was a Lecturer at the Polytechnic and had been responsible pageant held in Atlantic City, New Jersey using guerilla theatre actions that for raising the funds and finding the venue, was finally paid the remaining crowned a live sheep Miss. America. balance of £70. While the largely white women’s movements saw beauty pageants as In her many written reflections after the show, Helen Taylor asked: “Was demeaning to women, in the early 1960s Claudia Jones, who was the it a show of sisters; of sisterhood?” She answered her question, somewhat founder of the Notting Hill Carnival, London, organised all-black beauty sardonically: “Well, we’re all on speaking and laughing terms, which can’t pageants for women. She declared the need “at a time where beauty was be bad.”15 It seems the personality clashes and lack of formal organisational only seen in blonde hair and blue eyes, to show black people that they structure took its toll on Helen Taylor as well as some of the other people were beautiful and, more importantly, were ‘allowed‘ to be beautiful”.17 in the group. She also lamented the fact that men were relied upon to In Sistershow’s ‘Miss Women’s Liberation’ skit, the women made no effort deal with the technical aspects of the production, such as the lighting and to look beautiful. The script said: “We have the five finalists now, picked sound. Ultimately, she concluded: “Women are never going to liberate from 297 separate contests between you liberated women. And what a job themselves or others until we are prepared to make far greater imaginative we had. So little to choose between them, ladies and gentleman… no one leaps, painful and frightening as they may be.”16 wants any of them...” Despite its unquestionable difficulties, Sistershow did continue after The contestants were Miss Australia, Ellen Malos – last year’s winner; the Bower Ashton performance, although it was never to achieve such Monica Sjoo – Miss Sweden WL; Jill Robin – Miss Bishopston; Jackie widespread success or notoriety again. Thrupp – Miss Ridiculous; Pat VT West – Miss Lower Redland Road; and Sapphire – Miss Sapphire. Miss Women’s Liberation 1973 In the end, the show was stolen by Sapphire, a black man in extravagant One of the most popular pieces in the first Sistershow at Bower Ashton female drag. Sapphire remembers: “I came in very glammed up. It was set was the Miss Women’s Liberation Contest. It was a send-up of beauty up so I would win. The prize was a gold bra, lacquered and on a stand. At pageants that were used to parade women as sex objects while celebrating the time, the papers missed the joke of it all. It said ’Miss Sapphire stole narrow ideas of female beauty. In 1970, Women’s and Gay Liberationists the show and won the bra as Miss Women’s Lib’, so they totally missed the successfully joined forces to disrupt The Miss World contest at the Royal send up – they thought I won it outright.” Albert Hall, London, in front of a live TV audience. They made noise Phyl Chandler went on to say: “One reason the competition was using football rattles and threw flour bombs at the stage. In 1968 and memorable is because Sapphire was involved, and made a wonderful 1969, feminists in America had protested at the Miss America Beauty 28 29

contestant. It was about sending up the nonsensical business of beauty serious frumps, but a movement within which women can learn to laugh at contests, and it was very entertaining. People appreciated that. It had a themselves, as well as challenge the attitude of others towards them.” It is tremendous response. Sapphire was a very flamboyant performer and the clear from statements such as this that humour was a key political strategy perfect person for the show.” that was used to disrupt and unsettle traditions, both outside the movement and in the wider world. Challenging stereotypes of the humour-less feminist Jackie Thrupp (1941-1991) The idea that feminists are grumpy, humour-less killjoys will be familiar to everyone involved in feminist activism – regardless of what decade they Along with Pat VT West, Jackie Thrupp is seen as one of the main creative are living and campaigning in. “That notion of a specific group of raucous, forces behind Sistershow. Often, her friends remember Jackie’s exceptional humourless women was what I grew up with. It’s what young women grow artistic talent. Nell Dunn, author of popular novel Up The Junction, up with now,” Ellen Malos reflected on her memories of growing up in described her as “exotic”, “astonishingly courageous and open” and her native Australia with myths of the suffragettes. She goes on to say that “immensely creative”. Nell observed how Jackie often appeared “to live on these myths persist because “our view of ourselves has never really been nothing, yet was never drab or crushed”.19 publicised. What we get is another version of the general media view”. Jackie created what she called “interruptions”. Through art and street For women, who were so often the butt of the joke rather than the creator, theatre, she wanted to disrupt embedded social attitudes, such as sexism, Sistershow provided a refreshing challenge to stereotypes of womanhood homophobia and racism that were seen as natural parts of everyday life. in the 1970s. “It’s bad enough if there is a general attitude that women are Jackie grew up in Exeter and attended art school there in the 1960s. During stupid, but it’s worse if you’re told it’s only a joke and you have no sense of this time she met her husband John, and had two sons – Dominic and humour. Sistershow seemed a good way of countering that,” Lynn Houlton Jason: “We were very much of the 1960s, even John being a hairdresser remarked. was very trendy.”20 At art school she became influenced by agitprop and Further to this, the Sistershow women were reacting to the seriousness Dada, and would often create art scenarios that were surreal. For example, of the movement itself. “We are aware that Women’s Liberation can be Pat VT West recalled in her oral history the first time she met Jackie. Jackie laughed at,”18 declared the group in the Bristol Evening Post. Jackie and “had covered a hill in the harbour with polystyrene flowers, different Pat were fixated on resisting the highbrow, discussion-based aspects of coloured flowers, and looked very elegant wafting about. I asked her what the movement. In the March 1973 newsletter, the group stated: ‘”What they were for, and she said they were there for themselves!” Although Sistershow showed was that Women’s Liberation is not a collection of these artistic interruptions may seem to have no obvious point, they were 30 31

Pictures taken from Nell Dunn’s Living Like I Do, in which Jackie featured

intended to make people think and to shock them out of the ordinary.

Jackie had a flair for design – she was responsible for the iconic Sistershow poster for the Bower Ashton performance, as well as the poster for the Sistershow Souvenir Programme, which was couched in vaginal imagery. She also contributed illustrations to Enough. It is not known, but it seems likely, that Jackie was involved in the design of the Sistershow: The Woman Machine flyer because of its striking features.

In 1977, Jackie featured in a book of alternative life-stories, Living Like I Do, collected by the Nell Dunn. In the book, Jackie talked at length about the gendered power struggles in her marriage and how she was finding a certain amount of freedom in the uncharted territory of “gay women’s’ relationships”: ”I see the gay thing as part of my search for my own identity. It’s me as a woman carrying things out for myself – doing my own work, Sistershow souvenir programme - Jackie was a talented designer my own creativity… my politics are my creativity. Sexuality has been the issue for me, that we should be free as people.”21 32 33

In Nell Dunn’s book, Jackie described her creative practice: Berger’s lap. Jackie followed her, painting Pat’s body - an act that intended to claim woman as both object and creative, artistic subject. This had “My creativity and time is a woman’s statement. I am putting added meaning because Berger’s argued that in the history of art, women it up to be seen in performance, in shows, taking risks, I only appear as idealized objects of male desire. cannot wait, there is no choice. I bring everything I can to bear into the situation in which the statement is being made Pat and Jackie would often play with gender in their interruptions. In 1972, – writing, moving, pictures, sounds, film, bodies, clothes – they dressed up in drag and went to the Women’s Liberation Conference in whatever seems relevant. I want to see a balance, the growing of women’s culture, their own.”22 Acton. Because of the women-only policy, they were turned away! Later, they dressed up as French maids and attended a Women’s Institute lunch In the 1980s, Jackie left Bristol to live in America with her girlfriend, Anna. that the Bristol WLM had been invited to speak at. They fed each of the She settled in Scotsdale, Arizona, where she pursued a life-long interest women a spoonful of spaghetti letters and told them to ‘eat their words!’ in alternative spirituality. In 1991, Jackie returned to Bristol after being Their nuisance making sometimes irritated people, but probably because it diagnosed with cancer. She died in December 1991. demanded attention and was not focused on ‘serious’ political matters. Yet Jackie’s son Dominic remembers her fondly as someone “who did what Pat and Jackie continued and Sistershow evolved out of their actions. she felt she wanted to do. She was never afraid to conform and influenced Pat was a poet and a playwright, and she played an important role in people to do what they wanted to in their lives, it’s a wonderful legacy.” the early days of the Bristol WLM. Along with Monica Sjoo, she came up with the name for the groups’ magazine, Enough, to which she made Pat VT West (1938-2008) many contributions. Her involvement with Sistershow was short-lived,

Pat VT West is seen by many as one of the main creative forces behind however, and by the end of 1973 Pat had fallen out with the group because Sistershow. She met Jackie in 1970 and they would later collaborate to of personal disagreements. But she would continue using humour and wreak creative havoc on the emerging WLM, both in Bristol and beyond. performance as a political strategy throughout her life. Tired of talking about women’s liberation, Pat and Jackie’s interventions In 1974, Pat took her one-woman show, Lady Extreme Dreams, to the saw them move out of “dull meetings to use art to show what we meant”.23 Women’s Liberation Conference in Edinburgh. Later on, she conducted

One of the most famous interventions was at the Bath Literary Festival in an anti-nuclear protest at the Hinkley C enquiry in 1989, dressing up 1972. During a lecture by John Berger, who had taken the arts and literary as an old woman who was terrified of the consequences of living near world by storm with his now-seminal 1972 text and subsequent TV series a nuclear power station. In her oral interview with Viv Honeybourne in Ways of Seeing, Pat burst onto the stage naked and proceeded to sit on 2000, Pat said that “protesting as someone else gives you permission to say 34

something in an outrageous way”. pioneering life she led, and the thought-provoking, creative gifts of her legacy. Later in her life she did durational performances such as A Woman Imprisoned (1991), which was inspired by the story of Hetty Walwyn, who was locked in her house by her father in the 17th Century. Another My Friend Pat memorable performance was Min Ironing, which she performed as part by Ros Beauhill of the Totterdown Arts Trail in 2000. In this, Pat dressed up as a 1950s I knew nothing of Pat until Monica Sjoo encouraged her to join the small housewife called Mrs. Durable, who ironed clothes and told stories group of Bristol women engaged in organising a feminist aspect to the about her life over the course of a weekend. Pat also continued to do international Anarchist festival being planned for October ‘94 in London. performance poetry with the Riff Raff poetry group: Jeff Cloves and Dennis There was quite a tension between her and Monica, and I quickly noticed Gould. Pat’s abrasive manner and challenging, even confrontational, style. Throughout her life, Pat was a great facilitator of women’s creativity. In the Nevertheless, during that time Pat and I laid the foundations of a good 1980s, she ran a woman’s writing course, which led to the publication friendship. of The Dinner Lady and Other Women. She would teach creative writing The next stage of our association revealed a very different side to her for the rest of her life in Bristol and the South West. Pat set up and ran nature. William had just gone off to university and Pat came round to see the Poetry and Words tent at Glastonbury Festival, always making sure me in a state of great distress. She had convinced herself that he was gone there was a section of the programme that was only for women writers. forever and was somehow lost to her. It was almost impossible to reason Following a joint residency for Bristol City Council with fellow writer with her in her state of grief. Tea and sympathy, followed by distraction Rachel Bentham in 91-92, she set up a performance event for women poets were my offerings, but Pat showed me a neediness and vulnerability I’d called Rive Gauche. Later, they developed this into a publishing venture for not been aware of before, but which manifested again and again over the women’s writing. The first Rive Gauche anthology was published in 1997, years of our friendship. Of course, that Christmas William returned with followed by another, What She Also Did Was… in 2007. In 2010, Rive his music, general noise, dirty washing and own life with friends coming Gauche posthumously published the first ever collection of Pat’s poetry, It and going. Pat realised that not only was he still clearly in her life, but that Was Not and Never Would Be Enough & … she’d begun to enjoy the peace and quiet of the flat to herself, and could Pat is often remembered by friends for her difficult personality and was even feel irritated by the intruding whirlwind. (in) famous for constantly falling out with close friends. But despite For a year between March ‘95 and March ‘96 I was away from Bristol, her explosiveness, there can be no doubt of the unique, eccentric and travelling in Brazil and the Andes. During my journey I wrote a set of 36 37

poems in which Pat showed great interest when I returned. She had begun moved to the mountains of Alicante. She loved it there and came several her 2 year MA course in Feminist Performance Art and was busy with more times, even during her illness. We would usually manage a trip away visiting her mum in Eastbourne, who was finding it increasingly difficult from my house for a few days too. Pat loved to drive, a skill she gained to manage her life alone. Nevertheless, Pat never stopped writing poetry late in life and experienced as a great liberation, so we would always share and taking an interest in the work of others. She not only offered me the cost of a hired car, one time driving across Spain for many hours in advice and criticism but suggested that we should do a joint performance storming rain to Granada in the south, to visit the Alhambra. Her favourite of journey poetry, using my exploratory poems of South America in trip was to Teruel and the ancient Moorish town of Albarracin one autumn. search of my roots in the Amazon and hers of her recent meditations on I was visiting Pat when she first learned the gravity of her illness and was her relationship with her mother and her childhood in Eastbourne. We faced with making terrifying decisions about treatment. She loathed the planned to do this as part of Bristol Poetry Can Festival and we went idea of a hysterectomy for obvious reasons. During the years I knew her, ahead, booked a venue, planned the programme, made flyers and then had Pat frequently voiced the feeling that life was unfair to her and she certainly to cancel in the face of Pat’s Mum’s death and her increasingly impossible felt this about the ovarian cancer. However, she finally decided she could work load. trust the surgeon/consultant at St.Michael’s hospital and submitted herself Pat had put a huge amount of emotional energy as well as physical to his advice and the knife. strain into helping her mother cope with the difficulties of old age and Throughout her illness Pat never gave up her love of life. She refused to incapacity. After her Mum died she continued visiting Eastbourne regularly allow the cancer to define her. With the strong support of Rohan and and staying in the old family home while she sorted out her mother’s William she always took a lively and critical interest in her treatment and things. She found it very difficult letting go. felt lucky in her Redland location which afforded her such a good hospital During the late 1990s Pat had a full and busy life of poetry: writing, alongside all sorts of alternative support, including the Cancer Help Centre publishing, organising events, teaching and generally encouraging the and of course her many friends. She carefully maintained her good looks women of Bristol to write their own poetry. She also ran reading circles, and well groomed, statuesque bearing. Somehow her attitude helped her had a lively social life and tended her fully organic allotment and roof to look extraordinarily well much of the time too. garden. She did not enjoy the idea of preparing to die in any material sense, but For a year before I moved to Spain in 2000 I lived without my own home spiritually she entered more and more into realms opened by meditation and spent the first 3 months of that period in Pat’s spare bedroom. Our and her love of planet Earth. She gradually improved her relationship with friendship deepened and she was one of my first visitors when I finally Monica, who was also ill with cancer at this time. One day, only a couple 38 39

of weeks before Monica’s death at home, Pat and I took her in Pat’s little In the same interview, Pat also explained the thinking behind the journal car on her very last outing. Monica wanted to go up to the Sea Walls on and how it was a crucial space for women to explore their identities: the Downs. We all had 99 ice creams (soft with a chocolate flake) from “The language was given to feminism by us struggling to find the words the van, and then went on to a favourite chip shop to indulge another taste for it… It’s when you talked to people who weren’t in the movement you fancy. couldn’t find the words to get over the barrier to tell them what you were talking about. There weren’t articles in the paper you could point to. It was When Monica died it was Pat who gave the oration at her funeral, which something new. Finding a language for it.” she then adapted for her obituary in the Guardian. Each copy of Enough had a theme, such as the family or single Pat was exceptionally brave through those final years. Despite her well motherhood. Themes were addressed in a number of different, creative, documented faults and at times very difficult behaviour she still gave and ways, including articles, poems, drawings and personal accounts. In many received great love and loyalty from most of us involved in her life. Not of the copies of Enough, there was a preoccupation with the problems only a powerful, gifted, imaginative and demanding woman, but a very rooted in the institution of the family. There were frequent statements human humanbeing. like: “Women can only be liberated along with men and children when the institution of the bourgeois family is literally destroyed.”24 Often the Enough women who wrote for Enough were angry and frustrated, and this very by Tessa Cole much came across through reading each issue.

Enough was the name given to the journal of the Bristol Women’s The magazine was often haphazardly produced. Ellen Malos remembers: Liberation Group. It featured the ideology and arguments of the Bristol “The first one was thrown together. We didn’t have access to photocopiers, WLM and facilitated emerging feminists’ ideas by acting as a forum where it was done secretly at night in the education department at the university women could communicate their experiences. Enough ran for four years because someone’s husband worked there. My husband helped.” The in the early 1970s, publishing six editions. Despite this relatively short first copies of Enough are badly typed with frequent errors and are stapled lifespan, it represents the creativity, dynamism and motivation of the Bristol together somewhat erratically. In this way, Enough was very similar to WLM at this time. today’s low budget feminist zines. However, Enough evolved over time In Pat VT West’s oral interview she explained that Enough was not the and became increasingly sophisticated and better presented as the women original name. “It was Monica and I who chose the name Enough. I said learnt more about how to produce a magazine.

More Than Enough, and Monica said, ‘Let’s just call it Enough.” The language and tone of Enough varied from author to author. Many 40 41

women in the Bristol movement had a chance to contribute, including Sistershow participants such as Phyl Chandler, Jill Robin and Angela Rodaway. Like other feminist publications at the time, Enough put a great emphasis on group action, leftist discourses, creativity and relationships.

For example, one article ended: “Start the Liberation NOW by claiming the right to a complex interior psychology which demands satisfaction through creativity, through having difficult, delicate, fulfilling and above all enjoyable and emotional relationships with other women as well as with men, through shaping one’s life and if one does not like it, making the effort to change it.”25 Another defining feature of the magazine was the artwork and poetry it featured. This was a key component of the women’s movement that enabled women to find a political voice through creativity.

Enough folded in 1974 when the movement began putting more effort in to other projects such as the Women’s Centre and the Women’s House Project

Women of colour were under-represented (these will be discussed later in the catalogue). There was now not enough in the Bristol WLM, but this is a rare article collective energy to produce the magazine any longer. Although there were written by a Jamaican woman in Enough. The anonymous woman writes about efforts over the years to restart the magazine, they were never successful. surviving an abusive relationship and Despite this, Enough provides an interesting insight into the ideology, mental illness, buying her own house and moving on to better things. The illustration is emotions and motivations to the Bristol WLM in its earliest years. Copies of by Angela Rodaway, a Sistershow member. Enough are archived in the Feminist Archive South. 42 43 for Bristol Women’s Liberation groups. This reflects the demographic of women who were engaged in WLM activity in Bristol in the early 1970s.

Enough often contained creative explorations of the housewife’s condition. Domesticity and Gendered work These two poems are clear examples.

In 1963, American feminist Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. The book criticised the limited roles middle-class women had as What Did You Do Today, Dear, What Did You Do Today? homemakers and full-time mothers. In the book, the plight of the modern I’ve been nailing gentle tacks into my soft coffin housewife was famously described as “the problem that has no name”.26 sucking sweet dirt in an endless lust Women, often suffering in silence, were now given a language to describe, Hoovering, manoeuvring understand and critique their situation. The Feminine Mystique is often weird shrieks out of every room cited as a seminal feminist text that helped 1970s women raise their I pressed out life’s creases in your crumpled clothes consciousness and encourage them to demand more from their lives. spent two tangible hours with Jimmy Young washed sorrow down my gullet with a long, over-sweetened draught The exclusive focus on domesticity has, however, been criticised as a of song, white, middle-class luxury. ‘“You white women are fighting to get out of waited for a vision...... your homes, away from your television sets and your children, to work. when the telly goes wrong I don’t know what to do We black women are working our asses off so we can get back into our the children accuse me with their violent eyes for not being you homes, watch television and look after our children,”’27 is a quote from an everywhere I turn International Tribunal of Crimes Against Women Conference reported in I find dull unfinished beginnings The Guardian in 1976. of my mind The first issue of Enough asked the question, ‘the father-centred family: I’ve hung listless on an upturned spike REFUGE OR PRISON?’ and explored if women, men and children could waiting for the wind ever be liberated until the bourgeois, nuclear family was destroyed. the world turns in its own breeze I know nothing of your hurricanes and worldly tornadoes Conversely, Black28 feminists involved in the national WLM would argue my winds are zephyrs that the family could be a refuge for women who experienced racism on and zephyrs are not winds at all a day-to-day basis. K. K. Bhavani and Pratibha Parmar stated, “even the but promises nuclear family can provide a support for the people within it…[it] is a of embraces..... ‘shelter’ from the racism around us; somewhere we can, within certain YES, BUT WHAT DID YOU DO TODAY, DEAR, WHAT DID YOU 29 limits, discuss the situation of being black.” DO TODAY?

30 Challenging the limited roles for women in the home was a concern Pat VT West 44

wiping the table with a damp cloth she hit the pepper pot the glass pepper pot sent it spinning across the cleaned formica table top but caught it neatly in her left hand well before it hit the floor reflected, rinsing the cloth that anyway her reflexes were still good

a shame she only used them for catching cheap glass pepper pots somewhere between the clean table top Backstage and the polished floor

31 Elaine Evenleigh

Both of these poems comment on the lack of recognition for women’s work (“what did you do?”), and how women’s talents are wasted when confined to the home. Sistershow members gathered on College Green in a giant, ten-headed shirt. From left to right Jill Robin, unknown, Carmen Davies, Alison Rook, Pat VT West, Jackie Thrupp, Helen Taylor, Phyl Chandler, Lizzie Shah.

Posing for the Bristol Evening Post 48

Dominic Thrupp Rehearsing for the performance

The iconic Sistershow poster, designed by Jackie Thrupp The Sistershow women had style… Taken from Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques’ tape slide

These photographs of the first Sistershow in Bower Ashton have deteriorated over time. Taken from Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques’ tape slide

Ellen sitting on the bed vulnerable women and their families would sleep on in the Women’s Centre Taken from Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques’ tape slide Pat and Jackie posing for the Sistershow poster

Taken from Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques’ tape slide Ellen Malos in the Women’s Centre, 1973 Taken from Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques’ tape slide

Taken from Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques’ tape slide 61

Monica Sjoo and her paintings Taken from Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques’ tape slide 62 63

In Sistershow, critiques of domesticity inspired sketches like Impregnated Duster. Jill Robin remembers: “I totally was an Impregnated Duster, because I had lots of children. It was simplified but it was saying that’s all I was.”

Angela Rodaway further remembers: “I read in a women’s magazine about an impregnated duster. I still do it. You impregnate a duster with paraffin and vinegar. I read this article on stage and Jill Robin came on as an impregnated duster, very pregnant, with two brightly coloured feather dusters, and had a song she sang while being an impregnated duster.”

Gay Women’s Group

One of the groups who met regularly at the Women’s Centre was the Gay Women’s Group. They described themselves as gay women, rather than lesbians, because that word was not yet being used to describe homosexual women’s sexuality, with Lesbian coming into use later in the decade. The group produced the magazine Move, which, like Enough, contained political analysis, personal stories and creative writing.

The relationship between the Bristol WLM and the Gay Women’s Group wasn’t always easy. They questioned if “lesbians should first of all identify as women and align ourselves with the Women’s Movement – which is what we have done, or whether we should first of all identify with gay men in the male dominated gay movement (Campaign for Homosexual Equality, Gay Liberation Front etc)”.32

There would prove to be no easy answer to this question. The relationship between the WLM and gay women in Bristol could be tense because of 64 65

ingrained homophobic attitudes within heterosexual feminist women. or sexual coercion regardless of marital status; and an end to the laws, Nevertheless, gay women in the 1970s made important contributions to assumptions and institutions which perpetuate male dominance and advancing women’s rights and sexual freedoms, and often highlighted the aggression to women. intrinsic relationship between the two. The final demand was decided at the last National Conference in Birmingham in 1978, proposed by the Bristol-based Women’s Aid and The National Women’s Liberation Conference, Bristol Anti-Rape Groups. National conferences were a central part of the WLM. It was the space There were 10 national conferences throughout the 1970s, taking place where activists from the sprawling, de-centralised UK-wide movement in Oxford (1970), Skegness (1971) Manchester and London (1972), Bristol could meet and discuss campaigns, strategies and demands. (1973), Edinburgh (1974), Manchester (1975), Newcastle (1976), London At the second conference, which took place in Skegness in 1971, four (1977) and Birmingham (1978). demands of the WLM were decided. On 13-15 July 1973, the National Women’s Liberation conference came to 1 Equal pay Bristol. It was a massive undertaking. Ellen Malos describes her role in the conference: 2 Equal educational and job opportunities

3 Free contraception and abortion on demand I’d been involved for a long time in organising the previous 4 Free 24-hour nurseries conference, therefore I inherited an organisational role. We had many meetings, discussions, phone calls. One of the These demands were later joined by things was, because there was always unhappiness about certain activities not being catered for, we asked people to 5. Legal and financial independence for all women write in and ask us to provide space for whatever they were interested in. 6. The right to a self-defined sexuality. An end to discrimination against We ended up in the Students’ Union as nowhere else in lesbians Bristol could have accommodated all the activities. A quiet room, a place to do art activities, all sorts of things, it was These were passed at the National Women’s Liberation Conference in hugely varied. We needed a room for big assemblies as well. Edinburgh, 1974. It was a nightmare to organise. I don’t know if I went to anything at the conference apart from the big meetings! It was This was followed by a huge jamboree. I certainly didn’t get to go to Sistershow. Heaven knows what I was doing. 7 Freedom for all women from intimidation by the threat or use of violence 66 67

After the conference, a participant wrote to Ellen Malos to offer thanks for organising the event. “Dear Ellen, thank you and all the members of Like many of the WLM conferences, men were called upon to run the Bristol group for a wonderful conference. It was beautiful – especially the crèche. There were workshops on a wide variety of topics that ran Sistershow and the feelings it engendered.”33 throughout the day. These included radical feminism, women and religion, wages for housework, the family allowances campaign, women and technology, women in China, women in history, literature, women’s studies, women’s centres, family and capitalism, family and sexuality, women and racism, images of women in the media, women’s work and the unions, women and psychiatry, women in prison, men’s role in Women’s Liberation, an alternative to the family, women’s role in the family, women’s pensions, anti-discrimination, women’s newspapers, co-counselling, consciousness raising, women and Marxism, non-verbal communication, housing, group dynamics.

After a hard day debating a wide range of issues, there was evening entertainment provided by Sistershow. Phyl Chandler commented: “We had a lot of captive prisoners in the audience who were very much on our side. There was an extraordinary atmosphere. Everyone who was there knew exactly what we trying to get across, even though we were doing it in such a haphazard and messy way. They loved what we were doing. The atmosphere in the audience was one of real friendship and love. You could almost feel the warmth, and touch it like a wave of heat.”

Pat VT West described it in a slightly different way: “We did Sistershow at the Women’s Liberation Conference in Bristol. It was mind blowing. We had a huge audience of women from all over the country. It turned everyone on. It was wild. Women were making love on the dance floor. No Poster for the National Women’s Liberation Conference, men at all. The porters said they didn’t know what was going on.” Bristol 68 69

Humour and disruption 1970s. They provide positive evidence of Sistershow’s disruptive influence.

Sistershow, and Jackie and Pat in particular, prided themselves on their Bristol Women’s Centre unruliness. They wanted to wage war on the seriousness of the movement with guerrilla art tactics. Pat commented: ‘”We were very disruptive. We The first Women’s Centre in Bristol opened in 1973 in the basement of irritated people. But we were doing what we wanted.” They saw humour as Ellen Malos’ house in Redland, and the first Sistershow at Bower Ashton a political strategy, a means of transforming consciousness and, for a short was a fundraiser for it. Previously it had been run out of the Malos’ flat on time in 1973, their ideas shaped the tone and focus of local campaigns. In Apsley Road. To account for the growing need for a separate space for the the July 1973 newsletter, Sistershow informs readers that “Ellen is thinking Centre, Ellen and her husband decided to move into a place that could of renaming the Women’s Centre ‘The Women’s Centre for the Furthering easily host it. of Guerrilla Warfare’”. The Centre was a space for all kinds of activities and groups. The Gay In the pre-internet age, the Bristol Women’s Liberation Movement Women’s group, Wages for Housework, the Women’s Abortion and communicated mainly through a monthly newsletter. Often serious and Contraception Campaign all met there. Women’s Books distributed an focused, the May-June 1973 newsletter is satirical, teeming with exuberant ever-growing body of literature including books, pamphlets and magazines in-jokes but little actual news. Through humour the unnamed newsletter that explored Women’s Liberation issues. writers, who undoubtedly included members of Sistershow, critique the Another important role played by the Centre was that it hosted pregnancy implicit heterosexism of some campaigns: “We felt unable to join in the testing, run by the Women’s Abortion and Contraception Campaign. population group’s activity because we are campaigning for women’s right Although pregnancy tests were available from GPs in the early 1970s, to choose another woman, not for families to remain heterosexual as they many women didn’t want use the service because they felt doctors to be are.” At other times the tone is lighter: “Marilyn is looking for 230 women unsympathetic. It also took a week for results to come back, whereas with in bed so that she can sleep around during the conference. She welcomes pregnancy testing at the Women’s Centre, results were immediate. help especially in church halls where presumably the women will be There was huge demand for pregnancy testing. Women would queue Christian and too polite to refuse.” Later there is an important request in down the street until the Centre opened on Saturday mornings and bold capitals: “URGENT… MEN NEEDED FOR CRECHE… WE HAVE RUN Thursday evenings, when tests took place. The centre also offered informal OUT OF CHILDREN.” counselling to the women who came for tests. This included younger These types of interventions challenged the systematic, informative tone women who did not plan to get pregnant, as well as women who became that characterises the majority of Bristol WLM newsletters throughout the pregnant in later life. Women from diverse life situations used the service. 70 71

Later, the Centre would become a refuge for women who experienced In January 1974, former militant suffragette and the first woman to be made domestic violence. A bed that had been left in the basement by previous head of the Trades Council, Jessie Stephen (whose house on Chessel Street, tenants would soon become a resting place for vulnerable women and Bedminster, has a blue plaque outside it), lent her support to the project their families. The Samaritans and police often contacted the Women’s at a Trades Council Meeting. Despite this support from a well-respected Centre to see if they could help people who had been rejected by Social political figure, it turned out to be a frustrating year for the Women’s House Services. In the early 1970s, the seriousness of domestic abuse was not Project. Although various applications were made to the council, they recognised by local authorities and legislation. Women and children were unsuccessful in getting a property. who experienced domestic violence were more likely to re-enter abusive In May 1975, the group decided upon a new strategy. They would rent situations because there simply was nowhere else to go, aside from their cheap properties from private landlords, as well as the Bristol Housing families. Initiatives like the Bristol Women’s Centre and the growing department. First, they acquired a three-bedroom house in St Paul’s. By Women’s Aid movement were vital forms of protection for women. Later, May 1976, the group had more success. They had the use of five properties the Centre campaigned for separate premises because it became difficult to across the city, housing 14 families. The Women’s House Project was host vulnerable women and do pregnancy testing at the same time. now part of a regional network of Women’s Aid organisations with sister The Centre had to move from Redland in December 1975 because projects in Cardiff, Exeter, Weston-super-Mare and Bath. The Women’s the council became aware that it was based there without the correct House Project was the beginning of Women’s Aid in Bristol. licensing. It then moved to 59 Lower Union Street, Bristol and from that, The Grove. Music and Sistershow

Sistershow wasn’t just a straightforward play with a beginning, middle Women’s House Project and an end. It was done “in a revue style, with lots of separate items, From when it opened as an ad hoc refuge in July 1973 to January 1974, so everybody involved could potentially say what they wanted to say” the Women’s Centre accommodated 11 women, receiving 54 recorded (Alison Rook). Music was an important part of Sistershow’s oeuvre. “Two requests for help. The majority of women who contacted the centre were wonderful women who lived in Bristol, Chad and Alex, joined in with either pregnant or had dependent children. The demand for the service Sistershow 3 and wrote songs for us to all sing together. One of the most was so high that a new group, the Women’s House Project Group, was set precious things I have is a copy of this beautiful booklet with drawings, the up. They campaigned to get temporary accommodation from the Council, Sistershow songbook” (Alison Rook). women and children experiencing domestic abuse was the priority. Bencie Woll often played piano to accompany the songs. “I was not a great pianist, but was able to provide background piano for rehearsals and performances. … We just thought using music was a way of making what we were doing more attractive. It was something no one else was doing – musical stuff. Songs were about various sorts of women’s issues… there was a song called The Talking Contraceptive Blues. There was another to do with the suffragettes. We did perform on local radio once or twice. I heard recordings after and thought we sounded really bad!” 74 75

Lynn further remembers: “We did use music a lot. I did The Talking One of the popular clichés of the WLM is that it was a bunch of white, Contraceptive Blues when I was pregnant! We did another song, The middle-class women talking about being bored housewives. Like all Keeping the Red Tape, a song for social workers, sung to the tune of The clichés, it has some truth in it. The early 1970s feminist movement in Red Flag. Chad had written Ordinary Woman and Green and White and Bristol comprised mostly of white women, although some women of Purple and we used it in the street theatre. I would sing and play my guitar colour were involved from the beginning. And they did talk about being but I didn’t write anything.” housewives a lot.

Although there are no recordings of the Sistershow songs available, there All of the members of Sistershow – apart from Sapphire’s cameo in the first are chords and lyrics, so it is possible to gain an impression of what they performance at Bower Ashton – were white. During 1973-1975, there were sounded like. no groups specifically for women of colour in Bristol listed in the monthly Bristol WLM newsletter. It was not until the August 1977 newsletter, a

34 Sistershow Bedminster and Class Politics Black Women for Wages for Housework group was listed. As for being middle-class, Ellen Malos comments:

It depends what you mean by middle-class. All of the women involved in the movement had somehow been shaken loose from the conventional notions of what it meant to be a woman. The majority were not born in Bristol, which is important. It was much more based in the Redland/ Montpelier/Clifton area of the city than any other. But we did have women who worked in the Wills factories, one of whom was a shop steward. We had people involved in the Communist Party. I’ve got a working-class background. It’s not that notion of the established middle to upper-middle class at all.

We were not, largely speaking, students. We were mainly older women, often with children, who expected more out of life than the prescribed gender roles were offering. We had links with Trades Council, Labour Party, Community Party; all the left wing groups in Bristol. In that sense, it wasn’t an 76 77

isolated, naval gazing group of individual women who were Punk theatre interested only in their own lives. When people say middle- class, that’s kind of what they mean, isn’t it?

Part of the aim of Sistershow was to use theatre to communicate feminism to women who would be described, in today’s language, as hard-to-reach. Following their performance at Bower Ashton, the Sistershow women went to Bedminster to try and raise the feminist consciousness of working-class women in the city.

Alison Rook remembers the street performance: “There was a caravan parked outside one bit of the estate, and we all went along one Saturday afternoon with sound equipment. We did a bit of a show we’d done at Bower Ashton, we rehashed it, and did it for the audience in Bedminster. It rained so we did it in the mud.”

The rain and mud was not the only thing that went wrong that day. “We did fail miserably at going to working-class estates. They wondered who we were! How dare we, and questioning us. It was very much tough women, who’d brought up children on their own. And then we came drifting in!” (Jill Robin). Phyl added: “The women would have been suspicious, perhaps they saw us as freaks?”

Jill points out the arrogant attitude of the Sistershow women who assumed the cross-class relevance of their material. She said: “I don’t think our feminism reached everyone. It reached an audience who were tuned into it. It wouldn’t reach the women having a really tough life. It was middle- class and artistic class, and self-supporting in that way.” Sistershow’s controversial visual style 78 79

The Sistershow women were punk, before punk was punk. Dressing to “we have had-misses and hits – its raw-its from ourselves- stand out and interrupting the course of day-to-day life, the group used from wherever-we have been-no theatre school-or producer/ director-or manager-or anything male-except the odd tinkle- shock tactics so audiences would not forget what they saw. Sometimes they on the piano-for us-to sing-and dance – and show ourselves- even spat at their audiences, long before the Sex Pistols ever did. Angela encountering-each other-stand or fall – love and trust – that – Rodaway, who was the oldest member of Sistershow, said that spitting was grows and that’s not all – the journey from-this show-in each will go on-and overlap-or take over-our lives – sistershow Jackie Thrupp’s idea. “She wanted to do all sorts of outrageous things. She – sistershow – it hasn’t all been said – i take my sister – with – wanted us to spit at the audience. I objected and wouldn’t do it.” In the me when i get into bed” programme notes for Sistershow Free, Jackie’s Spit is listed as part of the Sistershow was not only on the stage, it was also a way of life. “Because performance. of the way we dressed and looked, people noticed us. We wore big hats Like all good punks, the Sistershow women had no director and refused when we wanted. It was the early 1970s, so some of those higher platform all leaders. “We didn’t want to be told what to do. Helen Taylor and shoes were coming into fashion. Furs, stoles, make-up; whatever we Ellen Malos had more academic and organised lives, were full of advice, wanted to do. We wanted to be seen. We wanted to be as flamboyant as but I don’t think we took much of it on board. Probably we would have possible to attract attention,” said Phyl Chandler. benefitted from it! Instead we carried on with our anarchic, chaotic ideas” The women adopted some of the fashion styles of the day. As social (Phyl Chandler). historian Dominic Sandbrook states, early 1970s fashion was “nostalgic, The resistance to being controlled was partly a reaction to the social escapist, elegant and camp…it always seemed to be the day before and economic situation of women at the time. “All the women I knew in yesterday, a world of elaborate art nouveau patterns, of muted, swirling Sistershow who were or had been married were sick of being told what to mulberries, browns, plums and purples, of impossible glamour and do by men. They were going to the other extreme” (Phyl Chandler). unspeakable decadence”.35

Later, the group did accept advice and assistance. In the May 1974 Bristol Sistershow women dressed in vintage clothes, evoking the nostalgia WLM newsletter, it states: “Sistershow is open again and they now have that Sandbrook describes, while creating a look that was unmistakably a manager”, while Jo Evans is thanked for her directorial assistance in the contemporary: “When people talk about vintage clothes now, we were Woman Machine programme. doing that then. But it was very easy. There were loads of people handing away vintage clothes. But the look mattered. The publicity had that visual The stream of consciousness poem by Jackie Thrupp below, which element. We thought: we’ve got to make this look good” (Jill Robin). accompanies the image above, communicates the Sistershow philosophy. 81

Letter from Birkenhead DaDa congratulating SIstershow on Sistershow Edinburgh their absence. “Edinburgh rose as the pinnacle, and we were advertised to go there but didn’t make it,” (Jill Robin).<<<

Programme for the challenge the male-dominated ethos of so-called alternative theatre. There Edinburgh Fringe were elaborate plans to travel to the Fringe, including taking a chartered Festival where flight that would sky-write feminist messages in the air. To fund the trip Sistershow were listed, but in the end, didn’t they would make a Sistershow rock, gain sponsorship from bra and tampon perform. manufacturers and, more mundanely, sell raffle tickets.

“It was a great idea to make it not just a Bristol thing, and put contemporary feminist performance into a wider context. We wanted to perform in the courtyard of a house but couldn’t get the fire people to agree to it. I printed off hundreds of badges saying ‘I feel like a new woman’ – we planned to give them away, but they languished under my bed for years. Half the people were relieved at not going to Edinburgh, the other half were disappointed. There was a fantasy of doing it without a permit, but it wasn’t going to happen that way” (Bencie Woll).

The group’s no-show did, however, make an impact. They still appeared in the programme and afterwards the Fringe received a letter from the Birkenhead Dada group who said: “There can be no doubt that Sistershow Too would have been the second most impressive item on the Fringe. Even your lamented non-appearance qualifies you for about third place.” 82 83

Sistershow: The Woman Machine

Sistershow: The Woman Machine Flyer

One of the final, scheduled Sistershows was The Woman Machine. Its title referred to “thrusting, moving forward and being powerful. It was meant to laugh at the idea of women as non-technical, the domestic image” (Bencie Woll).

Ideas for the show were produced, like much of the material for Sistershow, in improvisation workshops. The programme states: “The Woman Machine was created out of workshops in which various improvisation methods were used, including encounter-type situations, release of feelings in spontaneous energy-flow based on group dynamics and the individual. It 84 85

representing them in some way” Phyl commented. It also implies that the quality of the performances wasn’t always good. However, while “the performances were quite powerful, the material was weak. As we didn’t review, tighten up or edit it. We didn’t see what worked and what didn’t. We were self-indulgent” (Phyl Chandler). Angela Rodaway also said: “The trouble with most amateur drama is people think all you have to do is learn the words and stay on stage and speak them. The Sistershow wasn’t really any better than that. What we didn’t get was enough rehearsal of actual things.”

Sistershow: The Woman Machine contained The Rape Dance, a title that will no doubt be shocking to today’s audiences.

“It was not quite a rape scene, but I danced as a man with another woman. Moving between her legs all the time, chewing gum while I was dancing. It doesn’t sound funny now, but it was then. I heard someone in front laugh say, ‘He’s still chewing!’ And then I left her almost flat on stage. Pretty Postcard to Alison Rook sent to her by Sistershow members well devastated. It was presenting something that I think is serious but in a way that was humorous, so it was more acceptable. It showed what is sometimes contempt for women. But people liked it,” (Angela Rodaway). is, as a consequence, consciousness-raising with theatre as the framework Lynn suggests the rape dance was also used as a metaphor for “different and medium for women relating and exploring aspects of their sexuality.” types of rape. Mental, psychological, physical.” In the January 1975 Bristol WLM 1975 newsletter, it stated that “several The Woman Machine also contained a sketch based on Snow White and people at the organisation meeting had seen Sistershow Woman the Seven Dwarves. The work the dwarves were doing, this time, was Machine and had mixed reactions, some enthusiastic... it played to good prostitution. They sang: “’High ho, high ho, it’s off to home we go. We’ve audiences.” worked all day for a lousy pay. We’ve done our tricks, we’re tired of pricks, The above comment is suggestive of Sistershow’s popularity within Bristol. high ho, high ho.’ Then we were all the dwarves, Filthy and Pricey,” (Lynn “We did have a bit of a following among women who felt we were Houlton). 86 87

There was Tasks, a performance based on the Portuguese book Women on unhappy with how her strong personality dominated group dynamics. In Trial: New Portuguese Letters by The Three Marias. The book was based on what must have been a final letter to the group, Pat is defensive about the the love letters of a 17th Century, 16-year-old Portuguese nun. The authors criticisms levelled at her: reclaimed the letters while adding further material that The Guardian described as “highly erotic” because it included ‘”lesbian and incestual If my power is so formidable and my creativity so belittling, relations”.36 In January 1974, its authors were undergoing an obscenity my personality so outrageously warped and different from others in the group, if there simply was no room for me in trial for its supposed illicit content. Sistershow’s performance was part of Sistershow because I left no space for others to develop an outpouring of solidarity for the accused women throughout Europe and their talents, if in fact they were cramped and frightened America. by me, then I think very little of the mechanism we, as a revolutionary movement, have so far evolved to cope with Along with other sketches entitled Secretary and Tits and Female Bisexual such a situation.37 Song, the content of Woman Machine suggests a group preoccupied with Bencie Woll commented: “I remember Pat leaving. It was partly because sexuality and challenging all kinds of social and sexual taboos. of issues between her and Jackie. She was more serious than others, who saw it as a good time and a good social relationship with other women. Pat Conflicts in Sistershow was much clearer about what she thought should come out of it than other A popular cultural myth about feminism is that feminists often fall out women. She saw it as something with potential as a tool.” with each other. In its time, Sistershow had its fair share of conflict and Phyl Chandler remembers: “We wasted a lot of time arguing. There was a controversy. What were the factors behind the heated debates that were power struggle in the group. There was resentment towards those who tried part and parcel of the show? to take over. Pat argued with Angela and Jackie. I would argue with Jackie Given Pat VT West’s well-known explosive personality, it should come or Pat. We all argued with each other, because people would resent the as no surprise that at the end of 1973 she left the group in dramatic fact that other people weren’t giving as much time and attention as they circumstances. In her oral history, Pat said she “wanted Sistershow to should have been.” become more professional and work at its material more. Sistershow didn’t Part of the resentments about people taking over was because Sistershow want any of that. It started to be acrimonious.” modelled itself on the collectivist principles, characteristic of much early It seems that Pat had a lot of ambition for the show. In August 1973, Women’s Liberation organising. Practically, this meant there were no she booked a 1,000 capacity theatre for the Bristol 600 exhibition. But leaders and everyone had as much say as everybody else. “We all talked Sistershow never appeared at the event. People in the group were also at once. We all thought it was important that everyone had an equal voice. 88 89

We didn’t want to tell anyone to shut up. But we knew being democratic Sapphire commented: “Having their kids involved in the show made it meant everything took a long time as you had to give everyone a chance” different.” (Alison Rook). The mixture of strong personalities, experimental (yet well-intentioned) Helen Taylor talked about the anger that affected many group interactions. organising methods, and difficult personal lives meant that conflict was, “We were all angry and expressing it in different ways. Inevitably that in some senses, inevitable. Yet it only underlines the group’s achievements anger came out towards each other. There was a lot of jostling for power, more. and a lot of argument among us. I never accept the idea that women fight more than men. But I think it was because we were all in the early days of Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques’ tape slide trying to find a feminist voice. And often that voice was angry, because we were all sick of that patriarchal society.” In 1973 and 1974, Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques decided to embark on an innovative way of information sharing among feminist groups in Given that women in patriarchal societies are not encouraged to form Bristol. They stated: “It seems that the small weekly groups and specific sisterly bonds with women who weren’t, actually, their sisters, working campaign groups within Bristol Women’s Liberation don’t really know with a group of women would always be a learning process: “It was what the others are doing. Our only means of communication is through difficult to work as women together, and get to know how you work the newsletter which, though informative, can only give an outline of each together and how you relate to each other” (Jill Robin). group’s activities, and can suggest little of the feelings and experiences of Conflicts also arose from the fact that some women were mothers and the women involved.”38 others were not. Even if women were married they were still responsible Their answer to this problem was to create a tape-slide and audio for the majority of childcare. This meant that getting to practices, especially presentation that would be used in groups and on Radio Bristol’s Access if they were in the evening, was difficult. “Jill said to me very sharply, programme. They took photos of the Bristol Women’s Liberation activities ‘Look, I just put four children to bed.’ And there was nothing I could say to and asked women the following question: “What difference has the that. There were women who had to do all that domestic labour, and I was Women’s Liberation Movement made to you in your daily life, in your single and had no children, so if you work with women you have to realise relationships, your day-to-day routine, and your feelings about yourself as a that women have complicated lives. It was difficult, as a lot of women did woman, as well as your political awareness and activism?”39 have young children. It wasn’t easy for anybody,” (Helen Taylor). Jackie was also determined to include her children in Sistershow. In the first The digital version of the slide show and audio material provide Sistershow, her son Dominic performed, cross-dressing as Shirley Temple. compelling visual evidence of the WLM in Bristol in 1973 and 1974. This 90 91

Contraception, the Pill and the Women’s Abortion and has now been digitized as part of the Sistershow Revisited exhibition and is Contraception Campaign available from the Feminist Archive South. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of mass change in laws Some images from this presentation are included in the centrefold of this relating to contraception and birth control. The 1967 Family Planning catalogue. Act allowed local health authorities to offer contraception to unmarried people. This included the Pill: a form of contraception that enabled women to control their fertility for the first time in history.

The 1967 Abortion Act legalised abortion in Britain (but not Northern Ireland) if two registered doctors believed the pregnancy would involve risk to the woman’s life, or injury to her physical or mental health, if it included risk to her existing children, or if there was a substantial risk that the unborn child would be mentally or physically disabled.

Despite these important legislative changes, it did not always mean that women were able to access the services they needed. Because of persisting moral attitudes, doctors would often withhold information about the availability of contraception, or refused to endorse a woman’s abortion. Other factors, such as where people lived and how much money they had, affected service provision.

The Abortion Act remained under threat throughout the 1970s. James White’s Abortion (Amendment) Bill (1975) sought to make it more difficult Images of consciousness raising groups for women to have an abortion. It proposed that abortion would only take place if it caused a severe risk to a woman’s mental and physical life or existing children; that a doctor and his assistants would have to prove the legality of the abortion themselves (leading to five years in prison for the Doctor if convicted) and reduce the time limit for legal abortion to from 24 to 20 weeks. It also recommended that women from other countries 92 93

would have to be resident for 20 weeks in the UK before seeking an chap, and he produced this cartoon. We then ran into problems with the abortion - which effectively would make it impossible for such women to Obscene Publications Act, which contained a clause that would have obtain abortions in England. The amendment to the Act was successfully made this innocuous leaflet actionable. It could have been held to be resisted, due to the pressure of groups such as the Women’s Abortion and obscene as it was about sex and being issued in a public place.” Contraception Campaign.

The Women’s Abortion and Contraception Campaign was one of the most active groups in Bristol in the early 1970s. They stated: “We want the right to control our own fertility, and that means the right to have the children we want as well as the right not to have children.”40 Many of the women in the group had experience of unwanted pregnancy through failed contraception, back-street abortion, abortion on the NHS and privately, and pregnancies carried to full term because of refused abortions. Their slogan was “Every child a wanted child! Every mother a willing mother!” Their demands were as follows:

1 Free, safe and reliable contraception available to every woman on the NHS.

2 Abortion – a woman’s right to choose; any woman who is unwillingly pregnant should have the undisputed right to a free and safe abortion.

3 No forced sterilisation; pressure should not be put on any woman to The controversial cartoon leaflet that was distributed by accept sterilisation as a condition for abortion. the Women’s Abortion and Contraception Campaign.

The group, which was part of an international network of women The leaflet strongly stated that “you don’t have to be married – you don’t campaigning around fertility issues, did many things. Most notoriously, the have to have a steady boyfriend”41 to access contraception. It contained group produced a leaflet aimed specifically at young, unmarried women. useful contacts, including Women’s Liberation groups, as well as offering a Ellen Malos describes how they “handed it out at the Bristol Entertainment buddying system for women who were uncertain about attending a Brook Centre, where the skating rink is now. Somebody knew a cartoonist, a clinic (the place where you could get advice about contraception). 94 95

As well as the leaflet, the group held teach-ins and public meetings, protested against pro-life groups such as the Society for the Protection for the Unborn Child, made visits to Bristol Council and spoke to schools inspectors, secretaries of hospital boards, MPs and gynaecologists, and sold the pamphlet Women and Abortion.

Improvising Sistershow

“We were a bit frightened of scripts, as we thought we’d never remember all the lines” (Phyl Chandler).

If you wanted to reproduce a Sistershow performance, you’d have a pretty hard time. Apart from the Miss Women’s Liberation Contest, there are no scripts. There are fragments, minimal notes, instructions and performance items, but little description of what the women actually said or did on stage. It is hard to tell what the women were actually doing on stage from these cryptic notes. We can only glimpse what it must have been like from the little information that remains. “The man who works the Woman Machine. theatre but we weren’t aware that even improvised theatre needs structure. Machine as duplicator – Jackie gets in one end in dress – I come out You need things to be tightened up and organised. We were rather naïve the other in same dress. Aggression. Despair. Joy. Tension. Competition. in thinking everything would fall into place. If you haven’t put in the hard Cooperation, women handing object on a production line. To man – graft, it won’t be OK on the night.” supporting him”.42 It is hard to tell if these are instructions or ideas… or if The improvised Sistershow sketches may have arisen due to a lack of they ever happened at all. confidence in theatrical ability. But it also suggests the need for new forms We are left with so few scripts because much of the material was of creativity that helped to tell new stories about women’s experiences. improvised. Phyl Chandler, who today is easily Sistershow’s harshest Alison Rook remembers “the improvisation workshops, led by Julian performance critic, describes how they did it. “We thought up things on from the Bristol Old Vic. She worked with us on trust games and things, the spur of the moment, and then tried to include them. It was improvised so we were welded into a group and could do things together, and had 96 97

the courage to speak and express on the stage the horrible things that Family Allowances Campaign happened to us, and share them. It was empowering and therapeutic.” The process of creating Sistershow material was arguably as important as the The early 1970s bear many similarities to today. There were large cuts in product. public welfare, leading to mobilisations and protest. Feminists in Bristol, like many throughout the UK, campaigned against the abolition of Family The preference for improvisation meant there was always going to be room Allowances. for surprise. “Even in the group we were never sure what someone else would do. It could have been sabotage or just to provide more spark. That The Family Allowances Act of 1945 ensured that dependent children sums up what we were doing. It wasn’t just about getting on stage and under 15, those aged 15-18 and still in education, and older non-working doing Sistershow. They were interventions. It was always about surprising children over 15, were provided for by the state. Independent MP Eleanor people,” Phyl remembers. Rathbone played a key role in getting the bill through parliament. She was also insistent that the benefit be paid directly to the mother. In a culture Lynn recalls the discussions that took place in order to produce ideas for and legal system where women were reliant on their husband’s wage, sketches. “We’d talk around whatever subject had been suggested. Then often having no access to money of their own, this was key to maintaining we’d get a few bits of dialogue coming up, or an idea for how we could a semblance of financial independence. As one pamphlet stated: “Family use the group in terms of movement and who would be doing what, and Allowance is the only money to tide us over during strikes, unemployment, then have a go at it. We’d try out different things in small groups, maybe sickness, injury or the death of the wage earner. It’s the only money no one the whole lot of us, to see what happened.” can take away from us – EXCEPT THE GOVERNMENT.”43 On the sketches that were more fixed, Jill Robin remembers Menstrual Family Allowance campaigners often highlighted the low paid aspects of Cycling as “a class act. It was a bicycle hung with tampons, and a song women’s work, inside and outside the home. “Every day in the home, we to the tune of Daisy, Daisy. Nobody was doing work like that. It was women do hard work for no pay. If we go out to work, we do two jobs at brash.” Whether it was purely improvised or had a semblance of structure, low pay. All workers deserve a minimum weekly wage of £25, in the home Sistershow’s performances were done in an in-your-face style, even if they or out of it, regardless of sex or age.”44 Such a philosophy would inform weren’t always high quality, well organised or delivered. the thinking of groups like Wages for Housework, who demanded that women’s work in the home needed to be recognised and paid for by the state. 98 99

Although Child Benefits replaced Family Allowance in 1977, Rathbone’s Working Women’s Charter proposals for a universal allowance paid to the mother remain intact to this day. In 1969, women earned a staggering 70% less than men.

The Working Women’s Charter campaigned for better conditions of work, Wages for Housework pay, training opportunities, insurances and pensions, family allowances, maternity leave and all things that affected women in the workplace. The Wages for Housework were a transnational campaign group who group often campaigned in working class areas in Bristol. demanded that women were paid for the work they did as carers, home After the 1968 Ford Sewing Machinists strike, the Labour government keepers and mothers. Rather than promoting ‘Sisterhood’ as a way of passed the Equal Pay Act in 1970, which came into force on 29 December unifying the women’s movement, they focused on “what we internationally 1975. The law was designed to prohibit less favourable treatment between have in common as women – unwaged housework in huts, council houses men and women in terms of pay and conditions of employment, but and cottages in the suburbs.”45 employers often found ways of sidestepping the law. The fact that in 2011, Influenced by the political writings of Selma James, the group highlighted women working full-time in the UK are still paid on average 15.5% less class and racial inequalities between women and the role played by the per hour than men,47 demonstrates how the law has not been an effective state in maintaining widespread gendered oppression. way of enforcing gender equality in this area. Wages for Housework campaigned against managed immigration and birth control and drew attention to the issues faced by women globally. ‘In demanding abortion alone, the sterilisation forced upon many of us, all over the world, is ignored.’46

Wages for Housework are often remembered for their controversial strategies in histories of the WLM. Nevertheless, the group brought an important, anti-racist, transnational perspective to women’s activism in the 1970s. Wages for Housework remain active today. 100 101

The Impact of Sistershow on people’s lives Where are they now?

Sistershow, despite its conflicts and challenges, was a formative experience Maureen Chadwick went on to be a successful scriptwriter, and is most for the women who took part in it. Many maintained an interest in the notably the creator of the popular female prison drama show, Bad Girls. performing arts, whether at a grassroots or more professional level. These women describe how it influenced them: Beverly Skinner died of cancer in 1999. She described herself as “the daughter of the English Renaissance”. She was painting and writing up to “Sistershow gave a form of confidence that remains” (Jill Robin). her death. After she died, a large manuscript, The Paradise on Earth Project, “Nothing I’ve been involved in since has had the same power as being was found by her son. It was based on nearly 30 years of transcriptions involved in Sistershow did. The commitment of showing that women could of messages Beverly had received from the spirit world. Her son donated do these things for themselves was unique” (Alison Rook). the manuscript to the Theosophical Society in Bristol, whose members eventually gave it back because they thought it was cursed. Beverly’s “We wanted to reach women of all walks of life, who could relate to what poems can be found in various Rive Gauche collections, and prints of her we were saying and identify with it and get strength from it. I know I got art are archived in the Feminist Archive South. strength to leave my marriage, strength I hadn’t had in previous years. If anyone asked what I got from it, that’s what I personally got. I’m sure Monica Sjoo died of cancer in 2005. She remains an internationally everyone felt their lives had been enriched by their involvement” (Phyl renowned artist. Throughout her life, she was an exponent of Goddess and Chandler). earth-based spirituality. Her paintings celebrated woman as goddesses and she conducted research into the existence of matriarchal societies, resulting in the book The Great Cosmic Mother (1987), written with Barbara Mor. She was also deeply sceptical of the New Age spirituality industry and wrote New Age and Armageddon, published in 1994. Her life was not without deep tragedy: two of her sons died within two years of each other, one from a road accident, the other from cancer. In her obituary of Sjoo that was published in The Guardian, Pat VT West, who was a good friend, described her as a “visionary”. 102 103

Dr. Ellen Malos studied History and English Literature in Australia before Dale Wakefield is living history. Dale has basically retired and spends coming to Bristol, where she became a researcher on domestic violence her time playing on Facebook and SagaZone, reading books (mostly on and violence against women after becoming active in the Women’s Aid religion but is not a believer in organised religion of any type), archaeology movement. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by Bristol and politics. She still seems to be living in interesting times of change… University in 2006 and, post retirement, is an honorary Senior Research Phyl Chandler is a pensioner and finds life just as hectic now as it was in Fellow there, working with overseas postgraduate researchers on domestic the turbulent, chaotic and stimulating years of Sistershow. She examines violence. She also travels, researches her family history, writes poetry and Speech and Drama students for Trinity Guildhall, a job that has taken reads novels. her to Canada, America, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and India. Lee Cataldi returned to Australia in the early 1970s to be an English The job has introduced Phyl to some wonderfully creative people, totally lecturer, then took a degree in Medicine. She later worked as a teacher- different cultures and - most importantly - into the homes of the people linguist on bi-lingual programmes in indigenous communities in Western who live there. She has spent a day in a Hutterite community in Canada, and Central Australia, and went on to work on the preservation of shared exam rooms with possums, lizards, chameleons: and experienced indigenous desert languages. an audience of a fully-grown wild gorilla, carefully watching her work.

Professor Helen Taylor is University Arts and Culture Development Fellow She is very aware now of the need to do some more directing - a project at Exeter University. for this year. Did someone mention retirement? Well, not for the foreseeable future.... Angela Rodaway After Sistershow Angela wrote radio plays for the BBC that were translated and broadcast in Germany. In the 1970s and 1980s Alison Rook has maintained her passion for theatre and performance she facilitated a drama group for young West Indian people in St. Paul’s. her whole life. Now living in Canterbury, she was involved in organising Here she met her future God Daughter who is now working in the United a community arts festival from 1985-1989. She was part of an acapella Arab Emirates, and whom Angela is very proud of. Angela is 92, enjoying vocal group, Melting Moments, and recently, a recorder choir. She has life and working hard to get rid of her things to make it easier for her been a driving force behind the exhibition, donating much of the archival executors. material, greatly appreciated moral support and some of the funds.

Professor Bencie Woll holds a chair in Sign Language and Deaf Studies Jill Quantrill Robin is still involved with arts, mostly promoting exhibitions at the Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre at University in unusual venues. College, London. 104 105

Ros Beauhill - At 69 a biography cannot be short, and a list of my life Endnotes events is meaningless. I am no celebrity, but an ordinary woman. I’ve got kids and grandkids, and as a single parent struggled for money and did 1 I do think the communal memory of the Women’s Liberation Movement is many jobs. My family and friends are what’s special in my life. I believe changing, at least within popular social history books. Two recent books, both written in working collectively and opposing injustice. I also enjoy being alone by men about the 1970s, offer accounts of feminist history which are not only favorable, but emphasize its creative aspects. See Dominic Sandbrook (2010) State of Emergency: and I love the Earth. The Way We Were: Britain 1970-1974, London: Allen Lane and Andy Beckett (2009) When the Lights Went Out: The Story of What Happened to Britain in the 1970s, London: Faber. Yet there is still a tendency within academia to ignore the grassroots activities of 70s Women’s Liberationists, and present their actions as critically unsophisticated, naïve, essentialist, and so on. If you want to read more I recommend reading the following texts: About the Contributors Withers, Deborah M. and Chidgey, Red (2010) ‘Sistershow (1973-1974) and the Queering of Feminism’ in Women: A Cultural Review, 21: 3, 309 — 322; Hemmings, Clare (2005), ‘Telling Feminist Stories’, Feminist Theory 6:2, pp. 115- 39; Hemmings, Clare (2009), Deborah M. Withers is a writer, researcher and founder of HammerOn ‘Generational Dilemmas: A Response to Iris van der Tuin’s ‘‘Jumping Generations: On Press. Her current research focuses on the cultural activism of the Women’s Second- and Third-wave Epistemology’’’, Aus-tralian Feminist Studies 24:59, pp. 33-37; Woodward, Sophie and Woodward, Kath (2009) Liberation Movement. She is interested in how public history, exhibitions 2 VT West, Pat (2007), ‘Letter to Deborah Withers, 17 Oct 2007’. Accessed in the and blogs can be used to revive marginalized cultural memories and Feminist Archive South, Sistershow Archive, 2011. facilitate social change. www.debi-rah.net 3 A list of the oral interviews that are used in this book are included at the back. References to interviews will be made in the text in brackets after the quote, or prefixed Jan Martin is an illustrator, designer and teacher. She is an active by the author. The physical archive of material collected from the project will be deposited in the Feminist Archive South. Hard copies of oral interviews are also deposited feminist campaigner and is particularly interested in how creativity can in the Bristol Record Office. communicate feminist ideas. 4 Bristol Women’s Liberation Newsletter, March 1973. Available at the Feminist Archive South. Jane Mornement is a journalist and feminist. She worked on some of the 5 Rowbotham, Sheila (1997) A Century of Women, London: Penguin, p. 408. UK’s biggest magazines before moving to Bristol where she is a magazine 6 Croft, Susan (2010) Oral Interview with Deborah Withers, 18 December, 2010. editor and a campaigner for gender equality. She has worked as a volunteer 7 Ibid. 8 Taylor, Helen (1973), ‘Sistershow’, Enough: The Journal of Bristol Women’s throughout the Sistershow Revisited project. Liberation, p. 30. 9 Richards, Liz (1973), ‘Oh Sister! A Women’s Lib Show’, Bristol Evening Post, 8 March. 10 VT West, Pat (1999) ‘In Memory of Beverly Skinner’, accessible at the Feminist 106 107

Archive South. 32 Monica Sjoo (1974) Bristol Women’s Liberation Newsletter, Nov 1974. 11 Taylor, Helen (1973), ‘Sistershow’, Enough: The Journal of Bristol Women’s 33 Anon (1973), July and August Bristol Women’s Liberation Newsletter. Liberation, p. 30. 34 This did not last long, however. Wages for Housework ceased to use the Women’s 12 Richards, Liz (1973) ‘Women’s Lib show full of variety,’ Bristol Evening Post, n.d. Centre in November 1977 following an ‘Extraordinary General Meeting’ where various 13 Taylor, Helen (1973), ‘Sistershow’, Enough: The Journal of Bristol Women’s Bristol WLM groups discussed ‘objections to Wages for Housework’s perspective on Liberation, p. 32. the position of women in society’ and ‘the way WfH have conducted their campaign 14 Stephens, R. J. (1973) ‘Letter to Mr. Racy concerning Concerts Fund’, 29 March in Bristol.’ The users of the Women’s Centre unanimously voted to ensure Wages for 1973. Housework left the Centre. Bristol Women’s Liberation Newsletter, November 1977. 15 Helen Taylor (1973) ‘Sistershow Report (rough notes), accessible at the Feminist Available at the Feminist Archive South. Archive South. 35 Sandbrook, Dominic (2010) State of Emergency, The Way We Were: Britain 1970- 16 Ibid. 1974, London: Allen Lane, p. 199. 17 Robson, Max (2010) ‘A People’s Art is the Genesis of the Their Freedom’ in Hidden 36 Dix, Carol (1974) ‘Faith and the Three Marias’, The Guardian, Wednesday 30 Jan Herstories: Women of Change, Octavia Foundation, p. 20. Available online http://www. 1974, p. 11. hiddenherstories.org/images/hidden_herstories.pdf, last accessed 2 Feb 2011. 37 VT West, Pat (1973), ‘Agenda’, available in Pat VT West’s archive, Feminsit Archive 18 Richards, Liz (1973), ‘Oh Sister! A Women’s Lib Show’, Bristol Evening Post, 8 South. March. 38 Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques (1973) ‘….and for everyone who’s tired of hearing 19 Dunn, Nell (1977) Living Like I Do, London: Futura, p. 181-193. what the media men say about us….’, available at the Feminist Archive South. 20 Ibid, p. 182 39 Ibid. 21 Ibid, p. 191. 40 Underwood, Betty, n.d. ‘Women’s Abortion and Contraception Campaign’, 22 Ibid. available at the Feminist Archive South. 23 West, Pat V. T. (1991), Letter to Alison Rook, 21 February, accessed in the Feminist 41 WACC (1970) ‘True Life Romance’: This is a Newsletter about Contraception’, Archive South, Sistershow Archive, 2011. available in the Feminist Archive South. 24 Greenwood, Val (1970) ‘Women’s Liberation’ Enough (or Not Enough), No. 1, p.4 42 Rook, Alison (1974) ‘Sistershow Woman Machine’ notes (handwritten), available in 25 Anon (1970) ‘Random Thoughts on Women’s Liberation’, Enough (or Not enough?), the Feminist Archive South. No. 1, p.11. 43 ‘Hands Off Our Family Allowance’, pamphlet, n.d. Accessed in the Feminist 26 Friedan, Betty (2001) The Feminine Mystique, New York: W.W. Norton, p. 57. Archive South, 2011. 27 Tweedie, Jill (1976) ‘Too True Confessions’ in Cochrane, Kira ed. (2010) Women of 44 Ibid. the Revolution, London: Guardian Books, pp. 38-43, p. 41. 45 James, Selma (1975) ‘Immigration and Population Control’, Race Today, 1975. No 28 In the 1970s and 1980s, the term ‘Black women’ was used as a political term to page. include women all women of colour. 46 Ibid. 29 Bhavani, K. K. and Parmar, Pratibha (1977) ‘Racism and the Women’s Movement’. 47 http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=23 Available in the Feminist Archive South. 30 VT West, Pat (1970) ‘What Did you Do Today, Dear, What did you do today?’, Enough, No. 2, June 1970 p. 44. 31 Evenleigh, Elaine (1973) ‘No title’ Enough, no. 5, p. 37. 108 109

Sistershow Oral History Sources The following people need to be thanked for supporting the Sistershow Revisited project.

Jane Hargreaves, Ellen Malos, Hannah Lowery, Jane Mornement, Jan Martin, Rachel Stenner, Interviews conducted by the Feminist Archive South Jamie Carstairs, Helen Taylor, Andrew Kelly, Helen Mott, Gill Hague, Sian Norris, Susan Croft, Natalie Brown, Alison Rook, Rachel Bentham, Molly O’Doherty, Tessa Cole, Kris Hubley and Malos, Ellen (2000/2001), interviewed by Ilona Singer. Ray Barnett. VT West, Pat (2000), interviewed by Viv Honeybourne.

Interviews are available on mini-disc and digital file at the Feminist Archive South. Summaries of all the interviews collected are available from the Feminist Archive South.

Interviews conducted as part of the Sistershow Revisited project

Chandler, Philomena (2010), interviewed by Deborah Withers. Houlton, Lynn (2010), interviewed by Deborah Withers. Malos, Ellen (2010), interviewed by Deborah Withers. Rodaway, Angela (2009), interviewed by Deborah Withers. Robin, Jill (2008), interviewed by Deborah Withers. Rook, Alison (2008), interviewed by Deborah Withers. Sapphire (2010), interviewed by Deborah Withers. Taylor, Helen (2010), interviewed by Deborah Withers. Thrupp, Dominic (2011), interviewed by Deborah Withers. Woll, Bencie (2010), interviewed by Deborah Withers.

Interviews can be accessed in the Feminist Archive South and the Bristol Record Office. Transcriptions of the interviews, which have been done by Jane Mornement will be uploaded to the blog where permission is granted, http://sistershowrevisited.wordpress.com.

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All archival material copyright the Feminist Archive South, and cannot be reproduced without permission. Please contact the Archivist at Special Collections, University of Bristol, with any queries. [email protected].

All posters designed by Jackie Thrupp © Dominic Thrupp. Contact domthrupp@ gmail.com with enquiries.

For further information about accessing Pat VT West’s estate please see www. patvtwest.co.uk or contact her executor, Rohan Van Twest rohan@rohanvantwest. co.uk

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