Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 106: Helen Pankhurst

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Helen Pankhurst is a writer and a scholar who works for women's rights.  Her grandmother Sylvia and her great grandmother Emmeline were both suffragette leaders, and Helen carries her family name with pride. We talked about how Helen kept her family name of Pankhurst when she married, and about how she and her husband shared both their surnames with their children, in a clever way theat I've not heard before.I first met Helen when we were involved in a podcast for Care International, where we were lucky enough to talk with women from all around the world, many in crisis, but still finding joy in each other's stories, and sharing many of the same worries and issues, despite living in vastly different circumstances from each other.We also discussed the parallels being drawn between the direct action of the suffragettes, and the current Just Stop Oil protestors.We agreed how important it is for every one of us to use our vote 'to keep your piece in the jigsaw' as Helen beautifully put it. She also talked about the current campaign to bring the voting age down in this country, to include 16-18 year olds.I absolutely love how Helen has brought her children up with her personal motto of 'fun and purpose', and I can really see how that has helped her achieve her goal of leading a decent, fun life with her family around her.And by the way, all accidentally recorded on Emmeline's birthday!Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hello. Listen to the sound of silence because my kids are back at school this is very exciting um yep we've managed to start off the new term thank goodness uh it was really making me a bit tense actually i think it's quite hard isn't it when you've got like every time you get to start a

new school stage I had one starting secondary for example and it just brought back all the memories of starting secondary and the thing is when they say oh I'm a bit nervous about it and I don't know where I'm supposed to be going and I haven't made any friends yet it's like well yeah that's exactly what happened to me and you remember it it, don't you? Oof, that feeling. Do you remember that feeling of being at school and thinking I can't remember what room I'm supposed to be in or whereabouts is the, I don't know, the loo or whatever? Just, oh, it's so overwhelming. To be honest, even as an adult,

I don't like going into new situations where I don't know anyone and haven't worked out the building. It's like a confidence trick, isn't it? I'm not sure I've actually really got a handle on all that stuff even now. Like, walking into a room full of people I don't know oh my goodness no thanks try and actively avoid that kind of stuff although actually I did have a moment yesterday of um I think the absolute benefit that you get when you reach middle age because I am 44 now and you gain this sort of authority with younger people when I say younger I mean there's probably a guy in like

his late 20s and I just spoke to him in a way that I would never have done when I was younger so this is what happened I was with my mum we were going on the tube I go the escalator. And as we get to the top of the escalator, there's a lady there with a toddler in her arms and an empty buggy by her side. And she was clearly waiting to see if somebody would help her take the buggy downstairs. So I said, oh, I'll help you with the buggy. So I take the buggy on the escalator.

And then when we get to the bottom, I'm going down, I don't know, the eastbound, no, westbound platform. Don't know why it was important. I get that right. I'm going down the westbound platform. She's going down the eastbound platform. So I could no longer assist her with carrying this buggy down the stairs unless I obviously did a detour.

But the guy was walking past at that very moment. And I said to him, excuse me, as you're going the same direction as this lady, can you take her buggy for her, please, and take it down the stairs for her? And he clearly didn't want to. But because I was a woman who was probably closer to his mum's age than his age, he just was like, I've got to take this buggy now,

because this woman, this sort of teacher-type woman, i.e. me, has told me to carry it down. And I turned to my mum and I was like, I honestly think that was like one of the most middle-aged things I've done all week and it felt flipping awesome so that is one of the benefits of getting older hands down like just having absolutely that kind of no no cares given when it comes to talking to people younger than you're telling them some stranger to carry someone else's buggy down some stairs even if they don't want to anyway um this week yeah so this week has mainly been about

getting the kids settled in I've sort of quietened my work stuff this week until I knew they were back at school which is one of the benefits of doing a job like being a musician because you can sculpt it around your home life sometimes and actually as we end the festival season my weeks have been more like Monday to Thursday I've been home and then Thursday through to sort of Saturday or Sunday I've been doing gigs and this week is no different so I'm home this week and then I've got a show so I'm speaking to you now what day are we now Wednesday I'm speaking to you from the past it's Wednesday I've got a gig tomorrow night then I've got another gig on Friday and I'll travel back through the night on Friday and I'll get back on Saturday morning and then I'm home all weekend with the kids so that's quite nice

that's my first sort of Saturday night off for some time next weekend I've got another couple of shows but Monday to Friday is kind of quiet so you know it rolls it rolls and it's quite nice actually I quite like the steady nature of it and um I'm actually sitting next to my bookshelves because I've got that thing you know when you get like a bit of a hum about actually sorting things out that you haven't sorted out for ages I've been clearing out books I don't know about you but I find it really hard to get rid of books it feels like it's like saying I don't want to eat any vegetables it just feels fundamentally bad for you to eject books from your life but that being said some books are crap and also some books I've read and I don't want them anymore and other books I own

and I've never read them and I probably never will so or I've even got doubles of some things I didn't realize so yeah I'll be doing a big clear out I've got a massive pile of books for the charity shop it feels good I'm in the right frame of mind to just get on top of my life and try and organise things, although I've been saying that for about 20 years now. So let's see how that pans out. You're thinking, enough of this, enough of this. Who is the guest?

So my guest this week, oh, what a woman, Helen Pankhurst. So Helen and I first met when we got together. She invited me to participate in International Women's Day for Care International, the charity. And she asked me to sing some songs with very talented songwriter, producer, string arranger extraordinaire, David Arnold. And so we went to Trafalgar Square on this massive rally for Women's Day and it was absolutely brilliant and I sang some songs with him um and that's how I met Helen and then I did the same thing again the following year and then this year they decided

not to have they weren't doing a rally so instead we did a podcast together actually where we spoke to um women around the world who've been in very very challenging situations but they have maybe grouped together to make things better in the situation that they're in so it's people from everywhere around the world represented and what was amazing was that no matter what situation these women were in and what they were dealing with whether they were in a country like um ukraine where obviously they find themselves at war or there was someone else in india who's helping to sort out local issues that have come about because of climate crisis and flooding

but they all had this absolute when she when it came to the end of the chat and helen and i would say have you got any messages you want to send out they'd always say something really positive like to other women out there just stay strong keep doing what you're doing and you're doing a great job. They never said, oh, I just want to say this has been awful and I wish this had never happened to me. It was just pure positivity and uplift and support. And it was really amazing, actually, to see how that came out of everybody with these situations and how incredibly strong they could be. everybody with these situations and how incredibly strong they could be anyway then after that sorry I am getting to the point I promise I then invited Helen to come to my third boy Ray to his class when he was in year six so last year at primary school to come and give a talk to the kids about

the suffragettes and about the legacy of being a Pankhurst. So Helen is the granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, the great-granddaughter of Emmeline. So very well-known figures. Obviously, Emmeline Pankhurst founded the suffragettes. And what an incredible legacy. What an incredible... I mean, we still today acknowledge and um what absolutely

in awe and wonder of what those women did for other women in the united kingdom when it came to getting the vote and what frighteningly recent history that we didn't have the vote but also when she was talking with the kids she made so many really sage points about the parallels between the activism of the suffragettes and how we now have come to realize you know right side of history and then other activists now and how we don't necessarily treat activists now with the i suppose with the possibility that they're on the right spread of history sometimes you know when people you know moaning about i don't mean you i mean maybe in the press when there's moans and groans about uh climate change activists and you know making it hard for people

to get to work in the morning and gluing themselves to stuff but really i mean if we're not worried about the climate what else we're worried about i'm not saying there's only one way to deal with stuff and i'm not saying what they've what every individual who protests about it does is the right thing but I'm just talking about basically there's some parallels between chaining yourself to railings or walking in front of the king's horse and some of the activism we can see in contemporary times and and also I think speaking to Helen made me think a lot about my relationship with I don know, I suppose with the way that society and culture is established and the choices I've made for myself that are unwittingly maybe playing into the way there's always been in tradition without really questioning a lot of it. Anyway, we're going to talk about all of these things and more.

So have a listen but I think there's a lot of wisdom in in what Helen has to say and I really like to approach her so much of it and how she's raised her kids in the middle of the work that she gets done so anyway enough from me I'm going to continue doing my books while I listen and I'll see you in a bit. It's really nice to see you, Helen. How are you? I'm very well, thanks. And likewise, really good to catch up again.

Excellent. Yeah, no, I'm really happy you are happy to come and chat to me for the pods because I think we're going to have a really interesting conversation. Why don't we start with what you're up to at the moment? What's going on in your world? Juggling, spinning, lots of different things um one of the initiatives i'm involved in is in manchester and um we're fundraising for a post for that so been working on that the deadline is today so okay that's um one thing and then all of the other um pieces of work i'm doing with care there's some things happening there with centene reaction which is the other pieces of work that I'm doing with care, there's some things happening there,

with Centine Reaction, which is the other coalition. OK. Lots of different things. So if we go a bit deeper into those things, so the thing in Manchester, this is in Greater Manchester, isn't it? Yeah. So recently, I think it was last Sunday, I'm slightly losing track of time, but it was. No, it was last Saturday, we had an event in Oldham, and we have these community events for women and girls

in different boroughs of Manchester. We go to different ones in turn. So it was a turn of Oldham, which actually is where Annie Kenny, one of the leading suffragettes and mill girl suffragettes, came from. So I went to visit the statue to pay my respects there. And then we had this event for women and girls today

in Greater Manchester, focusing on those in Oldham, about their experiences really but it was done in a really lovely way so for example we started with netball and networking which we thought was a lovely kind of way of getting people to spend time together playing that adult women playing netball yeah which is many of them almost all of them said oh i used to love it yeah school yeah um but it was a nice way of getting to know each other a bit informally before the beginning the start of the workshop that's really cool and what made you pick netball is that something that was already existing we had somebody from netball england that came to provide some support on that we also had one of the

sessions on cycling because if you think about cycling there's a big gender gap and if you think about ability to maintain the bicycles there's an even greater gender gap with this sense that women and girls are not encouraged to or learn to or think about learning how to maintain their bikes so that results in a drop-off girls might start bicycling but then if they feel that they don't know what to do as soon as something goes wrong they're less likely to continue to do it yeah yeah and we've done a bit on rugby we've done a bit on football so we we take different sports to hear the experiences of women girls in that sport well i think that's all so relevant because i remember when we met before you were talking to me about how there's been a

really big drive on getting young girls interested in football but then there's a massive drop-off when they get to secondary because it's just not sustained exactly so you don't want to seem like well we've done that we've introduced them now go and find it yourself if you want to make the next step like that's not really how it works is it exactly and addressing the set of barriers that happens in a changing world where some opportunities are created but then there are reasons why that opportunity doesn't become a sustained opportunity so yeah yeah I mean I suppose it's interesting I suppose that thing about the cycling I bet as a example that covers how so many things work and you know so much of your work is about parity and

just trying to make sure that there's equal opportunity and sustained equality as well not just bits where it's great and then it all kind of goes wonky again yeah and so with care international your focus is on women around the world is that right yeah so can for international very much that's the case i personally work primarily in et Ethiopia, which is where I grew up, so I have that detailed knowledge. And we're working on a couple of projects, and I've come back recently from Ethiopia, actually. So following up on a couple of those projects was what I was doing, both when I was in Ethiopia and now with some of the documents that follow through from that. And one of them is on menstrual hygiene and working in schools

in one particular region of Ethiopia because the facilities are really really awful I mean if you think about going to school where you don't have anywhere safe clean um decent no no running water I mean that's a given but nowhere where you can change your menstrual pads if you need to or even just go to the toilet. And that's a reality in many schools still around the world. So this was one project where we're both improving the school water and sanitation, but also talking about menstrual hygiene and the importance of discussing that. Because otherwise what happens is the girls,

A, are very scared and they don't really know what to do, and there's a whole social taboo about it. But then, B, that tends to mean girls don't come to school when they have their menstrual cycle. Therefore, there's lower attainment, and there's a whole thing around access to schooling as a consequence, and they tend to be married off. So there's this tradition that the assumption culturally

is if you have started your menses, then you're of marriageable aid. So the poor facilities linked to the social taboos end up meaning girls don't go to school. Wow. It's extraordinary, isn't it? The concentric circles of how these things, and I guess things that we just so take for granted in a first world country about just having a somewhere safe we've got access to running water um and what was it like growing up in Ethiopia because I know that's been very central to yeah I mean I loved it I absolutely

loved it it's a really interesting country and of course I mean I don't have a comparator that's where I grew up so for me that's that's the only place you ever knew but it was an interesting place I suppose I grew up with the two identities therefore knowing that I was British I used to come here during the summer but I we had this very very strong connection still do with Ethiopia and Ethiopians and all things Ethiopia. My father studied and taught Ethiopian history. My grandmother had campaigned for Ethiopian rights at the time of the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini. So a whole long history linked to it. So it was a lovely, interesting place to grow up in.

And it was one that had better weather than this country does, that's for sure. She says, looking out of the window where there's that kind of drizzle. In here as well, I like the way you see on this country does, that's for sure. She says looking out of the window where there's that kind of drizzle. Yeah, sorry, it's really dismal. Yeah, and in here as well, I like the way you see on this window here, that big round mark is where one of my kids has really neatly tried to break a window with football. Football. Yeah.

Nice, isn't it? I suppose, yeah, and as you say, you've got no comparison, but then I suppose when you had your own children, they weren't raised in Ethiopia, were they? They weren't, but we used to go back regularly so every year from when they were very young a few months old they used to go to Ethiopia and they've spent a few years there so they have a connection much weaker but they do have a connection with the country and my son finished his schooling there as well he did his IB there. so I know both your children are adult now but

what was going on in your life when they were born what were you working on at that time um initially it's still in international development um but with a different organization I've worked with a number of different organizations gradually the gender element of it the women's rights element of it has become more and more central um because i've seen that it needs to be more and more central because the world isn't just addressing those issues and i guess because i've got a voice and um under kind of deep levels of understanding of the issues so they become more and more important i think the other change has been that um in my early adult life working, I worked only internationally. And now I do both.

I'm really interested in the local to the global when it comes to feminism. I think that there's an importance in looking at all of those issues for many reasons, including environmental ones. We're interconnected. And if we don't understand that, we all suffer. Yeah, I suppose in some regards, that's quite a sort of humanist way to look at the world it's like we've got this one life experience we're all sharing this world together how can we link arms and actually raise it raise ourselves up together yeah exactly and i suppose with your work you've got quite a literal thing with working with you know young girls in the uk and their experience of young you know womanhood and then going to places like Ethiopia and thinking more globally which must tackle as you say loads of issues and some countries that

are in very different situations to where we find ourselves here but it must have been quite a strange juxtaposition in your childhood I suppose your relationship with Ethiopia to see this disparity between you know the gender divide there but also know that your family history played such a big part in trying to dispel that quality but you know some couple of generations before you were here yeah so it must be quite a weird yeah that's that's interesting I think in some ways when I was younger the two were separate there was the suffragettes the feminism in the UK and then there was my existence in Ethiopia and that interest in the country and then gradually

I think I've felt that um putting those two together becomes very interesting because um I mean for a number of reasons. I mean, Sylvia herself, my grandmother, went from being a suffragette to becoming interested in Ethiopia's history and the campaign for its independent rights. So there is that link there. But in my own work,

understanding and being interested in development, international development and the feminism there but also bringing to it that perspective of what happened here and that long history I think has been important you know there is you touched on it a bit there are differences when you when you think about feminism in the different countries around the world, there are definitely particular campaigns that apply in one country, not the other. But I think the similarities are so strong that you can go to any part in the world, any place in the world, and talk to a set of young girls or middle-aged women or older women and say you know what what what keeps you awake at night what your concerns and and the similarities will be massive there'll be

so much greater degrees clearly that are different but um the issues that they'll bring up i think are very similar yeah and actually you've made me think as well. There was a woman I spoke to not that long ago called Julia Hart. And Julia had been raised and was married within a very, a sort of ultra-fundamentalist branch of Judaism where there was lots of restrictions on her freedom. And she said when she was 42, she managed to sort of escape that world and almost became like born at that age, you know, suddenly was part of like the modern world as it were but she said she was really shocked to see how many of the same issues were

actually going on and people just weren't really as aware of it almost and I think um because some of the big headline stuff is kind of quite covered we don't see that when you talk about the bike I think that's a really beautiful analogy for something very simple that just keeps everybody in their lanes without you even noticing it's happening. And it probably starts from, well, you know, the time that you give birth or something. Yeah. But for you, how sort of foretold did that sort of path of activism feel?

Or do you even remember making a decision that that was going to be how you lived? The feminism bits came gradually the interest in international issues um was there because of where i was born and i when i started to think about what to study it was very clearly that i wanted to do international development and so that i think was stronger and then it was because you can't address issues of marginalisation and poverty without bringing a gender lens that the gender bit came in with it.

Right. I think that's because I grew up in Ethiopia where nobody really knew about that suffragette heritage. I think if I was born here, that surname would have been so dominant in my thinking that I probably would have been quicker to realise that I had a role to play in talking about women's rights. So maybe in some ways it sheltered me and it meant that I

could grow up my own way, the fact that it wasn't so dominant and I had to explore what it meant. So it'd be things like people saying to me, oh, you know, are you, when I came here, when I came to the UK, they would say, oh, that surname, are you related? And I'd say, yes. And then they'd say, oh, that's really interesting because of this, that, and the other. My daughter studied this at school or whatever. And then because of their interest, I would have to find out more and more and more about the suffragettes. So I think it's other people's interests that generated my mine and the complexity of the issues the complexity of that campaign yeah for 100 years ago has meant that I've had to continue thinking about it and be able to talk about it yeah so I suppose the big benefit but also what must be quite um I don't know frustrating sometimes you

obviously were brought up with quite a global way of thinking you know if you already know that you're this family that have emigrated somewhere you're seeing things you're sometimes going back to the UK you think in a way that I think a lot of other people it doesn't really occur to people to think because you know you start off with your four walls and then your country and it's such a defining thing but thinking globally isn't necessarily like hugely encouraged a lot of the time, actually, because you're so sort of bogged down in the minutiae of your own world and what you can achieve within that. I think that's right.

But the linkages are there. They are everywhere for anybody. I mean, walk down any street in the UK now and how many nationalities will you have represented there? Go to any shop. How many dishes from around the world how many products from around the world how many raw materials think a bit about any aspect of your life politics technology anything we are so interconnected and again without mentioning the obvious one of the environment so i think we can ignore the rest of the world and um just dabble in our own spaces but i think increasingly that's difficult to do yeah um and we need to understand the wider context we absolutely need to because that's the only way of really being able to make a

difference and connect things up and if we don't i think the the myopia of not opening it up opening ourselves up to the wider world i think is really is is very great but again i i i think there is a generational thing around some of this. I think younger people are much more aware of the wider world. There's a lot of travelling going on, especially now post-COVID. There was a bit of that kind of isolation that came because of forced isolation because of COVID. I think we've opened up in many ways. So I feel that most people have, if you really ask them, if you ask them how many connections they have,

how many families they have abroad, how many friends they have abroad, including through social media, et cetera, I think we're much more interconnected than we ever have been. Yeah, that probably is true. And I think also one of the positives about social media is an encouragement to sort of find the threads that connect us. You know, it can be, oh, this, you know,

whatever the hashtag might be, whatever the experience is, you know, you're kind of all trying to sort of see the bits of like, I think you'll probably relate to this, you know? Yeah. So that's a positive aspect. I know that it wasn't that long ago, you very kindly came and spoke to my 11-year-old Ray, his year six class because they've

been studying the suffragettes when um and we were working together for international women's day and doing a podcast for care international and um it was actually really nice for me because i sat in on the classes you know and i sat on my little one of their little seats and uh obviously kids just asked all manner of questions some of the the questions were brilliant. They were fab. But I was really, I remember there was one question, I think, and one of the little boys said, did you ever wish you didn't have this surname or something like this? And you were like, well, actually, yes, sometimes it has been,

you know, it has come with it, it comes with something with it. And I was thinking, because we do think sometimes about legacy, but usually it's a legacy of what we're doing and what we might leave. You know, it's quite unusual to what we're doing and what we might leave you know it's quite unusual to spend many thoughts on your you know grandparents great-grandparents I mean how how did you sort of first become aware of what the significance was of being a Pankhurst it was through the questions like from kids like in your son's school and by the way one of the things I loved about that

session was just how open they were to ask questions all sorts of questions and the point about how interconnected people were came through very clearly there because I think I asked how many of you I asked people to put their hands up if they had a relative who came from other countries and the number of hands that went up and I forget what the follow-up was but people were oh yeah all over the world I remember that you went around the class yeah we got different countries yeah so good um so yeah I guess it's probably unusual for somebody my age to spend the amount of time that I do thinking about my grandmother and my great grandmother definitely um although I would encourage people to do just that because the stories of

the generations past and really understanding that can be so interesting so interesting yeah and the other thing I suppose is and maybe this is also um common to many families is the schisms the differences of opinions. You know, when you start looking at the family members then. So my great-grandmother and my grandmother ended up with a massive falling out. So I have to think about not just the personal aspect of that, but the political aspect of why they fell out and what that meant and what I think about that and so on.

Which is quite a big deal, isn't it, to fall out like that? So you're not speaking and... Yeah, is quite a big deal isn't it to fall out like that so you're not speaking and yeah there was a massive massive and a public one they didn't just do it quietly because they were public figures it was it was splashed on all the newspapers and so on and was the starting point of that because sylvia and sylvia had your dad out of wedlock or was that that was the kind of the last straw it was initially on policies and things like that right um in summary uh sylvia became more and more left wing having the whole family having started off as being involved in the independent labour party so pretty left wing

and her father richard pankhurst having um stood as an ILP, Independent Labour Party member. But so Sylvia, left wing, more and more left wing. Christabel, her older sister, and Emmeline, her mother, more and more right wing, so became Tory members and wanted to be a candidate. Emmeline stood as a Conservative candidate. They also disagreed on tactics with Christovelle and Emeline thinking that more and more militant tactics were needed. That was really what was needed to shift things. Sylvia being very concerned about some of that, in particular when the militant actions were against things like art,

Sylvia having been an artist and not liking the idea that you would destroy bits of art, but also feeling that it should be more about a mass campaign. They disagreed on things like whether to associate yourself with a particular party or to say party neutral, whether to get involved in the campaign for men to get the vote as well, bearing in mind that many working men didn't have the right to vote there as well. So there were many reasons for the disagreements. And I suppose one of the things I've wanted to do over time

and in some of the campaigns that I'm involved in is to try and bring those two different opinions together in saying that, yeah, you can disagree, but as family members, it would be really lovely to try and bring you together. And I try and do as much cross-party initiatives as I can for that reason yeah I mean I suppose um in the contemporary world we're very encouraged to be quite binary in our in the way we put our thoughts and feelings

out and I do despair at how many topics get discussed in a very binary fashion where you're supposed to just say, I think this is right. And then sort of throw stones at the people who oppose you rather than actually a forum where you might possibly be able to have a conversation. Because things are mostly more, much more nuanced. They are nuanced. They're complicated. They are. You can't just give a one word answer to anything. And if you do, that's problematic.

It doesn't help. Yeah. But it's something that um feels a lot and i guess if you've got a family done i'm picturing like their last couple of christmas dinners and they've had that for like so many you know don't mention the war moments yeah they disagreed about the war on each step with Peloton. From their pop runs to walk and talks,

you define what it means to be a runner. Whatever your level, embrace it. Journey starts when you say so. If you've got five minutes or 50, Peloton Tread has workouts you can work in. Or bring your classes with you for outdoor runs, walks, and hikes, led

by expert instructors on the Peloton app. Call yourself a runner. Peloton all-access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running. But yeah, it's interesting, I suppose, because it's funny you say about how you campaign and the militancy because I suppose we're seeing that now, aren't we, with climate campaigners. And I remember, again, this wisdom coming out of this conversation

at my son's school because you were saying, you know, disruptive behaviour to call attention to causes. People get radicalised over time, especially when they're not being heard. The action has to be more extreme in order to say, no, I'm still here, I'm not going anywhere, and I still feel about, you know, this is... You're going to have to... You can't ignore us forever kind of thing.

And I suppose what's happening with the, you know, stop oil protesters and the climate change is that these people are... How do you view them if you can't see the parallels and everybody now hails all the suffragettes as doing brilliant things yeah but history has to tell part of their story yeah but at the time they didn't have that benefit yeah yeah and the parallels are fascinating i mean i've thought about that ever since you said it i was like of course yeah that's exactly it yeah because they're romanticized now the suffragettes are

most people wouldn't say anything negative about them. And I've felt this a lot with my surname, that I very rarely get comments. Now, I used to, but very rarely get comments that are in any way disparaging or critical of what they did. By and large, it's really positive. And people who are campaigning for change now um just stop oil and others who use similar tactics it's much more uh critical response from many people even those who believe in the end goal but feel that the militant tactics the disruptive tactics are problematic. And my view is it's complicated, you know, that you have to look at how the state,

how the government is responding to these issues. So it's not just looking at the agency of the disruptors. You need to look at the activity or lack of activity by the government, just like the reasons the suffragettes increased their militancy was because of the way the state was treating them. So as a simple example, they only started the throwing of stones because they were physically abused in large meetings

when they went out to protest in person. And I think you often see the ratcheting up of any particular position if there's no discussion if there's no action so I understand the reason why some people are going down militancy and I think I do think that down the line in a hundred years time they will be looked at with a much more rose-tinted um glass that will be saying you know they were absolutely right with fewer people saying yes but x wasn't able to get to the hospital on time because of some of their disruptive tactics yeah no i think it's a really um it's a really smart point because i think there's a lot of it as well as sort of um

like media rhetoric isn't it in a way to encourage you to feel things because it all goes back, I suppose, to that, you know, an inconvenient truth, you know, where we're all headed. It'd be nicer to just sort of block it out, really, and just, like, I can't just keep doing the thing I'm doing, please. But it's not really quite going to work out like that. When you... I know that you and I both, when we got married, we both kept our surnames as we were.

I didn't change my name to Jones I'm always Ellis Baxter but I I really think I missed a trick in giving one of my kids my surname I didn't I've actually as far as I'm aware I'm the only Ellis Baxter that I've never met anyone else yeah with my surname but I really liked how you handled it with your children because you've sort of done a cross-pollination having your surnames yeah so um we uh decided that we'd have one surname for one child and the other surname for the other and then use as a middle name the other surname so that way both surnames would go down in history type of thing they'd both be assuming both kids had children and they also wanted to retain the name but the interesting thing for me was that my daughter had my surname she was the first born and then my son had my husband's um surname and he had the Pankhurst as a middle name but he now actually uses Pankhurst as well he double

barrels it because he's is really proud of that surname and he doesn't want it to get lost as a middle name so yeah that's lovely did he always have that relationship with that name, do you think? No, he grew into it. And I think as a young child, he was always very proud of the surname and of the surname as my surname, as, you know, the family heritage. And when we had, I was always, you know,

campaigning and doing things. he was really young I used to take him with me and I have memories of him as a little one on you know Hyde Park Corner and places like that as we were doing things and then when he was older he would say to my daughter myself please go you know have a lovely time you know I there in spirit, but I'm not going to come with you. And then gradually, he's, I think, found his voice and is now much more comfortable to talk about feminism and to own that surname. So I'm glad that he's come to that point. And it was him. It wasn't me. I was quite happy with him not having the surname but um I think surnames are important for everybody and I and this way that most women and girls still just assume that they'll change their name or that their kids won't have their name and the fact that no men ever I'm exaggerating obviously but men very

rarely think about changing their surname or think about their partners having the surname for their children it's still so prevalent it's yeah it's ridiculous really yeah there's there's aspects of the life I lead that shock me with how traditional they are and it's not because I've made a decision that's what I want necessarily just because I've sort of slept walk into certain things I think because I don't well there's a lot going on isn't there's a lot to question and a lot of life to carve out for yourself. And I did wonder, say, if you were, you know, bringing your kids along when they were small and how did you, I suppose if you're being open to injustice and wanting to make life

better, how do you sort of introduce your kids into that world and making them care about things without making them feel that there's a lot this is a heavy thing to carry you know that that is a massive question and people think about it a lot in terms of the environment don't they and um i'm not sure what the answer to that is um except that what it makes me think about is that my personal motto is fun and purpose and I came to that because of a sense that I wanted to do things that were useful in life I believe that individuals can make a difference and you in whatever form you can through your work through your activism on the side through voting whatever you can engage in the world but I also think that just purpose just that kind of selfless driven make a difference is dangerous and in contrast to have fun and joy and positivity and you know enjoy your

food and culture and all of those things are so important as well. So the balance, I think, is really useful of trying to make a difference, but still enjoy life because we've only got one stab at that bit of it as well. Maybe that's the answer, that just thinking about the woes of the world doesn't help anybody, whereas trying to do a bit,

but also leading a decent, fun life, you know, with your family around you all of that's incredibly important as well so yeah maybe the balance is the answer i love that fun and purpose that gives you the sort of permission to do both actually yeah because i think you're right if you just do oh i have to introduce you the fact that the world's pretty there's a lot of dark corners there's a lot of people living really difficult lives it's it's so i think that children are going to learn for themselves we all grow we all start to you know see a film read a book see a news article anything that lets you into a you know that landscape of like oh wow if i'd been

born there everything would be different and sometimes when we're traveling with the kids i'll say look at that house over there what do you think it would be different. And sometimes when we're travelling with the kids, I'll say, look at that house over there. What do you think it would be like if that's where we lived? Imagine if there's a kid there. Imagine this is where they grow up. Just to sort of try and introduce them to the idea of all these different lives being led all the time. But at the same time, yeah, you want them to be engaged,

but being allowed to have fun while you're doing it means that you're actually also not wasting this incredible opportunity. And I suppose for you, you've always had the, you got the the family is like the nucleus isn't it so you kind of and we know that that's already a really special thing so then you can actually be kind of empowered yeah but yeah that's um i love that fun and fun with purpose and fun on purpose yeah it's a really beautiful way to put it. And what did your kids end up going into? What are their jobs? My son studied business

and he is working as a consultant to, he's just changed to a new firm actually, but he did a lot with NHS Trust, business analysis and financial planning, that kind of thing. And now it's wider than that. It's with a company that also looks at asylum-related issues. So he's got a bit of that purpose in there. But, oh my goodness, he knows how to have fun as well.

He really, really knows how to have fun. A bit too much, actually. I'm not needing to worry about him now. Caused problems to his ACL, his knee, a little while for a football injury. So no, he knows how to have fun. He loves cooking and is a great cook. Oh, that's good. And then my daughter, so he's good at the balance. He's probably more at the fun than the purpose bit,

but he's got a balance. No judgment here. No judgment here. My daughter's slightly more work-driven in ways where maybe there's too much purpose and not enough fun, but she would challenge that. I think in the past, maybe she was. She studied law and she is also in the civil service,

but is also very interested in counselling so she's studying um counselling um and um but yeah I think she's also aware of not being too um purpose driven and um looking to buy a house at the moment so that's a big thing cool but it's impossible given the mortgage rates that are causing trouble at the moment I know, yeah, it's a tricky time and what about for you, if you're always you know, keeping engaged with, I mean when we spoke for the podcast we did

for Care International and we were speaking to these women who were, you know, all in very different parts of the world but all experiencing lots of challenges some of them due to changes in climate, some due to conflict in the area where they live. How do you, what's your way of sort of recalibrating when you've been very open,

and obviously you have to be open to being incredibly empathetic when you're taking on board these stories and how to help people and be active, but what's your way of? I think it's by finding joy in the work itself and in the people. I mean, those women, they were just... You see, you're smiling.

I am, yeah. They were just amazing. So I think that when you have that human interaction with people and listen to them, engage, even if you can't do anything. Just listening, just empathising is already a massive thing in the world. So, and then if you can try and do,

if you can elevate what they're experiencing, if you can support, and with Care International, there is a lot of direct work that is to try and address the issues, then that helps as well. So I think just remembering the people behind and the laughter that you have when you're working with people, that makes a big difference.

Yeah, and actually the reason I started smiling when you said about, you know, incredible as women were, is because I remembered at the end of each interview we had with people, we said, have you got a message? And all of them, without anyone,, without anyone not deterring from this, they all gave a really generous kind of, you can do it, women of the world are amazing. You women, you're strong, you're incredible,

you're doing the best you can. It was all generous and all outward looking. No one said, oh, thank you for giving me this time. It was all about women out there. We're doing it. Keep strong, stick it out it was incredible it was so generous yeah and lovely words of positivity wasn't it so people in crisis yeah kind of taking that on doing what they can but then looking beyond it and looking wider as you

said um yeah really lovely and people do do that they often do that i think you know we we've seen that the worst of times often brings out the best in people as well doesn't it this is true Really lovely. And people do do that. They often do that. I think, you know, we've seen that. The worst of times often brings out the best in people as well, doesn't it? This is true. And so with your kids when they were small, do you remember trying to be quite active in getting them to engage in things or did you just sort of introduce them to things and then let them feel their way? I think a bit of both I'm smiling now

because I came back from South Africa once with a um a doll and it was of Mandela it was a cotton doll and I had no idea but apparently the kids were quite scared of this because it was quite a big doll and um they just didn't quite understand why I had this big doll that was being given to them as a as a toy and I think now and again I introduced language or issues or perspectives that they really didn't understand but you know we learn as we do things. And, you know, if some approach didn't work, then I'd try another. I think, you know, fundamentally, if they are open to the world, which is what you can do by introducing different ideas,

then hopefully you're okay at the end of the day, I think. Yeah, I suppose I'm asking come from a slightly selfish perspective because you always hope your children grow up to be decent people I think that's kind of the end game isn't it really you want some of I feel comes from them as they are that you know some some people are just naturally if they see someone that's struggling they'll stop what they're doing help but I think with other people you need to sort of encourage to see a different perspective so I suppose yeah trying to raise people in that way yeah and maybe kind of being reflective about how you operate and how they operate is also

interesting you know these um assessments like the business assessments the Maya Briggs test that tell you whether you're mainly a somebody who uses their heart or uses their brain or whether you're an introvert or extrovert I think all of those ways of reflecting how you engage with people, and then thinking, well, maybe that other person that's sitting next to me actually operates in a very different way. And therefore, how do I relate to that person? And I think all of that can be really useful as well, even to young kids, because if one child is particularly impetuous in the way that they operate, explaining that to the child and saying, you know, but this other child is operating in a different way and is very reflective and not so impetuous. Are there advantages and disadvantages of how you approach these things? petrous are there advantages and disadvantages of of how you approach these things and could you maybe think twice before you answer something and wait till that other person can speak as well

in other words i think there are tools with which you can use to encourage a different perspective maybe yeah i suppose that goes back to what you're saying before about listening to people and just actually being very present when people are talking to you about things and then trying to imagine that their circumstances are different to your own and we all we all have these different nuances that we know how we were raised what we what the family we have around us our friends everything opportunities you have yeah and there's not just one way of living life as well no even in terms of your activism so say as a feminist i often feel that sports people are some of the best feminists around both the men who are allies you know

there's some amazing male allies who the sports women that we have who are I mean it's feminism in action really isn't it it's in their in their physical being and in the things that they do they are making massive changes so that's a completely different way of making a difference to the world from the thoughtful intellectual writing a book saying this is wrong or from the academic looking at the numbers or from that person who very quickly has a quick funny repartee to somebody who's saying something sexist there are many many different ways in which I think we can try and make a difference as long as we engage with the world rather than just ignore things out there yeah and i suppose also as you say like engage but also keep keep quite um alert to stuff

as well i think trying to maybe spot the nuances and i'd already think language has come on so much from when i was young about how you know the gray areas of what just didn't used to make me feel safe or okay and now we're much better articulating where the boundaries are there but just continue being alert and I also I don't know what you think about this but I think um the importance of of if something upsets you or if something makes you angry like actually keeping hold of the anger is okay if you want to change something yeah I think we're quite encouraged to sometimes find ways to be at peace with all our emotions. But actually, if something's making you angry, I feel like that can be quite a useful emotion sometimes.

Yeah, and there's some people that don't know how to do anger. In fact, my daughter would say, I don't really know how to do anger. And exploring all of those questions are really important. So it might be that certain people find that more difficult than always appeasing and it might be others who are always angry when there might be a time when actually a slightly different approach might be better I was also thinking as you were speaking remembering so one Emmeline's youngest daughter was called Adela and she went to Australia and I

am in touch with her granddaughter and her granddaughter said to me that once when she was walking holding the hand of her grandmother and the grandmother said to her can you pick up that piece of rubbish and Susan this granddaughter looked at her grandmother and said well why me picking up that piece of litter isn't going to make a difference to all the litter that's around and the grandmother said to her it won't change all the litter but it will change your relationship to the issue of litter because by just picking that up you are making an active choice that you're going to see the litter and you're going to do something to even even something small and I think that is a really useful lesson. We might not change the world,

but by engaging, by being alert, by being thoughtful to individual problems as well as those global ones, then maybe we can make a bit of a difference. And if not to others, to our own relationship to the world. Yeah, that's amazing. And it's a good example to set

and i'm picturing her now being like oh my granny's got an answer for everything fine i'll pick up someone else's rubbish probably have you met other people that you feel have had a similar experience to you as in having a family history that has passed something on to them with the same significance? The person that comes to mind at the moment is a relative of Dickens, Lucinda Hawksley, who's written a lot. And I think that surname, that link to Dickens, is very much part of her identity. Yeah, because I think it's funny when you said,

oh, talk to your grandparents and you'll see that. We started recording this podcast in 2020 and my granny sadly died in 2019. I would have loved to have had Sybil Baxter on the podcast. I would love to have known what it was like raising a kid when she did and she didn't have the same opportunities as me when it came to working. And the perception of being a working parent was very very different then I would love to have heard from her about that I mean how did you find it in your line of work did you always

intend to keep working after you'd had children yeah yeah there was never any doubt in my mind that I was going to try and balance all of that but I realized how hard it is and especially now I mean without grandparents I have no idea how people manage to balance work and home nowadays it's just so so hard and it's not got any easier and you know back to the issue that the world is not getting any easier all of these things are harder for the current generation of people doing that the sandwich generation is harder now than I think it was before so maybe it's a question of expectations you know as you were saying your grandmother might not these certain generations might not have tried to do all of that but I think it's a lot more than that I think things are just not necessarily easier yeah and I definitely think they're still um well I suppose

it's possible to get a sort of fatigue with all the issues that are still not resolved that people have been talking about for a long time. And I know maternity, paternity rights with working people is ongoing. And it keeps getting sort of diminished because there's always something taking centre stage. But I know that that's been going on a long time. There's lots of people keeping very active and keeping a little bit of pressure there, which is all good.

But the trouble is, I suppose, is that if people are resourceful and create their own solutions to a problem they're not getting any help with, then people don't understand that they're still dealing with the problem. Ongoing, I'm sure. Nothing's going to get fixed overnight overnight but it's that thing of just I suppose you have to keep believing the world is becoming a better place bit by bit by bit I think you have to continue to do your bit irrespective of what's going on maybe um and you you mentioned anger you know maybe anger is needed now and again um to to continue to fight for change because without that then

again you get silenced don't you you do you do so have you got anything you're like sort of hopes for the future or what you'd like to pass on to your kids is how they can continue this this nice line of um yeah being engaged and, it'll be interesting to see how they juggle, how they spin the plates. There's so much going on, but I'm hopeful that they will manage the balance between the fun and purpose and that they won't forget the purpose.

And there's a lot of power in that surname. There's a lot of real positivity in the interest that the rest of the uk and the rest of the world have in it so i hope that they don't see it as a burden that they also um continue to to um hold it with with joy and um and with purpose yeah well i think you know i mean you said recently you were when you're an old and you went to well i think you know i mean you said recently you were when you were an old man you went to pay your respects you know i think i think that the what the suffragettes achieved it's still now as relevant as ever in terms of how people can change things the strength of those women and and you know the men that supported them too

just the significance of the history and it's's not that long ago. That's right. It's actually just not that long ago. Yeah. And it's still so relevant. It's still so relevant. By the way, it's Emmeline's birthday today. Is it? It is.

Aw. So we can celebrate her. Raise my tea to her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Oh, that's lovely. What a nice serendipity. Oh, happy birthday, Emmeline.

Actually, I've got some cheesecake in the fridge. We can have some if you like. We should have some at the end. Perfect. There are quite a few Emmelines and Emmelines that sometimes, Emmalies and Emmelines that I come across and people will come up to me. In fact, they did yesterday. Somebody came up to me and said, I'm named after.

Really? Yeah. Oh, that's very cool. And what do you do if someone ever sort of takes great pleasure in saying they don't really vote? I used to have, oh, I've probably told you this story. We had a lovely nanny for ages, Claire, who's basically like family to us now.

I have to say, I did actually in the end manage to convince her that it was worth voting. But for a while, she wouldn't vote. She had that kind of very cynical view. Nothing ever changes anyway. What's the point? And I said to her, women died to give you the vote and she said more for them oh dear it's literally one of the funniest things i've ever heard it really cracked me up i've never heard anything more for them that's not it's not a

view i uphold myself i just thought it really cracked me up um But yeah, I just worked on her for a while and now she does vogue, so yeah. So yeah, sorry about Claire with that one. It was kind of amazing. But what do you do if people are talking about it? How do you encourage people? Different tactics depending on the person, et cetera. But the analogy I draw is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle is that if you don't put your bit of the jigsaw puzzle then you've got no control over what's going to look what it's going to look

like um and even if the parties even if you know that your interest your party interest is unlikely to be reflected again by doing it you you create a better, stronger democracy. So I think it's just really important that people do it. Yes. And the less powerful you are, the less you have a sense of the voice, the more important it is that you vote. Because otherwise, it's always your voice

that's in the minority, your voice that's not included. So the more disenfranchised you feel, the more important it is for you to vote. And that's incredibly important at a time when there is a sense that fewer people are registering to vote. There's additional barriers to voting. It's incredibly important that you do that. And without that, the whole infrastructure of society is weakened. All infrastructure of society is weakened.

I'm also interested in seeing whether we can change the voting age because I personally think that 16 to 18-year-olds should vote because their engagement in the world will increase, their sense that they have a say in the world will increase. And I think the world needs to listen to them. You know, it's their future. They should be able to vote. That's really smart. And should be able to vote that's really smart with schools then that can do more pshe or equivalent to encourage reflection on

that voting process i think it would be really good no i love all of that i mean i think my three favorite things you know we've discussed the jigsaw puzzle approach to thinking how you feel about being your place in it and wanting to you know make sure your piece of the puzzle's there the litter analogy about you know if you do that then your relationship with that is that I do something about it when I see it and the fun with purpose definitely I think that's perfect oh and the fact we get to have cake because it's Emily's birthday thank you so much Ella it. That was absolutely lovely. A real pleasure. Thank you. See, so much wisdom. Thank you, Helen.

It's funny because obviously at the end of our chat, I did the thing where I sort of summarised her, the wisdom she'd come out with. And she said after we finished recording, oh, I really liked the way you did the sort of summary at the end of what I'd said you know it's really good that you do that and I was like actually I've never done that before for any of the other podcasts but it did feel good with her to have that maybe I should try and work on my technique a little bit more um but yeah lovely to talk to Helen and I find I don't know the older get, the more I question my ability to speak up for things that I feel need doing.

I still think it's something I need to work on. I know I've said the same thing when I spoke to Rachel Riley. And, you know, I think obviously she spoke out about things she could see that didn't seem fair or right even though it brought a lot of criticism online and I sometimes wonder if I am strong enough to speak out always even if I worry about the consequences but then I think we do live in a time when it's difficult to have I don't know nuanced conversation and obviously as well these things are really bespoke. You know, there are probably things I've put said and put my opinions out into the world about that other people would think,

why are you talking about that? You know, we all have our, it's a sliding scale for everybody, isn't it? Those kinds of things. Anyway, it's definitely food for thought. And while I was listening, I've kept going with the books. I've actually done really well. I've got, you know, the big Ikea bags well I've got, you know the big Ikea bags

I've got a whole one of those filled with books so feeling pretty good about that and the bookshelves look a lot better they look a lot tidier it's this long overdue anyway I hope whatever's happening in your world is good I've got yet another lovely lovely guest for next week

and in the meantime I hope everything's cool hope if you're in um you know United Kingdom I hope you're enjoying this unexpected heat wave bloody hell didn't see that coming uh but it's been quite nice actually and people have said oh it's a shame that the nice weather comes when the kids go back to school but actually I think it's nice that the kids are going back in when it's sunny and warm because if everything had suddenly got cold and drizzly and dark when they start going back to school it's not great it's not a great way to introduce them back to a new term i think as well they come out of school a lot happier when they can go and play in the park for a little bit to level some steam so

i'm all for it the hot weather can continue if it's okay by me anyway i will speak to you next week uh thank you to uh richard for editing claire for producing lma for artwork helen for chatting to me and you for giving me your time i'll see you soon love for love Thank you. you