大象传媒

G3 7DN

Suffragette Helen Crawfurd fought for the vote for women because she thought that if they could finally reach political power, they would stop things like wars. When the Great War broke out she got the shock of her life to find that her comrades in arms didn't think like her! The Pankhursts (except Sylvia and Adela) and Helen's old comrade, Flora 'General' Drummond suddenly became ultra patriots - they called off the struggle for the vote and went out giving young men white feathers and changed the name of their newspaper to Britannia. As Helen became a convinced peace campaigner, the others campaigned to get women into munition work at unequal wages that undercut the men and made them fearful for their futures - (this was called 'dilution of labour' and the shop stewards of Red Clydeside fought against it.)

Helen's old comrades were the opposite of peace campaigners - they led the white-coated young forewomen from the Georgetown munition works in patriotic rallies for 'No Compromise Peace', designed to get yet more young women into the factories making shells and explosives to kill the Germans. Matters came to a head on February 14th 1918 in the St Andrews Halls, Glasgow - the pro-war faction were furious to find Red Flag singing socialists in their audience protesting their rally- and they soon got violent. Listen to hear Helen's account of it all and how she bravely waded into the stramash...