#and another was we’d been in camden all day and had been round the market 50 times already so headed off to the venue at like 3

[timoswerner]

this has been bugging me so bad for months now but the whole camping out/queuing from early hours of the morning for gigs is so bizarre like when did that become a thing and why do so many people boast about it on twitter

[womanonthe111]

Moira's Meeting

 It was the day conference that was held at the old Rising Hill School in Islington, as a celebration of International Women’s Day that really decided me. Women from all over England came, with all shades of political opinion, although dungarees and silver earrings (with the women’s symbol on)  were  in predominance.

I wore my tight black leather trousers and Patrick’s old leather biking jacket, which was a mistake, because I looked trendy Islington, instead of a committed feminist. Little Seamus was in the baby sling round my neck, at least he gave me some authenticity.

I wondered round the main hall looking at the stalls and buying books. There were workshops in the afternoon, and I had to choose one out of the many that I fancied. I decided on A.1.D . (Artificial Insemination by Donor) because of my job as a midwife. I imagined a group of women, ageing primagravidas, desperately unhappy in their marriages, because their husbands had low sperm counts and were unable to produce the goods. Of course I was completely wrong, not being knowledgeable in feminist circles. I was to find myself in a seminar geared to women, mostly lesbians, who would rather not touch a real man.

I’d been in the room about ten minutes before I realised I was probably the only women in the room who’d had sex with a man recently.  Seamus was getting heavy and I nearly dropped him, trying to   lay him flat on one of the desks, without waking him or showing anyone the all too evident wedding ring on my finger.

I sat at the back and covered my left hand with my right.  I felt thrilled to be there, listening to the   talk of these women, who seemed so confident and articulate. I remembered I’d made love that morning and hadn’t had a wash, because the old geyser in the bathroom was broken again.  I crossed my legs in case anyone could smell the tell-tale signs. It seemed like treason in that room somehow.

After the workshops, we all collected in the big hall and listened to some powerful speeches. I decided then and there to form a women’s group in Islington, and learn to be like these women.

When I got home, I immediately put an ad in Spare Rib, suggesting that anyone who wanted to form a conscious raising group, and lived in the area, should come to my house at 8pm on Wednesday of the next month

I was terrified. I was frightened nobody would turn up, and panicked in case they did. I bought some plastic cups and some wine, and worried in case I should buy some food

I put some dungarees on this time, with a tee shirt and running shoes. Seamus, bless him, behaved well He went to bed at seven and didn’t wake up.

Patrick, my husband, was difficult. Feminists frightened the hell out of him. He said all the usual crap, about them being ugly and no man wanting to fuck them. He screamed about it being his house, and threatened to bring some real men back, to have a party. Eventually he went to the pub across the road and got drunk as usual.

I’d invited some friends to come, as well as the women who had replied to the ad. I suppose they were moral support for me; as it turned out they nearly sabotaged the whole thing.

Eight o'clock came and the first one arrived. Jill was about forty, middle class, with Wallis clothes on. She wasn’t the type of woman I was expecting. Making her feel comfortable and giving her a glass of wine, I didn’t notice the rest of the troops  arriving.

Suddenly the house was full. There were about thirty women in the room; what the hell was I going to do with them all and my mind went blank. As always in large groups, any confidence I might have mustered disintegrated. A large abrasive type asked who had arranged the meeting and what we proposed to do. I sat up on my knees from where I’d been hiding next to the big green armchair.

 "I think we ought to go round the room and tell each other who we are, and what we expect from the group.“ This was a ruse I’d learnt in Paris. I used to teach English to  French business  men,  and when  I couldn’t think of  anything to do with them , I’d go round the class room with this game. It usually got me through to the bell.

"I’ll start” I said, feeling myself going red. “My name is Moira, I’m thirty, a midwife,” (nods of approval) thank god I don’t work in Pro .Nuptia. “I went to the conference at Rising Hill School a few weeks ago, and …er….l decided I wanted to join a women’s group. I put an advert in Spare Rib and….er….here we are. I never mentioned my married state. I didn’t have the courage to admit so gross an error. I smiled quickly and looked at my neighbour apprehensively. .

She was a short stocky woman, about twenty eight, with short hair and think heavy shoes. She was wearing army and navy dungarees (not the stylish ones from Top Shop that I’d put on) and she had the regulation women’s symbol, silver earrings, hanging from her ears.

"I’m a radical lesbian feminist, I’m on the social, and run a workshop on self-defense in Hackney Tech. I’m interested in radical action to achieve a separatist class free society.” No smile. I don’t know how everybody else looked, but my eyes were definitely on the floor. This was the stuff that frightened Patrick. Thank god I had taken my wedding ring off.

Next was Sarah, a friend, who’d had her hair done at the ridiculously expensive   hairdressers at the corner of Chapel market that afternoon, especially for the meeting.  We’d met in hospital, after   the birth of our children. We used to talk to each other in the day room, sitting on rubber rings to avoid the pain of our stitches. We smoked cigarettes to the annoyance of the staff, who suspected we’d be bad mothers.   She was the perfect middle class wife, of an up and coming   executive.

Coming was probably the right word, as he’d been coming with his secretary during the whole of Sarah’s pregnancy.

The day after Sarah’s baby was born, in their seventh year of marriage, he came to visit her in hospital. “I think it’s a good idea if you go to your parents’ house in Yorkshire, when you leave the hospital Sarah.” “Why darling I want to be at home with you. Don’t worry about meals and the flat or anything…..I’ll manage, the baby sleeps most of the time, she won’t affect you.

"Well it’s not that exactly…lt’s just that I want the flat” he said looking at the woman in the next bed. “ Well, …you might as well know. I’d like Michelle to move in; we’re in love with each other actually.  You’ll be much better at home with your mother; she’ll help you with the baby and things. You don’t want to stay in that big flat by yourself do you? “

Anyway Sarah the docile middle class wife, who’d been to a Swiss finishing school, to learn to be a perfect  mate, was eventually  to become the  most radical lesbian feminist  I’d ever met.

Rebecca followed Sarah, she was another friend I’d persuaded to come along, even though I knew she didn’t approve of feminists. She was a single parent, mother of two daughters . She designed clothes and made them up for a living. If anyone should hate men it was Rebecca.  Both the fathers of her children had been shits. The second one hadn’t even the courage to outstay the actual labour. He went out of the room, telling the midwife he was going for a packet of fags, and Rebecca never saw him again. She wanted to go back to college to learn fashion designing, but she couldn’t get a grant. She would have managed on the dole, being very clever with money, but social security wouldn’t give her any, if she was a full time student. She wouldn’t be eligible for work they said. So she worked from home, doing the market at Camden Lock. She took the kids with her most of the time. She took them and the clothes there and back in a taxi. She couldn’t afford a car or a babysitter. She was a real survivor and she never complained.

“I don’t believe in feminism” was her opening gambit.     I knew she felt like this , but I’d told her to keep her mouth shut. "I survive very well with two small children. It’s useless to blame men all the time.  Women can survive on their own, if they so choose, without them, I do.  I’m a fashion   designer and I love my job.

Oh God! I thought.  I shouldn’t have persuaded  her to come along.  I’m sure fashion was a big no   in feminist circles. She went on and on for ages, about how she was an independent ‘lady’, but would like eventually to settle down with the right man, who hopefully was involved in art in some way. "That’s how we all feel, deep down if only we would admit it” she concluded. I looked at the floor again.

Mary was a catholic girl from Liverpool. Leaving Oxford, after three brilliant terms, she’d gone to India on the hippy trail, but came back after having caught hepatitis. After a few casual jobs, she decided on high class prostitution in Mayfair. Being an insomniac, she said it suited her well, as it was night work.

 Bernadotte was a tall strong statuesque woman, the only black woman in the group.  She came from Guyana, but had been brought up by left wing veggies, who lived in an alternative commune in   Somerset.

She said she had been completely fucked up by her foster parents, who were both counsellors in transactional analysis at the local therapy center.

 Everybody had a story to tell except Jane. When it was her turn to speak, she blushed bright red from her neck upwards and muttered something inaudible into her armpit.

The group was whittled down in the succeeding weeks. About twelve of us used to meet regularly once a week then once a fortnight  over  a period of a few  years.

We’ve all gone our separate ways now, as groups do. Jill joined the staff of a feminist magazine.  Lucy went to live off the coast of Denmark on some all-woman island.  Bernadette had a baby from   a travelling Australian who never suspected he’d been used as a walking sperm bank.  She chose him for his physical strength and beauty, and then gave him an intelligence test from a form she’d stolen from the psychology department of the North London Polytechnic. She waved him off at the airport, on his journey back to the kangaroos.   Rebecca caught pelvic inflammatory disease, looking for the right man. Her body reacted so violently to the constant infections in a terrible way. Her skin, all over her body, erupted in septic postures, which took months to heal. She still has the scars today, ugly marks all over face and body, marring that beautiful milky white skin, that used to  be one of her startling features.  Mary entered a convent of the Sisters of Mercy somewhere in   Mayo, on the west  coast of Ireland.  Jane went mad and now lives in a private clinic   in Wales.

The radical lesbian feminist never came to the group again, but I saw her once more, on the never to be March for international woman’s day a year   later.

Sarah and i had just crept out of a taxi (creeping because it should have been a bus) with the two push chairs ready to join the march at Hyde Park Corner. Not having the regulation short hair and silver jewelry, the policeman took us for housewives and began being polite. Once he found out what we wanted, he told us curtly, that the March had been cancelled, due to the unlawful    assembly statute rushed through parliament that week.

He then began a tirade against us and the kids for being perverts and bad mothers, even going so far as to shake the pushchairs, waking Seamus. Suddenly in the midst of his abuse and Seamus crying, our friendly neighborhood radical lesbian feminist , came tearing round the corner. She hurled an empty Guinness bottle at the policeman, which just managed to knock his helmet off,     and then turned off Park Lane into a side street screaming obscenities at him. We thanked the policeman very politely as he picked up his helmet and fumbled with his walky-talky.   Smiling at   each other we turned the pushchairs round and started to look for the bus to Islington.