I was born in May 1981, my brother November 1982 and my male cousin January 1983. We three are very close in age and as our mothers are sisters, we spent a large part of our childhoods together. Our grandmother (Nanny) would often look after the three of us during school holidays and, on the whole, we all got on well. We'd play imaginative games together, favourites being making dens or playing trains with the dining chairs. As the eldest, I'd often lead the games which I'd like to think were fun for all children, not always just families or armies.
Before my second cousin was born, so before I was seven, my grandparents went away to Germany with their friends and, as kind grandparents often do, they brought us each back a gift. My brother and cousin were awarded a pencil case, with a zip. Once opened it contained colouring pencils, felt tips, a ruler, pencil sharpener, each in their own elasticated holder. Fantastic! Where was mine, I couldn't wait.
I was given two pink handkerchiefs. The injustic still catches in my throat. Handkerchiefs. And what was I supposed to do with hankies? You can't play with them, you can't create anything with them. You just blow your nose on them. And iron them, if you're my mum. I may have tried to be polite but I couldn't help myself and I cried and cried and cried. How unfair, that these two boys, so much younger than me, who could probably barely make use of such a gift, had these fantastic tools at their disposal and I had glorified tissues!
My Nanny was horrified. Well, boys like things like that, don't they? Girls like pretty things and hankies were they only thing she could find. Not this girl. I wanted colouring pencils, and pencil sharpeners and pens with their own, individual elasticated holder. Fortunately, very fortunately, their friends were still in Germany and I was even able to choose the colour of pencil case - I chose dark green. A week later it arrived and I still remember the joy I felt as now I was the same as my cousin and brother. I could create and draw. And the only reason my grandmother had thought I wouldn't want to do this, was because I was a girl, a female child.
Forward about twenty years, I think I was about 23 or 24 and I was reading the Saturday Guardian. The cover was made up of many small pictures of women. The related story inside was that all of these women had been killed the year before by their male partners. I remember reading it and thinking, "This is terrible. This is awful. Why didn't I know about this before? Why isn't anyone doing anything about this?" Shortly after this I started on my path of feminist activism.
