ONCE UPON A TIME IN BIRMINGHAM

When Birmingham City Council were looking for a way to commemorate the centenary of the first women to get the vote they approached Writing West Midlands to commission a book to celebrate as many amazing (and yet unknown) women and their achievements as possible.

Writer Louise Palfreyman was tasked with the role and worked with local female-run publisher The Emma Press and a team of female illustrators, to produce Once Upon a Time in Birmingham: Women Who Dared to Dream.

Rather than a traditional ‘local history’ book, Once Upon a Time in Birmingham aims to inspire the city’s next generation of female achievers to continue to blaze the trail. Louise tells us more…

How did you choose the women to include?
The intention was always that this should be a book about, by and for Birmingham women. We asked for public nominations, and they came flooding in via a social media campaign #BhamRemembers.
More than 130 women’s names were put forward across a wide range of disciplines, all of whom either had a fantastic history or an inspiring story to tell. As a result, we had to bring in some real experts – a group of young female writers from Spark Young Writers – representing the book’s target audience (11-16-year-olds) for a special nominations session. They worked in groups to pick the 30 women featured in this book.

Can you give us a few highlights of some of the women’s achievements?
There are so many. We have a female engineer, Asha Devi, who designed some of Birmingham’s most well-known landmarks. She also volunteered in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack at Ground Zero in New York.
There’s Raj Holness (pictured top), a survivor of domestic abuse who went on to launch a project to help other women in a similar situation.
We have women from the arts, like author Kit de Waal (pictured above) and ballerina Marion Tait (pictured below), and prominent sportswomen and scientists, too.
We have many firsts: Mary Lee Berners-Lee, an early pioneer of computer programming; Jessie Eden, who fought for women’s rights in the workplace; Lisa Clayton, who sailed single-handed and non-stop around the world…
There are also ordinary, everyday women like Joye Beckett, who ran a drama group for teenagers, and Clare Rowland, who works in the city centre with young people experiencing mental health issues.

How did you go about writing each piece for the book?
Every entry required careful research and the help of a whole army of people with connections to each of our chosen women. I sought guidance from friends and family, colleagues past and present, academics and historians, and I must give a special mention to the archive service at the Library of Birmingham.
What I found as a writer was that story was key – it was paramount to bring each woman to life and go beyond merely listing her achievements to really capturing her essence: the qualities she possessed, what drove her, and who contributed in her formative years to make her so determined to succeed.

Was there one woman, in particular, you identify with or were happy to find in the book?
This book isn’t about one, single achievement. Rather, it’s about the collective achievements of women both well-known and unsung, women we hope our readership will enjoy discovering.

The book is aimed at young women, what messages are you trying to give them?
There’s a section at the back of the book where our panel of young writers give their responses to the stories within… here’s what they had to say:

The women we have chosen are all, without exception, worthy of their place in this book. They’ve fought, often against discrimination or prejudice, to achieve things that have earned them a place between these pages but, even more so, a place in our hearts.
Eve Connor, Aged 14

All of the women in this book are true pioneers and excellent role models. We wanted to help promote the achievements of women and how much of an influence they are on our daily lives.
Milja Stevenson, Aged 13

Many of these women are unsung heroes. I was astounded by how few I had heard of before. It seems that few care to acknowledge the achievements of women; to remedy this, we need to celebrate women’s attainments, past and present.
Maryam Altamane, Aged 15

The book is £14.99 and available from Foyles, Waterstones, Amazon and theemmapress.com/shop.