BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine show discusses Women Suffragettes

Jeremy Vine BBC 2 radio presenter invited Peter Barratt on to his show to discuss his famous Great Grandmother who was a Women Suffragette.

Alice Hawkins the famous Leicester Suffragette became the topic of discussion on The Jeremy Vine BBC Radio 2 show; the Great Grandson 'Peter Barratt' was asked to appear on the show to contribute to the subject 'was your Grandmother a Suffragette?'.  Peter has dedicated a website to his Great Grandmothers fight for women's rights which holds in-valuable information and memorabilia that can only be described as fascinating.

Appearing on the show, Peter told Jeremy Vine of how it was not only the upper class that were fighting for women's rights, the working class women stood along side all classes to fight for the women's right to vote.  The famous Emily Pankhurstwho has gone down in history for her death by the kings horse was known to send a car for Alice Hawkins to take her to London to attend the marches.  Peter told the listeners how the huge fancy car would enter the small streets of Leicester and by the time it got to Alice's house, it would have a huge following of people mesmerised by the posh car entering their working class streets.

Alice jailed 5 times for her protests, a caller said "today these women would be classed as terrorists for their criminal behaviour" however, these women tried for many years with peaceful protests with no success.  Listening to the grandchildren of the Suffragettes; the reason that they turned to disruptive criminal behaviour was to get them noticed and listened to.  History and Alice Hawkins website confirms that none of the Suffragettes went out to harm actual people; it was more action to disrupt the lives of the politicians who were not giving women the same rights as men.  Peter Barratt told Jeremy Vine how Alice was jailed for digging up a golf course to disrupt one of men's favourite recreational past times.

Jeremy spoke to other grandchildren of how the women were force fed when imprisoned after they went on hunger strike; the in-humane methods can only be described as horrific, pipes physically pushed down their throats to force feed them. 

Whatever thoughts are about the behaviour of these women; they stood up, they fought and they won the right for women to be equal to men.  The fascinating story of how these women stood together whatever their class, can be found at http://www.alicesuffragette.co.ukwhere researches can view original memoribillia including prison warrants, postcards and news cuttings. 

To listen to the suffragettes on Jeremy Vine Show at BBC Radio 2 click here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01061ww

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