Thank you to everyone who joined me in Brighton Fringe this year to walk, talk, chat and explore our city’s brilliant women’s history!

Here I am on a busy walk in Hove, joined by about 28 of you on a beautiful day, finding out about the former New Sussex Hospital for Women and Children on Windlesham Road.

(Photo: Ian Godley) I was really excited to get an email from Brighton Fringe on 31st May – so a couple of days before the end of the festival – advising me that I’d been nominated for an Audience Choice Award: Best Brighton Fringe Event Supported by Chichester Festival Theatre based on the number of five star reviews my walks received. I was very flattered as this is the only award nominated and chosen by the ticket buying public rather than arts industry professionals. Hooray! Here I am at the Awards ceremony on the 2nd June at the Vault, looking triumphant (and relieved. You never really know how much people are enjoying it a hundred per cent), even though I didn’t win.

(Photo: Nimrod Peskett)

Ah well. I’ll have to keep my Oscar acceptance speech for another day 😊

(But if I had given my Oscar acceptance speech I would have totally given it over to Dr Louisa Martindale, Dr Helen Boyle, Margaret Powell, Clara Butt, the Hilton Twins, Martha Gunn, Phoebe Hessel, Sophia Duleep Singh, Princess Omoba Aina and all the other wonderful women whose stories I tell.)

When I started to do these women’s history tours, first in Brighton, then Kemptown, then Hove, I counted myself lucky if more than five people turned up. I would get phone calls ‘is it OK if my husband comes with me? I mean, are men allowed?’. The tours lasted just over an hour and people would say afterwards ‘wow, I’d never heard of any of those women!’ Fast forward 12 years and my tours are almost 2 hours long – and still I only feel as if I’m presenting the tip of the mighty iceberg. Many more women now have blue plaques thanks to the efforts of the Brighton and Hove Women’s History Group among others. Many women I talk about on my walks have become local household names – or, at least, better known. One of them (Mercedes Gleitze, first British woman to swim the Channel) is now the subject of a fantastic, well-regarded feature film! I find that, rather than introducing many of the women to people for the first time, we’re now exploring different angles, talking about what their legacy is, how they changed things generally, their journey towards getting a blue plaque.

There are still a huge amount of women who aren’t as well known as they should be and I’d also like to research the stories of local working women in the past to add to my walks. I have a few ideas about this, so watch this space!

In the meantime, please remember that my three walks are available to book. I’m not scheduling in any walks for the foreseeable future (this may change, watch this space again) but if you have a group – even a very small group of friends/family, etc. – and you fancy your own private walk, please contact me and I’ll see if I can fit you in. I’ve done private walks in the past for a couple of hen nights, birthday parties, work away-days, and groups such as W.I.s and U3As. In a couple of weeks I’m looking forward to doing my third walk for the fabulous people at Connected Brighton. I can offer you weekends, some week days, mornings, afternoons, and evenings. I can customise content, start in a different place, shorten, lengthen and generally tailor to your requirements.

(Photo: Ann Gordon)

Why not make the most of the long summer days and warm weather by booking a walk? Just email historywomenbrighton@outlook.com

Remember I do a seated version too.

For seated talks I offer ‘Fearless and Fabulous Women of Brighton and Hove,’ ‘Fearless and Fabulous Women of East Sussex’, ‘Fearless and Fabulous Women of West Sussex’, ‘Entertaining Women’, ‘Cooking Women’, ‘Women Warriors’, ‘The Pioneering Women Doctors of Brighton and Hove’, ‘The Story of Brighton Suffragettes’ and ‘Actress, Singer, Suffragette: the Fantastic Story of the Actresses Franchise League’.

Here I am at The Dome in November 2023 with some of my array of Entertaining Women. How many can you spot?

(Photo: Julia Winckler)

Also, a reminder! If you want to take yourself on a walk or just dip in to some of the stories of our local women, my book ‘The Fearless and The Fabulous, a Journey Through Brighton and Hove’s Women’s History’ is still available at the Royal Pavilion shop, Brighton Museum shop htpps://shop.brightonmuseums.org.uk, Kemptown Bookshop http://www.kemptownbookshop.co.uk, City Books Hove http://www.city-books.co.uk and the Green Room Cafe on Ditchling Road. Or just email me to enquire about postage/delivery on historywomenbrighton@outlook.com

Hope to hear from some of you soon.

In the meantime, I want to say a huge thank you if you voted for me, came on a walk this year, came on a walk any other year, booked me for anything, or are just reading this blog. It’s the best job ever (even if it’s not really a ‘job’ and I can only do it between day job requirements) finding out the stories of our fantastic local women and talking to you about them. Hopefully more will follow Yet again – and you know what I’m going to say here – WATCH THIS SPACE!