Things A Bright Girl Can Do

A little while ago, I wrote that one of the things I loved about about Sheena Wilkinson's Mrs Hart's Marriage Bureau * was that it took its characters, and the time they lived in, seriously. It didn’t look down on them from a superior, 21^st century viewpoint. It brought the age alive. I feel the same way about Things A Bright Girl Can Do.

This is a story of three young women from three different classes all fighting for the right not just to vote, but to be themselves, in the years running up to the Great War. And it has just the right level of detail to bring the past to life without overwhelming it with all the fruits of the author’s research. (Which is quite evidently copious.) Whether it’s a crowded two-room apartment swamped with children in the East End, a house slowly stripped of its possessions by the bailiffs, or a gruelling hunger strike in prison, you can hear and smell and feel the settings.

This is really vivid writing and I was gripped by all the interlocking stories. Not to mention a host of unexpected little details - such as the ever-so-polite and courteous bailiff who moves in with a mother and daughter to make sure they don’t smuggle their belongings away before his colleagues arrive to take them – and dialogue that’s very definitely of its period without ever sounding forced.

Old pictures and film clips may now give us an image of suffragettes as women in funny-looking frocks, high collars and floppy hats. This great book makes you see beyond the fashions of the day to the admirably tough and determined characters beneath. And to remind us of the harsh, demanding battles they fought - and had to fight - for their rights.

* Mrs Hart's Marriage Bureau