There were banners, there were loudhailers, there were marching songs, but this wasn’t a protest. The police were nowhere to be seen. This was a cheerful, untroubled, hopeful ambience. Flowers and laughter. This was the Wilding Festival, a celebration of the suffragette movement and the 100th-year anniversary of the death of militant activist Emily Wilding Davison – the woman who lost her life after throwing herself in front of the king’s horse at the Epsom Derby to draw attention to the cause.
A group of modern-day suffragettes had assembled on Saturday morning in Russell Square, dressed in the suffrage colours of white (purity), purple (loyalty) and green (hope). Among their number was Dr Helen Pankhurst, the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, all legendary leaders of the movement.
As I was swinging from the tail-end to the head of the column, an onlooker asked me if this was about the suffragette. “Don’t you women already have your rights? Why are you still marching?”
His friend laughed, as did I. We said something about the special commemoration, that this was the centenary of Emily Wilding Davison’s death.
“Emily Wilding, we all know about her, running in front of the horse. They play the clip every year at the Derby,” he mused, then, reading the banner, “Wilding Festival. That makes sense. But what about re-wilding? I’ve been hearing that quite a lot recently.”
At that, I became quite animated. It wasn’t that often that I could explain ecology to a stranger! Rewilding, in conservation ecology, is about restoring ‘wilderness’ habitats.
His mate interrupted, “Rewilding was a thoroughbred, I recall. Ran in Ascot, had to be put down on the course after a getting a broken leg…”
I excused myself and re-joined the procession.
Helen Pankhurst (L), great-granddaughter of Emmeline, leader of the British suffragette movement
A suffragette decked out in Edwardian clothing
The Olympic suffragettes who performed in the London 2012 opening ceremony with the slogan ‘Deeds Not Words’
I followed the entire parade to its conclusion at St George’s Bloomsbury where a ceremony was held to unveil a memorial plaque made by some primary school students from Islington. It was the same route taken by the thousands of suffragettes a hundred years ago on 14 June 1913 during Davison’s memorial service… what an overwhelming sense of connection with history!
The procession sang songs along the way, to the tune of nursery rhymes
At the steps of St George’s Bloomsbury
Two schoolchildren who had worked on the memorial plaque explain the artistic process
‘March and fight for our one common right, Citizens to be!’ – chorus of the Purple, White and Green March
I enjoyed a long conversation with this lady about the history of the suffrage and all that, and I’m glad to have done a little bit of research before the event so that I had some background knowledge – the better to engage the participants with and the better to inform my photography. She shared with me the divergent views within the movement on effective campaigning – “Some think that unless you chain yourself to the rails of Parliament, nobody would take notice! But me, count me out.” – and then something in our discussion prompted her to pull out a photo of her with a celebrity at a previous suffragette gathering. She mentioned his name, which I have unfortunately forgotten. [25 June 2013 edit: He’s British singer Englebert Humperdink]
She went, “You wouldn’t know who that is, unless you’re over seventy. Which I am. Back in those days, he was quite the heart-throb.”
“I can imagine,” I chuckled.
Believe it or not, she’s on Facebook!
Photography notes
All the photos were taken with the Nikon D7100 with f/2.8 17-55 lens, except the last three which were by the Fuji X100S. Once indoors, I had deployed the X100S as my secondary camera. Not only was it quiet enough that I felt totally comfortable clicking away in the respectful silence accompanying the Father’s speech, but its high ISO-handling, white balance, dynamic range, even auto-focus, and overall image quality simply blew the D7100’s out of the water where low-light situations were involved.