And finally……
From Dame Doreen Lawrence, a moving speech, then the Q&A with Ed before Harriet’s brilliant summing up, I was wondering how I could follow this and was looking forward to sharing all my conference moments with Joe ( yes you, my son) but he stood me up, probably knowing the Brighton was going to be engulfed in rain. So I set out by myself for a quick look around starting at The Pavilion So I was delighted to find a group of women swathed in sashes being led by a woman in Edwardian Dress, on a tour of the town following in the footsteps of the Suffragettes. Wot larks! Im up for anything, so I joined them donned the sash and off we went. It’s perhaps not surprising to reflect that Emily Davidson, Christabel Pankhurst &co would have been familiar with the equality issues being faced today. The research for this walk had been undertaken by two women from U3A and at strategic spots along the route, we were shown archive photographs and articles from The Brighton ArgusThe walk was interactive and at strategic points, we were encouraged to shout slogans to get the feel of demonstrating-perhaps familiar to us, but not to Edwardian women. Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion was part of the group and she probably understood better than most, the personal cost of her anti tracking protest. Well done Caroline for carrying on the great tradition of not only Brighton Women, and women like Doreen Lawrence. Caroline reminded us that a plaque to Emily Wilding Davison was put up in a House of Commons broom cupboard, by Tony Benn, to commemorate her hiding from the census in 1911. That’s it then. Labour Conference 2013 over. Some say it will be shown to be a historic moment in the Party’s history but it was quite a highlight in mine. Now the hard work begins.