House of Nancy Astor

An after work stroll and start of my blue plaque mission over this centenary year. The first blue plaque was of Nancy Astor, the first woman to take her seat in Parliament. An a few doors down, Ada Lovelace. Not related to suffrage but a lovely bonus to my suffrage plaque tour.

Suffrage postboxes

How ironic, but to commemorate the centenary year, the Royal Mail decorated the post boxes on Millbank with suffrage posters.

Visiting Concorde again

26 November 2003 is a day I won’t ever forget, the day that Concorde returned to Bristol, the place it was born. I was working in Westbury on Trym, adjacent to the Filton airfield where it landed. Concorde circled around and around before it landed in Filton and we all watched outside work. I visited her again when she was on the runway, where we had to take our passports and be bussed into the airfield because it was owned by Airbus. We could sit in the seats and all got to sit in the Queen’s seat 1A. We got to go in all of the compartments and into the cockpit to see the Captains hat which was wedged into the nose when concorde expanded going at mac 2.

Fast forward to 2018 and now concorde is Bristol Aerospace and a large museum with displays, lots of other aircraft, projections onto the nose of concorde and all seats and concorde behind glass.

The Centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918

The Centenary of the Represetnation of the People Act 1918 – what a phenomenal day! I walked Whitehall looking at the suffrage flags adorning the buildings. I went to Trafalgar square to look at the image of profiles going to be on the statue, and ended the day at a reception with the Prime Minister in Westminster Hall. My highlight as the girls choirs singing Sister Suffragette.