Sideways look at Milton Keynes: Suffragettes could have benefited from social media

No prob – “social media” to the rescue! Yep, a guaranteed audience of those in need of being told what to think, and sufficiently daft to believe any idealistic nonsense. In fact you could even become an unelected “ambassador” for your country!

But sensibly used what a boon it would have been to the Suffragette movement. Better to get their message across than being chained to railings.

And this year sees the centenary of the Representation of the People Act, which gave the vote to women over 30 “who met a property qualification”.

In fact, locally several women played a prominent role in the struggle and not least Miss Charlotte Emily Hawkes, born at Hanslope.

She left the village in her teens and at one time acted as housekeeper at a hostel for officers’ children that Mrs Pankhurst ran in London during World War One.

She travelled abroad extensively as a children’s nurse but in later life spent her retirement in Hanslope.

As for Mrs Marie Weller, she was incarcerated in Holloway prison and in recognition of her sacrifice was presented with a certificate by Mrs Pankhurst.

Nowadays mass communication is available to anyone. But surely there needs to be some form of truthful vetting. I’d vote for that, or as depressingly seems the norm, social media just becomes a medium for the inane spoutings of fake news from fake people.