Why Yorkshire communities are raising banners

A hundred organisations across the country are making banners for a series of processions celebrating a century of votes for women. Chris Bond visited one of those involved in Thirsk.
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In an upstairs room at Thirsk’s former courthouse, Jenny Harwood and Margaret Taylor are busy helping to put the finishing touches to a banner that next weekend will be paraded through the streets of London.

The building, now home to Rural Arts, dates back to 1885, the same year that a crusade against the exploitation of young girls led to the creation of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which raised the age of sexual consent to 16.

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This was a significant step in the struggle for women’s rights in this country, but a century ago an even greater landmark moment was reached when a law came into force allowing women over the age of 30 who owned property (or were married to someone who did) to vote for the first time.

Although this only amounted to around 40 per cent of British women it was a crucial victory for the suffragettes and paved the way for full adult suffrage a decade later.

The centenary has been widely celebrated in recent months and next weekend a mass participation event will take place simultaneously in London, Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh, commemorating this historic anniversary.

A hundred organisations from across the UK have been busy making banners to mark the occasion and will be using the suffragette green, white and purple emblems to create a river of colour flowing through the streets next Sunday.

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Helen Marriage, director of Artichoke, the organisation behind Processions believes it’s a fitting tribute to their pioneering predecessors. “The women’s suffrage movement used banners to get their message across 100 years ago. They understood the power of branding and image, and the beautiful expressive banners that their campaigners made and carried on their processions were central to spreading their message of ‘Give Women Votes’,” she says.

The idea is to tap into this to create a portrait of women in 21st century Britain. “It’s a reminder of how far women have come as well as a recognition of how much there is still to be done. We should never forget what it took for women to win the vote, because a hundred years ago was really just the beginning.”

Several organisations from Yorkshire are taking part including Artlink Hull and The Brick Box, involving women from Bradford, and Rural Arts – a charity based in North Yorkshire.

When the call went out for local volunteers to work on the Rural Arts banner more than 50 people came forward. “We have a ceramics group downstairs and when we heard about the banner we thought it be would good to get involved,” says Margaret, who has been coming to sessions run by Rural Arts for the past couple of years.

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“It’s a great community project to be part of because we’ve met some new people and you’re working as a group, which is a nice thing to do.”

Fellow banner-maker Jenny agrees. “Everyone’s got different skills, some people have created the logos and others have done the lettering so everyone’s contributing, whether it’s knitting or crocheting, and there’s something great about doing something like this that comes together as a whole.”

Angela Hall is director of the arts charity she set up more than 25 years ago and jumped at the chance of getting involved in this project.

“We’ve done a lot of banner work in the 
past all over North Yorkshire and when the call came out we thought it just sounded really interesting.

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“We’ve got a lot of women locally who are interested in textiles and we’ve done quite a few workshops so it was easy to get a cohort together to participate.”

Work on the banner started a couple of months ago and is, says Angela, a celebration of Thirsk and the countryside, with those who helped to make it all living within a 10-mile radius of the town.

Ten of the women involved are heading to London next week where they plan to meet up with some of the other groups taking part in the procession. “It’s a processional banner, so we wanted something that was going to make a big statement,” says Angela.

The Rural Arts banner was designed by one of the charity’s interns and features a rural backdrop with panels running down each side that relate to the town and its history, referencing local landmarks like its market place, Sutton Bank and the fabled White Horse at Kilburn. Notable figures from the area also feature. “There’s Joan Maynard the founding trustee of Rural Arts and also a former MP for Sheffield Brightside. She’s from Thirsk and she championed rural workers rights, so she appears on our banner,” says Angela.

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“It’s got ethnicity and it represents all ages. We didn’t have long to come up with a design but what we’ve come up with is really striking and hopefully it will get the message across and help us stand out from the crowd.”

The project has brought together people of all ages and from all kinds of backgrounds. “There’s a real mix. There’s been some children helping and pensioners and everyone in between. We have art classes for the over 75s here and they’ve made all these beautiful little embroidered flowers and we’ve also had young women from our art club that worked on it.

“There’s been mums with babies who’ve come in and taken things away to work on. Everyone’s got different skills, some people are very good at using sewing machines, while others are very good at embroidery.”

Michelle Wade, a mother and graphic designer, is among those who have worked on the banner. “It’s been a really good collaborative experience and you realise you can make things you didn’t think you could,” she says. Gail Falkingham, an archaeologist, is another who’s helped out. “It really depicts Thirsk and the diversity of the area, and there’s a real sense of pride that this is going to be in London.”

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She says it’s been a rewarding experience for everyone involved. “It’s brought people together and as well as learning new skills a lot of us have become friends, so hopefully we’ll establish some kind of textile group that can carry on meeting and making things together.”

Angela believes projects like this tap into something important. “I’m coming towards the end of my career and talking to young female colleagues they have a completely different experience of life to me, but it’s not just about things like the ‘Me Too’ campaign.

“You see women working in agriculture now, we’ve got women driving tractors and lorries and working as butchers, and it’s important that young women today see that and have something to aspire to. We’re a completely female organisation, not deliberately I have to say, and to work on something like this with a group of women and see all the skills, both traditional and modern, that they bring and all the different ideas it’s actually really empowering.”

Processions is produced by Artichoke and commissioned by 14-18 NOW, the UK’s arts programme for the First World War centenary. To find out more and to sign up to take part on June 10 visit processions.co.uk