What are we? Why do we act the way we do? Women’s rights in a male dominated world have always been important to me but until recently, I never understood why I am so determined to change things. I’d like to introduce you to two ladies. The first is Maria Bedworth who was born almost two hundred years ago, around October 1812 in Birmingham, the daughter of Thomas Bedworth and Ann Jeffries and the second introduction is to her daughter Selina Millard, born in Birmingham in February 1855. Their phenomenal struggle to survive the perils of Victorian England is the reason I write; without them I would not exist at all, as Maria is my great-great-great grandmother following the direct female line, and Selina my great–great-grandmother. She is seated in this photograph taken around 1926, with my mother on her lap.
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