"Joan's Unfinished Autobiographical Novel"

Dear David and Myrna;
". . . . Audrey is very good to me and often works overtime at her rather trying job. With encouragement from her, and some friends here, I am doing what you told me once I should be doing, i.e. writing & have so far roughed out the first ten chapters of a novel.

This is partly autobiographical, based on my experiences in England as the only child of separated parents. My mother being in the suffrage movement, one of the militant group, who went round smashing windows etc. for which she and her group were consigned to Holloway Women's Prison in London. There many of them, including my mother, went on hunger strike and had to undergo the near-torture and forcible feeding.

My book is partly from the point of view of a very young child 6 - 10, who didn't at all grasp the social and political implications; but in my next chapter I will reach 1914, and that chapter of European History, of course, solved the problem of Women's suffrage for good and all.

The B.B.C has been here recently to make a third series of "Waiting for God" and I hope that it will reach Australia before the end of this year . . . ."

Mother died later that year (at the age of 85) before she received my reply.

Note:
In the unfinished draft for a novel - ( Audrey says the underlying story is factual) - some of the names are fictional. The photographs do not necessarily relate to any particular individual in the story - they are some photos of Joan's and do not represent any person still living, and do not necessarily have any relevance.

Click the following link to view the documentation.

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