In 1971 I was a teenager raging at the front door and sneaking in by the back door. I caught buses in dark bus stations and lived near owly fields and lanes. I took lifts, to stretch out moment between parental control and teenage power.
It wasn’t idyllic, it was fraught with anxiety and pitch perfect hearing. There was inevitably a coasting car, come ons, offered lifts, stomach churning bus drivers, a lift with friends when I realised I’d be the last in the car and jumped out at traffic lights, the lift when I pretended I lived a mile from home so my address wouldn’t be known, preferring at that moment to walk in the dark than be in that car. I was exploring my freedom and deemed to be always up for it.
In 2021 I was asked to contribute to an exhibition in Hereford. I researched the year 1971 for the painting ‘The anchorhold 1971’
I used a version of a toy theatre and painted anchorholds in the theatre boxes, women kept in hidden places. In other boxes sit the male and female couples, the female anchored to the male around her neck. Each female represents a news story in 1971 highlighting the demonising of women – including Wimpy barring women from entering late at night because only prostitutes were expected to be on the streets.
I also chose 1971 because that was when, under sixteen years old, I was kicked by an adult male when I refused to dance with him, preferring the company of my female friends. He berated me, heavily bruising my thigh, for not knowing a good offer when I saw one.
In 1971 I was on the cusp of liberation and subjugation.
Girls and women have never claimed the streets
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