MIKE HILL: In praise of the ordinary women who kept our community strong

The Saint Hild Way celebrates the Anglo Saxon Abbess of both Hartlepool and Whitby, whose influence in the day on religious and political life in the area was phenomenal. Centuries later, of course, came ‘Red’ Ellen Wilkinson who was elected Labour MP for Middlesbrough East in 1924, whose former constituency also forms part of the new coastal route. Both were pioneering women who made a real difference to society and who paved the way for others to follow.

But it’s not just the great and the good who we need to commemorate in the history of the fight for the rights of women. It’s also those ordinary women, like the so called ‘Munitinonettes’ who worked in shell producing factories, like White’s in Hartlepool, during the First World War; and those at the North of England Match Factory near Swainston Dock, which was established in the 1930s and burnt down in 1954, who have always stepped up to the plate in times of crisis. These women kept our communities strong and cohesive at the same time as we fought through war and the Great Depression.

These days, we rightly celebrate our local women heroes like boxing champion Savannah Marshall; we remember the struggles of the Women of Greenham Common, the Women Against Pit Closures, the Suffragettes, the Women Hunger Marches, matching that of the Jarrow Crusade of 1936, and fully back the WASPI Women today in their struggle against state pension inequality.

Yet we live in an age that, despite having had two female Prime Ministers, life expectancy for women in parts of the UK, like ours, has droppped drastically. In 2017, it was reported that the healthy life expectancy for Hartlepool women was the second worst in the country. The latest statistics are showing that thanks to ten years of Tory cuts the rest of the country is catching up with us and the budget statement this week hasn’t helped.