International Women's Day

I think it was Antony Sher who once said "Nothing is more interesting than human lives". I have an enduring passion for biographies and autobiographies; I'm enthralled by entering into another's world, seeing things from their perspective, going to places I shall probably never visit but experiencing them in another's shoes.

Looking through the books on my shelves, I'm very aware that most of the lives I read about are women's lives. So many of the best sellers, the supposedly "serious" biographies are of course about men, about the great and the good (or the not so good!) who have had major impacts on national or international situations. Women's lives, with notable exceptions, have so often been more private, often family centred affairs - more challenging to write about when there are fewer written or other sources from which to glean information. But I think it's this combination of the private and the public, the ability of the subjects to function on different levels in different capacities, that really interests me. Women's lives are often infinitely more complex than those of their male counterparts, and therefore, to me, richer to explore.

It was heartening to see the emergence of more "women focused" books during the recent commemorations of the First World War, with the vital roles women played at last receiving due recognition. And not just the famous ones - the likes of Vera Britten and Elsie Inglis - but the local, unsung heroines in towns and villages who nursed the sick, harvested the fields, manned the trams and stretched the meagre food supplies. Their more prominent sisters may be honoured on plaques and memorials but those stand as reminders too of all the women's contribution in such  desperate times.

The theme of this year's International Women's Day is "Think equal. Build smart. Innovate for change" - today's language perhaps, but those three principles were precisely those that motivated our predecessors a hundred years ago. In Newport earlier this week I was reminded of the women of my own home town to whom we owe so much. A mural in Commercial Street, unveiled during the WW1 commemorations, stands witness to their lives - all those who paved the way for the daughters and granddaughters coming after them, who had and have hugely greater freedoms and opportunities because of those women's stands.

The Newport mural followed from the publication of Sylvia Mason's book "Every Woman Remembered - Daughters of Newport in the Great War". The book not only recounts the lives of the seven women who died after "active" war service but pays due homage to the many others, my own grandmothers among them, to whom we owe so much. And it's far from a "trip down memory lane" - it all has direct relevance to what's going on in the contemporary world. The proceeds from the sale of the book (available from Amazon and Saron Publishers) go to Newport Women's Bursary which awards funds to help local women fulfill their ambitions today.

Our current concerns may not be those of previous generations but, as the saying goes, "you can only understand the present in the light of the past" - acknowledging it and learning from it goes a long way towards helping us into the future!