Author Archives: Ruth Bright

What sensitive flowers they are! You cannot move these days for some commentator dismissing students (especially women and LGBT students) as lacking resilience and unable to cope with criticism, contrary views or even a bit of banter.

But would we really want to go back to the university culture of thirty or forty years ago – particularly for women? The revelation in Harriet Harman’ s biography “A Woman’s Work” that her tutor threatened to downgrade her degree if she did not sleep with him does not come as a big surprise to those of us who went to university a few decades ago.

The Women Candidates’ weekend is about to take place and (apart from the odd party pooper) most reasonable folk can see that an event that boosts confidence and offers a quick burst of training is of value. But what about candidate support and candidate retention when the big weekend is over?

In a small party with a reliance on the selfless hard work of a thin layer of ridiculously dedicated volunteers it is not surprising that the pastoral care of candidates has not been a big priority over the years. It was a luxury we could not afford. But that has …

Children’s ward, 1974.

A nurse has told us what to do. Important. Nurses are grown-ups and important. They have a uniform. You do what they say. All of us, boys and girls, all ages, we have to do what they say. I am 7 and here to have my tonsils out. This hospital is special. It was where I was born. I have never been away from my parents or my grandparents or my cat. On the bedside table is a Blue Peter Annual and a Lucie Attwell prayer book, it has pop-up pictures. The books remind me of home. I don’t much like the older boys. They like to watch Planet of the Apes on the telly at the end of the ward. That’s scary we don’t watch that at home. I asked for the Wombles on the Hospital Radio. They haven’t played it yet.

The nurse says that we all need to go to the toilet in potties by the side of the bed. All of us are doing it. At the same time. Horrible, I am 7. Babies use potties. I don’t want the older boys to see me. I Shuffle close to the bed so no-one will see me do it. But the other end of the ward can see me do it. They can see under the bed. You have to do it because it is the hospital. But no-one at school makes you go to the toilet in front of other people. Everything’s different in hospital.

As you can probably tell my first spell in hospital is almost as vivid to me today as it was 43 years ago. A minor incident? Inadvertently or intentionally abusive? Obviously it would be unacceptable now. What possible excuse can there have been for a urine sample to have been required from us all at the same time in view of each other and staff?

As late as last year there were people defending Cyril Smith’s reputation on Liberal Democrat Voice.  Well now we know beyond all reasonable doubt that the old Liberal Party had its own Savilesque character – it is just that none of us knew, in fact none of us even had an inkling. None of us could possibly have known and none of us could possibly have had an inkling. Could we?

I joined the party in 1985 when I was eighteen. Of course three decades on I do not remember every earnest conversation amongst my fellow Liberal students. What I do remember though is that in the entirely peripheral and uninfluential party circles in which I moved, “Hanger Smith” was viewed with contempt and wariness for supporting capital punishment and rejecting a woman’s right to choose. I never heard any rumours about him and sexual abuse, but there was a sense that he was an old local government bruiser who was somehow untouchable despite being totally out of sync with the mainstream of the party.