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giving it equal status as an artistic centre. I want to live in an
England where women’s rights and talents are recognized and thoroughly exercised. Today, there is not one woman working as a director of films here, but I intend to change that.”
    Lord, I was exhausted just listening to them. Such intensity and passion! Oh, I adore it here. There is much I shall learn and, for the first time in ages, I feel light-hearted.
    18th May 1909
    I slept for ever and woke late! I hadn’t realized that I was so tired. There has been so much coming and going that I didn’t notice until this morning, when the
house was calm, that Flora has two truly gorgeous silver-blue cats. I found them curled up asleep on one of the Liberty chairs when I went in for breakfast.
    19th May 1909
    We had luncheon today with a journalist friend of Flora’s who writes for the
Times Literary Supplement
and lives round the corner from here in Gordon Square. Her
name is Virginia Stephen. She is a rather delicate-looking lady with wistful eyes and a pale face shaped like a long leaf. She and her sister, a painter called Vanessa Bell, along with several
other friends of theirs, are the founders of a locally-based society known as the Bloomsbury Group. Flora is also a member. Among the other guests at lunch was a Labour politician from Scotland,
Keir Hardie. He is a well-known supporter of the women’s movement and a great friend of the Pankhursts.
    “What does your group do?” I asked Miss Stephen. “What is its purpose?”
    “We are all of us passionate about the arts and believe that the highest form of social progress is the accessibility of art to everyone. All society should be entitled to enjoy the
pleasures of human intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful objects.”
    I could not always follow the subject matters but the discussions were very lively. The talk was of social progress, sexual equality and the “strictures of the Victorian Age”.
    From time to time I nodded and tried to look intelligent. I agreed with much that was said, particularly about sexual equality, but I remained silent. I felt too shy to speak.
    By then it was about time for tea. The others left and Flora invited me to her study. It smells of leather from the big chairs and the hundreds of books lining the shelves. I was glad everyone
had gone because we had barely seen one another since I arrived.
    “When I was your age, Dollie,” she said, “one of my favourite pastimes was afternoon tea with Grandma. Cook would serve us my favourite home-made biscuits and then, once we
were settled and I was tucking contentedly into the goodies, Grandma would encourage me to talk. She wanted to know all about my worries and my hopes and joys.”
    “Yes,” I said. “She used to ask me the same.”
    “Do you intend to try for Oxford, as my grandmother obviously hoped for you?”
    I do desire to go to university, but I did not have the confidence to say so. How could a working-class girl like me, even with the special opportunities that have been bestowed upon her, dare
to count on the possibility of Oxford?
    “I am very touched that Lady Campbell has made such a path available to me,” was my response. “I will work hard and do my best.”
    “Have you decided what you will read if you are accepted there? Or do your imaginings take you travelling? Perhaps you fancy studying medicine or law?”
    I hesitated. So many questions.
    “What do you hope for, Dollie? What do you dream of achieving? Do tell, darling.”
    “I intend to be a journalist.”
    “Ah, yes, I had forgotten. And what will you use your pen to fight for?”
    I was a bit sheepish about divulging any of my secret plans but eventually, because Flora continued to press me – “Tell me every detail and I will do my utmost to assist you.”
– I confided that I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Lady Violet, and of Flora herself. “Your grandmother always taught me that votes for women are essential,