Women Inspire

Hear the story of a footballing legend with a "kick like a mule!"

"A person like me, I am never scared of anybody,”

As a newly arrived refugee from East Africa, Jayaben Desai hoped for a new and better life, but instead she and her fellow workers found themselves humiliated and exploited. Burning with injustice, she knew things had to change…

"I had a country going. I ran a country"

Meet Joe Carstairs, the cigar smoking, cross dressing, speedboat racing, force of nature.   Once the fastest woman on water, Joe defied convention and lived her life in her own inimitable way.

“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”

At the age of only nineteen, Mary Shelley wrote her terrifying gothic masterpiece, "Frankenstein".  Her own life was as dramatic as fiction, so who was the woman behind the book?

In November 2020 a statue by artist Maggi Hambling which honours the brilliant and contradictory Mary Wollstonecraft, was unveiled.  It has caused much controversy, but whatever your view on it, the statue gives us a wonderful opportunity to examine the life and work of this pioneering early feminist. 

“I have always believed that those who live colourfully, fight courageously and love greatly, remain to enrich our memories and shape our actions.”

In May 1930 pilot Amy Johnson took off from Croydon Airport destined for Australia in an open cockpit bi-plane.  Her aim was to beat the World Record for a solo flight.  How did a seemingly regular girl from Yorkshire achieve the extraordinary and live a life of adventure?

“Sing to the Moon Addie, and the stars will shine!”

A phenomenal singer and bright star of the jazz age, our podcast today charts the fascinating life and career of a pioneer who blazed a trail for other jazz musicians to follow.

As broadcaster Michael Parkinson remarked in his eulogy: "Adelaide lived to 92, and she never grew old".

The last word before she spoke before died “LIBERTE”

Descended from Indian royalty, Noor Inayat Khan is sometimes known as “The Spy Princess”.  A peace-loving dreamer, she would became a British secret agent and the first female radio operator to be sent into Nazi occupied France during World War II. 

A woman of determination, resourcefulness and most of all courage.  This is her story.

I ask no other epitaph on my tomb but "SHE TRIED TO FOLLOW TRUTH.”

Our podcast today brings you a remarkable individual - campaigner, activist, socialist and theosophist.  

One of the great orators in British history, Annie’s ability to effect change for those marginalised in society defied convention at a time when women had no vote, supposedly no voice and her place was firmly in the home.

As Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw put it she ‘bounded’ into different movements with passion and resolution and inspired vilification and admiration in equal measure across continents.