The 2021 AGM of the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT) is being held in Southampton over the weekend 8th-10th October 2021. The AGM is a chance to remember the bravery of the men and women from Southampton and across Hampshire who volunteered to fight fascism in Spain as part...
Features
Trans, queer punk rockers Hunting Hearts on street safety, stereotypes and structural oppression
During Pride month, Devin Valentine, Lucy Rose and Beck Lombardi, from queer, trans punk rock Southampton band Hunting Hearts talk about gender, perception and safety with In Common’s Sally Churchward. Sally: Quite rightly, there’s been a lot of talk about street safety lately, particularly women’s safety, following the tragic...
Parenting a child with autism: lots of days I cry because I don’t understand him and feel that I’ve failed him
by Sally Churchward. A Southampton mother shares the difficulties she experiences in getting the support for her autistic son that he needs. Judgements – Laura Jones* has had enough of them. “To judge me as a parent is easier and quicker than giving my son the help he needs,”...
Opinion: Kill the Bill – joining Southampton’s protest against the controversial bill
by Charlie Hislop. Kill the Bill! Kill the Bill! That was the cry when 400 or so people assembled in Southampton’s Guildhall Square on Good Friday to protest the Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. In front of a crowd of mainly young people, a succession of speakers highlighted the wide-ranging measures in...
Opinion: Women don’t feel safe
by Emma Louise Harris. Last week was vile for women. Bookended by what should be two celebratory days; International Women’s day on Monday and Mother’s Day on Sunday, yet filled with horror. On Monday, Labour MP Jess Phillips read out a list of the 118 names of women who...
Experience: life as a single parent during covid
by Sarah Groszewski I became a single mother in August 2019, when I moved nearly 100 miles away from the life I’d built in London over the past 12 years, to start again in Southampton, when my marriage ended. The main thing that struck me was how much easier...
Campaign launched for single parent equality after research shows lockdown discriminatory
As children return to school this week, Ministers are facing calls to make being a single parent a protected characteristic under the Equality Act after a survey shows the pandemic restrictions heightened single parents’ experience of discrimination. In the UK today, a quarter of families are headed by a...
On being a mother to my trans daughter – how poems helped say what needed to be said
by Claire Dyer. There’s a poem in Yield called ‘Trans’. It imagines travellers from another planet who, on reaching Earth, see for themselves some of our ideas around gender stereotypes. There are two types of mother in this poem: and there are those they call mother who sometimes...
Celebrating 40 years of music in Southampton with Stick it Where?
by Geoff Wall. January 2021 sees Southampton’s very own STICK IT IN YOUR EAR! musical enterprise celebrate its 40th anniversary with the publication of STICK IT WHERE? – the illustrated history of Stick It In Your Ear! ….and other true stories – a 500+ page CD-rom e-book that’s directly...
New Forest children’s Christmas trail
by Sally Churchward. This self guided Christmas trail was written for use in the New Forest, but should be suitable for most woodland areas. Cut and paste it onto your own document, making sure that the answers are on a separate sheet! It indicates that a prize is on...