Forgotten Women, Hidden Histories: Ladies’ Mile Talks Now Booking!

What can a cloakroom attendant on Bristol’s Durdham Downs teach us about the city’s social history?  Quite a lot, it turns out.

I’m now giving illustrated talks based on the extraordinary memoir Ladies’ Mile by Victoria Hughes — a woman whose quiet job gave her a front-row seat to some of Bristol’s most intimate and overlooked stories.

For 33 years, Victoria served as the cloakroom attendant at the ladies’ public toilets near the Water Tower on the Downs. But this wasn’t just a job. It became a place of refuge, conversation, and confession for hundreds of women — sex workers, mothers, daughters, strangers — all finding a moment of pause and privacy in a changing city.

Victoria recorded much of what she saw and heard in her journals. The result is Ladies’ Mile, a book full of quiet compassion and sharp insight into the lives of working-class women from the 1930s to the 1960s.

In my one-hour illustrated talk, I’ll explore:

• Victoria’s life and why her story matters
• What her memoir reveals about Bristol’s hidden social history
• The surprising journey of the book itself — and why I decided to reprint it
• Archival photographs and visual history of the era
• Q&A with the audience

Please contact me if you'd like to know more.