Good morning everyone,

I am on a train to Scotland as I send this. What a country. Here's a Fem Fri about Scotland, what else?

Margaret Moir brings together two of my most loved locations by growing up by the Forth (in Scotland) and also by being the first woman to walk through the Blackwall Tunnel (in South-East London - that's the connection to a beloved location, not the Blackwall Tunnel specifically. SUN IN SANDS ROUNDABOUT CREW PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR etc).

The Women’s Engineering Society (WES) was founded in 1919 by a small group of influential women, including, as she now was, Lady Moir. She and other members of the WES worked tirelessly to set up training courses for women engineers and encourage women to take up engineering as a career.

https://blog.historicenvironment.scot/2019/04/lady-moir/

This song, which I learned in primary school, gets stuck in my head so often. It's a traditional island spinning song, and like so many Scottish songs that go with manual labour, has partly nonsense lyrics. Spinning has traditionally been women's work - in fact, Fem Fri kicked off with an article about how that's why we have the word "spinster" - so that's the connection:

Be he dark or be he fair,

To meet and greet my true love.

https://www.classicalconnect.com/Choral_Music/Traditional/Island_Spinning_Song/1466

By the way, I actually have a super cool interview in the tank for you all, but work is extremely full on right now so I've had no time to edit it. Just so you know that I am still thinking of fun and innovative things to do for Fem Fri! I want the last nine months of this newsletter to be so great <3

Love,

Alex.