he irony of “forgotten women of history” is invariably that the facts of their lives turn out to be acutely memorable. When I began researching the life of Ellen Wilkinson (following a commission from Lorne Campbell, then artistic director of Northern Stage) the more books and House of Commons transcripts I devoured, the larger her life became. To attempt to visualise all the people, politics and moments of history she was involved with, I printed out 180 blank calendar months and stuck them into an A4 notebook, filling in the last 15 years of her life, day by day. It was a hefty tome. At 4ft 10in with flame-red hair, Wilkinson’s nicknames included The Fiery Particle and The Mighty Atom. The sheer energy of her political conviction was earth-shaking. She was constantly falling over in parliament due to running in the corridors; she drove her beloved Austin Seven at great speed, often on the wrong side of the road, and “tirelessness” was her modus operandi. There was always so much to do, and so little time. After visiting Spanish republicans during the civil war her plane was struck by lightning, but she still managed to make it to the House of Commons in time to move her bill on hire purchase. She collided with a lorry during a blackout and still turned up to work the next day, with a fractured skull. As a Labour MP, she is best known as the leader of the Jarrow march – a heroic failure in its time now remembered as a great folk movement – in which 200 men marched 300 miles from Jarrow to London to petition parliament for the resuscitation of industry in their town. But she also rescued refugee babies at the Saar border; was the first reporter to break the news of Hitler’s imminent advance on the Rhineland; visited Gandhi in his prison cell; moonlit with communists, organising 1933’s “counter-trial” to prove the Nazis burnt the Reichstag; took charge of air-raid shelters during the war, and became the only female minister in Clement Attlee’s government in 1945. And that is just scratching the surface. A play is more than a collection of moments, however, and the more ingredients I added, the harder and more necessary it became to clarify the central questions – to learn from my main character, to listen. This isn’t a play eulogising a powerful woman: she wasn’t a myth, she made mistakes, she didn’t look after herself, and her decisions were sometimes not strategic, fuelled by passion, yet naive. Her naivety, though, was also her strength. The people who change the world are those who refuse to accept it is impossible. By the end of her life, Ellen, a backbencher with one foot in revolution and one in reform, wasn’t naive any more. This is the penultimate scene of my play, set a few months before her death in 1947. Red Ellen Act V, scene 3 Rest Harrow (Nancy Astor’s holiday home). NANCY ASTOR and ELLEN are eating breakfast in the garden. NANCY The fact remains that now, when you are sick and exhausted, do you call your communist pals in their hovels? No. You call your rich Conservative viscountess friend with the holiday home by the sea. ELLEN This better not be the same cutlery. NANCY We replace it all once a year. ELLEN I cannot bloody believe … NANCY Stop it. ELLEN I’m on the same patio where you breakfasted with the Nazi foreign minister. NANCY It’s not like you’ve never been wrong about anything. ELLEN (Impersonating her.) “Germany announces conscription? Good for her. Germany resigns from the League of Nations? Good for her. Give the Third Reich all it wants that does not belong to us – Austria, a bit of Czechoslovakia, Tanganyika, the Cameroons, Togo-bongo-land or whatever it’s called …” NANCY That is a terrible impersonation. ELLEN Did you read Ribbentrop’s last words? At Nuremberg? NANCY Strewth! Sharing poached eggs is not the same as sharing beliefs. ELLEN His last words, did you read them? Pause He took the 13 steps up the gallows, donned the noose and said, “I wish peace to the world.” NANCY delicately vomits out her mouthful of poached egg into her napkin. Yep. Pause. And I am acutely aware of my own hypocrisy, Nancy. But at least I never played charades with the German ambassador. NANCY Well that is just an outright lie. Slight pause. It was musical chairs. ELLEN spits out her coffee with laughter. The mood softens for a moment … then grows sombre again. You were just as wrong about the Russians as I was about the Germans. ELLEN taps the ash of her cigarette into her saucer. Not in a saucer you animal! NANCY pushes the ashtray towards her. ELLEN Hitler was a politician. NANCY Your eggs are getting cold. ELLEN You and I entered into the same profession as Hitler. Isn’t that eerie? NANCY The Lambeth poisoner was a surgeon but you still trust doctors. ELLEN There is a reason why aspiring poisoners become doctors. And there’s a reason why aspiring mass murderers become politicians. NANCY You’re in a very bizarre mood. ELLEN Changing the world … what a dubious motive for a person to have! NANCY slides a copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (the founder of Christian Science) across the table. NANCY keeps hundreds of copies of this book around the house. ELLEN No! NANCY You’re making yourself ill with negative thoughts. ELLEN The world made me ill, not my mind … (Throwing the book back at her.) I’m already using two as doorstops. NANCY I’ll share with you the secret of my morning routine. Wake at six, Bible study, (tapping the book) Christian Science lesson, cold bath, quick game of squash, warm bath. ELLEN Sadly, I don’t own a squash court. NANCY You know I can still touch my forehead with my toes? ELLEN I’m not like you, Nancy. I’m not … self-preserving. Stronger coffee please. NANCY Only if you eat. ELLEN I’m smoking. NANCY I don’t know why you socialists seem intent on becoming as ugly and ill as humanly possible. You don’t heal another’s wound by gouging one into yourself. The better your life, the better you are at your job. ELLEN You really felt that didn’t you? NANCY What? ELLEN Good at your job. NANCY Of course. If I had my way, I’d still be campaigning at 97. Catching the cabbages thrown at me. ELLEN I got my first rotten tomato the other day. NANCY Congratulations. ELLEN Cried myself to sleep. NANCY Well that’s ridiculous. ELLEN Why? No other profession is expected to be fine with that. Except perhaps – clowns – circus clowns. NANCY Eat your egg. ELLEN They want us to be indestructible yet human. Human but strong. Strong but humble. Humble but certain. Certain but willing to learn. Yet if we change our minds, we’re weak, untrustworthy. They want us to never to make a single mistake and admit to every mistake. NANCY You need a thicker skin. ELLEN What’s that bit from Peter Pan about the fairies? “If you believe, clap your hands.” Well the public are no longer clapping, Nancy. This Tinker Bell is on the blink. Also ALSO … men don’t have thick skins – that’s a myth – they have role models, everywhere, even on their worst day they can look to colleagues beside them, before them, and think: he survived, so can I. History recharges them. Whereas we’re building on sand, Nancy, I am the second ever female minister, and I remember what happened to the first. I wake in the night with jeering in my ears … I look around and I’m alone. Men think they have self-belief but they don’t, they have proof, allies, wives, children, stable homes, a whole structure built to support them – (coughs uncontrollably for 10 seconds) – even my own body is heckling me. NANCY Your party is in power – God help us – you’re bringing in all your punch-drunk policies … aren’t you supposed to be happy right now? ELLEN puffs on her nebuliser. Full of your trademark idealism? Brimming with pure hope? ELLEN (Scoffing.) Pure hope. ELLEN lights a cigarette with the butt of her last. It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. I felt pure hope – I bathed in the stuff, it was all I ate – I kept shouting, war is coming! Like Cassandra. War is coming! Till I was hoarse. My tonsils burn now all the time. NANCY You have tonsillitis, it’s not a metaphor. ELLEN Jarrow boys died in Dunkirk for want of ships and planes that their unemployed fathers could have built. Sheffield boys died in Dunkirk for want of ships and planes that their unemployed fathers could have built. Middlesbrough boys died in … NANCY Talk sense woman. ELLEN That’s what you get! When you sterilise the shipyards. Dead boys. It’s like waking from a nightmare and realising it was all real. And all those people I couldn’t shelter. And the pictures, oh my Christ, the pictures of the the the the camps. NANCY It’s not your fault. ELLEN Yes, it is. How am I meant to have experience and hope at the same time? They cancel each other out. I was effective when I was naive. I made things happen. (Downs her coffee.) And you say “my party” – but I don’t trust any of them, someone, or someones, left three copies of that newspaper on my desk. NANCY Which one? ELLEN “Ellen Must Go.” They’re purging me, Nancy. NANCY I cannot believe the Ellen Wilkinson is preaching defeatism to me right now. Where’s your famous energy and drive? ELLEN I’m not “the Ellen Wilkinson” any more, am I? I’m a sick and ailing minister. But now they want my best work? Now they hand me my soapbox? Now they wind me up and say, “brum, brum, brum.” NANCY DON’T BE SO UNGRATEFUL! I would kill to be the minister of education! I would literally kill a man with my bare hands. Instead, I’m forced into retirement by my own husband, of all people – the backstabbing little swine. I feel like an extinct volcano. ELLEN So do I. NANCY What are you talking about? Ellen! You are the most powerful woman in the entire country.