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Today is Wednesday the 22nd of February and this interview is with Mrs Sally Barnes of Golders Green, London and the interview is conducted by Dr Anne Summers of the Friends of the Women's Library. Sally, thank you very much for agreeing to do this. Can you kindly tell me your full name and when and where you were born? My full name is Marianne, actually

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Sally Barnes, and I was born in Kensington in London. I'd like to ask some family questions, starting with your mother. Do you know where your mother went to school? Yes, she went to Paddington area, Paddington Girls' School I think. Did she go on to further or higher education or to vocational training, anything like that? She went on to secretarial training.

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And after you and siblings? No, I haven't, I'm an only child. After you were born, did she work outside the home? Yes, well we were evacuated, the war got in the way of things. We came back to London and lived with my grandmother because our place in Kensington was bombed. She did take a job, she worked as a secretary for an aircraft firm because they needed women.

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Did that go on after the war? Yes, she did it for quite a long time. She was very good, she was highly efficient. And funny enough when women weren't encouraged to do so much, she was headhunted by the same company in Canada. And when I was a bit older we went out to Canada and lived there for a bit and went to school in Canada. Gosh. She's a very

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very competent woman. Gosh. Were there any other female relatives or aunts or cousins who were like her in that way? Yes, her sister. Her sister was an interesting woman. She was an actress actually at one point but she then also went and worked for the same company and ran a department there. I mean her story is an interesting story in its own right because

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she was doing things that women didn't usually do at that time, especially during the war. She was running messages for them and we often wondered, well she often wondered what the messages were she was taking to various places because it was an aircraft company. Can I ask the name of the company? It was called Rotax but it was a branch of Armstrong City, I can't remember.

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Was that Rotax? Yes, R-O-T-A-X. Gosh. No, she was an interesting woman. And your father, do you know how and where he was educated or trained? He must have been educated in the East End. Most of our backgrounds are interesting aren't they? They are. I mean his father, all his male relatives were killed in the First World War and he left his mother, was left with six children and they brought them up in Peabody Buildings in Kingsway.

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Had a really rough time I think but all grew up doing quite interesting things and he admired his mother tremendously because she managed everything like so many women did at that time. So he was very strongly for women. Indeed. And he and his brothers, they were all very musical but they had a shop eventually in Soho, a music shop and when the Second World War came, musicians don't

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pay their bills so they had to shut the shop and they went bankrupt I think, well they didn't go bankrupt, yes, and he went into the reserve to services. Was the shop in Tin Pan A? It was round Charlotte Street way, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember going there as a little one, yeah. Where did you go to school? I went to school in Acton when we moved into my grandmother's house

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when I was old enough to go to school and then I went to Warpaw Grammar School in Ealing. Were you a church-going family? Not at all. My father was a chorister in one of the churches in London, I think it was St Bride's, I can't remember now, he was a chorister. My mother was not at all churchy, she was very anti, particularly anti-Roman Catholic, very interesting, horrendously

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anti-Roman Catholic and my grandmother just wasn't because of the experiences she had from the First World War, she was very anti-church. This is your father's mother? This is my mother's mother, my mother's mother, yeah. Did she lose family? Yes, she did and her husband died in 1480, not 14, in 1918. He died two days after my aunt was born so she had a tough time

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trying to bring them up and did the most interesting things to keep the children with her, you know, she ran a fish and chip shop in the Goldhawk Road. The things women did, I mean, to keep themselves together and their families together were amazing. And worth recording. Oh yes, I often felt I should have done more about that.

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Anyway, that was that. So you didn't grow up going to Sunday school? When I was in Canada, I was in Canada, I joined a local church in the village, kind of enjoyed that. When I came home, I went to the church that I had been going to in Halston and enjoyed that. I made a lot of friends. Yeah, I went back there. Yeah, I just was drawn to the

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for some reason. I kind of enjoyed it. So when did you leave your childhood home? Oh, when did I leave my childhood home? Well, I left it, I don't know, we moved from the childhood home where I was living with my grandmother to a relative who was a priest who wanted, he was a bachelor and he wanted to have a family living with him because he was lonely really and

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had this huge vicarage. And so we went and lived there. Oh, so how was he related to you? He was an uncle, one of the uncles. On which side? Yes, my father's. He's an interesting character too. They're all interesting, everybody's interesting, aren't they? I know, absolutely. But he was a pilot in the war and he survived the whole of the, no he wasn't, he was a navigator and survived the

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whole of the Second World War but at a terrible cost. Absolutely. That's why we needed to live with him because he'd have terrible breakdowns and things. And then I met my husband who was in the ex-parish and after a while we got married. Can you, sorry, remind me where your uncle's vicarage was? Oh, it was in Halston. That was in Halston, yes. And your to-be husband's parish

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was near it? That was St Matthew's in, that was Halston-ish, wasn't it? A very, very high church, totally the opposite to how we were. But he and Eric got, were very good friends and he invited him for a Lent course, to do a Lent course and that's how I got to know him. He was very radical and very, if anybody was sure about what they thought in that dogmatic way, he'd manage to

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turn it, oh you know Donald, I mean he used to turn it upside down and that's what made me think, oh boy this is wonderful. Absolutely, oh gosh. Because we were the same sort really. If I can ask some questions about politics, were either or both of your parents interested in politics? Do you know how they voted? I do indeed, it was a source of great, they were both Tories,

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my father was what I would call a Macmillan Tory and he was very active in the Tory, in the Conservative Party. I mean I can remember as a little child being dragged around the estates in Acton, knocking on doors, I don't know why he did this because it put me off doing this forever, trying to persuade Labour voters to vote Tory. That was almost abuse of a young child thinking

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why are they being prosperous? He was a Macmillan Tory, you would have liked him. My mother was a very Thatcher Tory, very, very hardline Thatcher. We used to have awful arguments about it really. Yes, well every family. That's true. What newspapers were read at home? Oh I'm embarrassed by this, I used to read the Daily Mail.

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And my aunt, who was quite a rebel and she lived with us for our time, she would get the mirror. Yeah, when I think of family, it's funny isn't it? Oh yes, and aren't we lucky to have them to look back on? Yes, yes we are really. Now, about the movement for ordination of women, did you, before the movement got going, had you met women clergy from other denominations?

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No I hadn't, but my main interest to be honest was the fact that I'm always against injustice, and I can't tell you how young I was when I first realised that women were not treated properly, and when I went to church I remember asking a lovely vicar, I mean he was a sweet man, one day coming, I was 13, coming out of church and saying to him,

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are there any women like you in church? And I remember the look on his face, and he just patted me on the shoulder with that look, you know, and I thought, ah this is interesting, and that's, I started thinking, you know, there really ought to be women priests. I did not like that, but we did have in our parish a wonderful deaconess, I mean she was superb, and Donald

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valued her tremendously, this is when we were in Cricklewood, wonderful woman, and I thought, you know, she's a wonderful example of how a priest should be. But from 13 onward I was always very interested in women's progress, it wasn't to do with the church, it was just to do with women in society, which the church is part of it. Interesting distinction. Oh, yeah, you know,

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and I was, I had some very interesting infant teachers, junior teachers, older women, to me they were older then, who would make snide comments about the male head teacher and how he treated them, and what, you know, that's what men are like, we're supposed to be the frail, I remember very clearly them saying, oh we're supposed to be the weaker sex, ha ha, you know, it does go home

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to you when you're young. Well, how, what was your involvement, what did your involvement in the movement involve? Like, did you participate in demonstrations? Oh yes, all that, yeah, we were great friends with Alan Webster, who was the Dean of St Paul's at the time, and his wife Margaret, who, who said to me once, you really, we're starting mode, and we, you ought to join us,

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and I said, I really don't think I can, because I can't be active enough, if I can't do something, I don't want to just be a passenger, because I was full-time teaching at the time as well, with a young family, and I just felt I didn't have it, you know, the time really, and then I, Donald joined, and I thought, actually I should put my money where my mouth is, and once I joined,

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and that was in 1970, what would that have been, 1979 I remember joining, it started I think in 1977, did it? Something like that. Yeah, and I, I joined, and that was it, you know, once I joined, I joined in like everybody else did, the demonstrations, the torchlight procession, standing on St Martin's with flares, can you imagine, you know, I'm amazed we didn't burn

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ourselves, no health and safety there, and spoke, you know, went to meetings, and plotted. Yeah, can I recap a minute, your teaching, did you train in service, or did you go to teacher training? Well, what I did was, I'd been working before on and off, before I married Donald, just to get some money really, because clergy don't earn very much, and the opportunity came

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up to go to a new sort of teacher training college called Sydney Webb College, you may know it, in, it was behind suffrages for what they called mature students, but mature was like 23, to train over three years in the time, in evenings and weekends, and I did it that way, and I had teaching practice as well, you know. Was that for secondary school? No,

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I wanted primary, particularly younger children, because I was interested in how they learnt. I've not heard of Sydney Webb. No, it is closed, it was brilliant, we had the most wonderful lecturers, and we were very good friends. I mean, we had some brilliant people there. It was very lucky, yeah, very fortunate,

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because originally I was going to Bishop Otter College in Chichester, but I decided I didn't want to, that was a long time before then. Yes, there's quite a distance between Bishop Otter and Sydney Webb. A tremendous difference, and I'm so glad I went, because it was a radical place, and I followed the radical places. Yes, and of course, these recordings will go

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to an institution founded by the Webb's. Exactly. I mean, I didn't realise at the time. I'd read about the Webb's, and I'd read about her particularly, but I didn't realise until later what a radical place it was, and that seems to be the following of my life, whenever I've done any further

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degrees or whatever, it's always been with people like Harold Rosen and, you know, people like that, which has been great. I've got some more questions about Mo. Did you participate in the wilderness liturgies? I probably did. That was, wasn't it the women for, is it WOW, was it? They were part of it,

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wasn't it? I can't remember. They were some very bright theological women, and when I could go to things, I would go to them. But you have children, haven't you, as well? Yeah, but I don't know what happened to the children. My children, yes, Donald was always around. I mean, we'd box and coax really,

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or he came with me, and they went off to my parents. My parents were wonderful because they lived fairly in St John's Wood, and they would be with the children. That's what grandparents do, don't they? Yes. Oh, they had their friends, yes. I think sometimes, well, look at the children and all of these questions, of course, will go to you. Why do you think the Church of England was slower

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to ordain women than, for example, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand? That's a book. You're right. Because the Church of England is slow about anything, any change. I mean, I lived in Canada. I went to church in Canada, and they had the most amazing archbishop, radical archbishop, Edward, I think his name, I can't remember his name now.

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And there was a lot of, you know, people, well, it was a different society. I mean, people came from England to go to Canada to be different. Yes. In some ways, it was, in other ways, in the villages, it was quite sort of mismarkely, but yeah, they didn't have the same constraints as us. Well, they're not the established church, are they, in Canada? I mean,

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we're an established church with a queen or a king or whatever. It's different. And it's very conservative still, I think, isn't it, would you say? Or am I exaggerating? Mostly. Now, these are the sorts of questions I can never answer. Can you describe where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news that the vote had passed for women to become deacons? That

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was 1986. Yes, I've got a lovely picture of Donald taking part in the service, the first service. Were you there? No. Because the archdeacon, who was virulently against women, and the Bishop of London, but the archdeacon wouldn't go. And so Donald was asked to go, and the women were so pleased because he'd been tutoring a lot of them and working for them.

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Yes, I can remember that, and the service. I've got a nice picture of him, actually, upstairs with them. And again, in 1992, when you heard the news that the vote had passed, where, what can you remember? Yes, I can remember. I have to say there's a lot that goes on between that and the vote passing because we were active. We were like the suffragettes. We were all active

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there making it happen. I mean, the thing came from the bottom. It wasn't the kind of generosity of the people at the top, believe me. They fought like hell to stop it, a lot of them. Not all of them because there were some very good male bishops. Well, there were only male bishops who helped us and were for us, but there was a huge bit anti-women section of people. So we

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fought long and hard, and when that vote went through, I mean, it was amazing. I was there. I went up to, I was teaching, and I rushed from school, and I rushed down in my car to the Abbey, and it was packed. But I was outside John Scott's church, what's it called? All Souls, in a traffic jam, and the vote was coming through, and I was in a state. I was so wound up

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mercifully in a traffic jam, and they announced it. And I couldn't do the maths because I was so, you know, what's two thirds? And when they announced it, I went like that on the horn of my car, and the man in the car next to me thought I was having a seizure, I think. And I got down there, and it was packed. And the first thing I saw was the Roman Catholic women

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with their banner saying us next, and I knew them because they'd worked with us as well. And then I saw, who I knew very well, one terribly anti-male with his placard, you know, like priestesses will go to hell or something like that, but not quite like that. And I said to him, oh hi Michael, and he said oh hi Sally. It was totally really peculiar, and it was wonderful.

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It was wonderful. Was it quite so special in 2014 when the vote was passed for women bishops? It was different, but we'd worked very hard, very hard for that. Watch had got itself incredibly organised by that time. We had groups working on different aspects because we had to work with Parliament, and we had some tremendous help from MPs, one of whom's just died, Rob Key died last

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week. He was the MP for Salisbury. He was wonderfully helpful for us, to us. And we had Lady Howe, who was just superb, and we spent some time, three of us, writing her speech for her, for that, the pre-vote. And we had a very interesting time, but we'd worked very hard for it. And so when it, it didn't happen in one debate, did it? In one of the debates it failed,

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and we were devastated. And then we thought actually we were glad, because the provisos that went with it were so many restrictions, that we thought no, this is a good thing. And Rowan, the Archbishop, who we knew, said he was very, he was sorry about it. And then, so we fought on, and the next time it was passed with fewer provisions. In fact it was passed, and it was

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amazing. But then of course they put provisions in afterwards, which is what they do all the time. The women priests vote, they then brought in the Act of Synod, which wasn't, it was, nobody debated it, restricting women. And the same with the bishops, you know, that they allowed male bishops who were anti-women, which has caused a lot of trouble.

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Yeah, I remember that. In fact I was on television, I was on the six o'clock news, because I walked down the steps of York, and I cried, because Donald died by that time, and he'd worked so hard for it. And I thought of him, and of course the cameras, you know what the media are like, they saw you and they flopped. And I was on the six o'clock news.

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And a lot of us, the leading ones, were all photographed and in the Telegraph and the Times. I've still got, I've got the pictures there, I bought them down. And yeah, it was a wonderful occasion that day. We were all told off for being too joyous. Ah, I heard about that. Is that right? Who told you off?

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Former Archbishop of York, Santamo. This was when the Vote for Women Priests went through, he said, I don't, oh no, I beg his pardon, it was the Archbishop, the then Archbishop, who said, we don't want any cheering, thank you. And of course, because we did, I mean, there were two or three of us, Hilary and me, and we were there at the time. We did, we said,

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yay, and walked out. And he was very cross. But when the Women Bishops thing went through, Santamo told us we must not be, sound too joyful. And, and we did. And we had champagne outside with glasses and everything. And he was very cross. And we thought, tough, telling us women, you know, we may not rejoice because women

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had overcome an awful lot. And it wasn't any thanks to him either. You know, so you can keep that in the tape. Absolutely. I mean, just...

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We got a lot of publicity, actually, that day, or that week. Do you find in the course of ordinary everyday encounters that you are having to deal with meeting clergy who are, male clergy who are opposed? How do you deal with them? I don't have to, because I'm a laywoman, and I've got my own life, but I am a member of WATCH,

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and I was a trustee of WATCH for a long time when I was on the committee. And I, I deal with them in the way I deal with them. I'm very straightforward. I'm not rude or anything, but they know where they stand. And sometimes I go after them. I had an amazing one. I had a phone in,

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or some program or other, on Radio London or something, where they said, they are only going to ask me about this. This is before the women bishop thing came. And what they did, and they shouldn't have done that, because you're always supposed to ask them if you're going to broadcast, what kind of questions are you going to ask me? So I'm

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a little bit prepared. And they brought in one of the priests from South Camden, who's probably long gone from there now, who was horrendous on the radio to me. And it took me aback a bit, because I wasn't expecting it, when I stood up and I, you know, kept my hand up. But he, he called me disingenuous. He called me, you know, I should be like the

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Virgin Mary, who was mild, and I laughed. I said, Virgin Mary, mild. Anyway, I didn't, I was very polite. And my then son-in-law was listening to this. He shouldn't put this on. And he said, tell me where he is, I'd like to go round and punch his face in. He was so rude to you, he made him so angry. But that didn't do him any good. Yeah, we had that kind of, yes,

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and there still are, on Facebook, for example, one or two of them, who should know better, say the most appalling things. Do you, do you think that that act of synod, post-1992, and this whole business of the two integrities, do you think, do you think it'll ever be reversed? Do you think it'll ever be? I don't know. I think it's a nonsense to say there are two

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integrities. You can believe what you believe with integrity, so can I. But when it's institutionalised, and it's heavily weighted in favour of the male priests, then it's not integrity. It's like the five guiding principles. They're not guiding. They are contradictory, if you know of them. And ordinands, and if I'm right about it, ordinands have to agree to them

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before they can be ordained. And if they're not ordained, if they don't agree, they won't ordain them. So that goes for men and women? Yes, men and women too. But a lot of people don't agree with it. Why should they agree? Because it's actually putting women down. It's implicit in it, isn't it? Anti-women, really. Have you read the five guiding principles? Well, I think you should.

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Because you're asking me questions, but underneath there are layers and layers and layers of stumbling blocks, if you like, and they're not equal. It's derogatory to women. Is there anything else that I have not thought of that you would like to add? I think that no change ever takes place, and I say this politically as well as

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in the church, without people at the bottom making it happen. It's not going to happen through the goodwill of the people at the top, because they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. And basically, it's about power. And basically, if I'm to be truly honest with you, it's about male power. Even though we have women bishops, and some of them are splendid

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in place, and will collude with the things that go on, because I don't think they have any choice, really. It's to the detriment of women. The other thing I would say is I think women are their own worst enemies, because quite a few women go along with it, because the men are nice to them. Sally Barnes, thank you very much indeed.