Fenwomen: A portrait of women in an English village

by Mary Chamberlain

A vivid social and oral history of an isolated village in the Fens, Mary Chamberlain's book provides a unique portrait of East Anglian life.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, British Literature, Sociology

186 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Mary Chamberlain is a novelist and historian. Her book Fenwomen: a portrait of women in an English village was the first book to be published by Virago Press in 1975. Since then, she has published six other works of history, and edited a further five. Her first novel, The Mighty Jester was published by Dr. Cicero Books in the US. Her British debut novel, The Dressmaker of Dachau was published by HarperCollins in the UK and, under the title The Dressmaker's War, by Random House in the USA. In all, it sold to 19 countries and was an international best-seller. Her novel, The Hidden, was published by Oneworld Publications in February 2019. The Sunday Times listed it as their MUST READ choice of the best recent books in February 2019. This was followed by, The Forgotten, 2021 and The Lie, 2023 both published by Oneworld. A special 50th anniversary edition of Fenowmen will be published by Virago in September 2025 as part of their Virago Modern Classics, with a new introduction by Alexandra Harris and a cover design by Eleanor Rose.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

History has always been my first love and so this book has a great appeal. It falls within the tradition of oral history and concerns the lives of women in the remote fenland village of Isleham. The fens are a very flat area of Eastern England, the part in Lincolnshire I am familiar with, this area in Cambridgeshire, much less so. This book also has the merit of being the first book published by virago in 1975.
It is a series of interviews with village women split into chapters about girlhood, school, marriage, work, religion, politics, recreation, outsiders and old age. The edition I have was published in 2009 with an updated introduction and some stunning photography. Mary Chamberlain was a member of the Women’s Report Collective and she had moved to Isleham in 1972. The idea was to look at the lives of women living in a fairly remote rural area and produce a feminist version of Akenfield. At the time it was felt that women’s history really did not exist and feminist historians had to pursue new courses and use new methods.
The result is a fascinating picture of the life of rural women in the early twentieth century. There is no rural idyll here; the women describe the poverty and isolation, the lack of opportunity in a harsh landscape. It is an excellent piece of work and if you are interested in this sort of history, a must read. Chamberlain lets the women speak for themselves and pulls the whole together very expertly.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

The village in this book is home to some of my family and neighbour to my husband's childhood village. So this book was a very personal read for me. However, this is also an incredible piece of social history. The author has spoken to many local women about aspects of their lives. The historic changes are huge. Earlier residents talk about working in summer holidays as children, gleaning in the fields, planting and cutting dahlias, going without food. Poverty was real in this fenland village. But even this book is now history as it was written in the 1970s and there is much written about the life of women at that time which has changed much in the decades since then. How fascinating it would be to interview some of the women living in the village now and see if attitudes have changed. But as a snapshot of a lost world, this is fascinating.

[Kate]

Have dipped into this. Like the fact it is local and is the first book published by Virago

[Kathy Piselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wikipedia says this was "the first book published by Virago Press in 1975, and pioneered the use of oral history in the study of women’s history" and I'm not sure that can be true. But Virago published some cutting edge books. The author's notes explaining terms she thought needed explaining then would need a refresher as time marches on and even more of what the fenwomen talk about passes into obscurity. Still the wholesale, practically unedited recording of the musings of ordinary people provide such fantastic fodder for understanding a lifestyle and time period.

Chamberlain lets the women tell their own stories, but introduces sections with observations of her own. For example she compares girlhood of the past to girlhood now. Then, children grew up fast and were sent to work early, whereas now "no work exists for children" - it is mostly illegal. Boys are "left to play" but girls are "little Mummies" at four with "plastic babies and toy hoovers". Girls get makeup and boyfriends early, even before they are teens. "Childhood for girls has not changed. It still ends early".

Just thinking about this book after reading that Carmen Callil has died.

[Trine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone interested in women's history in general and the history of the Fens in particular.

[Lucy Cummin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend handed me The Fenwomen saying, "I thought you might be interested." Well, sort of? I doubt I would have picked up the book on my own, but I don't regret reading it. There are three (maybe more?) layers to my interest -- one is to do with the content, the actual study of the women of a village in the fens of East Anglia, the second is the timing--in the seventies Women's studies were new and exciting, ground-breaking even but also critical for capturing information soon to be lost. The third interest is looking at the book fifty years into women's studies. So, to the first: for Chamberlain to successfully coax the women of Gislea (which I could not find on a map) to talk to her was a remarkable achievement and not without cost, as it turned out as some smart-aleck reporter/reviewer (I'd like to use a harsher word) put in a newspaper header: "Villagers Reveal all their Love Secrets" which made the villagers feel betrayed and Chamberlain to feel terrible. The book got the wrong attention. (By the way there are no love secrets whatsoever.) Second, Chamberlain's timing was, as with collectors of folk tales and music, critical. In the seventies there were many women still living who remembered the 'old ways' vividly, a few born in the previous century. A few too, still lived more or less as they always had in 'clunch' cottages (stone built, on the ground, simple) with no indoor plumbing although I think, by then, all had electric. And the younger women are living recognizably in 'our' contemporary world, a rural environment but nonetheless. So there is a full view, as these older women lived much as women had for generations. Many of these older women, dependent on tiny pensions from their husbands and too old to cope with newfangled stuff, were lonely and living in relative poverty, but without the cohesion of an isolated village community (which has its goods and bads) to support them. Lastly, I have tried to reflect on what, if anything, the fifty years of inquiry into the everyday lives and reflections of women has done to change perceptions and to improve understanding. Is it certainly? Or only maybe? Are things truly better? Much is gained for women with roads and cars and electric and so on, but to me, isolation is still a factor for women, especially older ones, and the turmoil of child-raising, the guilt and the necessities are still mostly burdening the women. To me, the whole edifice of women's lives is still precarious depending more on a smoothly running economy and law than on men actually believing women should be regarded, treated, respected as they expect for themselves. Sorry to be so negative, but there you have it. I'm not reviewing the book, but sharing my own thoughts. The book itself was thought-provoking though I don't think anyone needs to run out and find it unless your field or primary interest is women's studies.****

[History Today]

In 1975 Fenwomen was the first publication of the first British feminist publisher, Virago. Established as Spare Rib Books in 1973 by the Australian feminist Carmen Callil, Virago sought to counter publishers’ neglect of women authors and the dearth of books by, and about, women. It has since made a substantial contribution to women’s history (which barely existed in 1973), reprinting both neglected novels and other works detailing women’s experiences, such as Working-Class Wives, a vivid account in their own words of the lives of working-class women in 1930s Britain edited by Margery Spring Rice, first published in 1939.

Fenwomen was also a pioneering work of oral history, but it was not a reprint. It was the first publication by Mary Chamberlain, now Emeritus Professor of Caribbean History at Oxford Brookes University. It records the lives of the female inhabitants, aged five to 86, of a village in the Cambridgeshire fens, Isleham, re-named as Gislea in the book. Isleham (or Gislea) was chosen because Chamberlain moved there in 1972 as a young, recently married, woman. An active feminist, she recognised the opportunity to reveal the previously neglected lives of ‘ordinary’ women in a remote rural area which seemed to exist beyond the reach of the women’s liberation movement.

Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...

Pat Thane is Visiting Professor in History at Birkbeck, University of London.

[Leonie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to my friend Liz who loaned this to me. Interesting to hear the thoughts and experiences of these women living in a Fenland village, 40 years ago. How restrictive life was for many of them, compared to what I experience now. I've tried to figure out which village it was, as I live in Ely (which is mentioned a lot as the nearest town/city) but failed miserably. I'd love to read an update, on the lives of the younger women, if you're reading, Mary Chamberlain!

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting historical record of a village that I know well. Interesting how much women’s experience has changed, but also the continuing hardships and limitations of rural life, and opportunities.
I was slightly discomfited by some of the author’s descriptions of the women in her introductions of them, with judgements of appearances or personality. I don’t think we’d use such language now.
Altogether worth the read. A time capsule in writing as well as the material.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 4 out of 5]

After living in an East Anglian village, Gislea, for a few years, Chamberlain wrote a book about life there. It is told primarily through interviews with the women. It is a heartbreaking, enthralling tale of desperate poverty, generation long prejudices, and familial warmth. Most of the interviews talked about the back breaking labor, lack of intellectual opportunities, and loneliness of living in the fen. This was written in the 1970s, and so many of the subjects remember back to life at the turn of the 19th century.

[Tamra Karl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I do like oral histories - it's interesting to see the great variety of views that's often missed in a more generalized traditional history. However, it became rather tedious to read the sometimes ramblings of the women recorded in this book.