“If I had lived in your time - Alice tells me - I would not have married, much as I loved my husband and my children. I would have pursued a career, become a doctor, travelled the world, broken down barriers and taken up women's causes. Too big an ambition? - she asks with a smile. Women were so repressed and frustrated in their hopes, and most lived in their husbands' shadow, though I did not.
Mother was against me [Victoria is listening in the background], she did not understand me and was appalled at my plain speaking and directness of certain aspects of life she found difficult to discuss so openly, which I did not. We were so different. I upset her many times later in life and as I grew stronger in my convictions, I resented more and more her control on my life and distanced myself from her. It was not easy at first, but as her dislike of my actions and the things I did and said grew with her, she loosened her grip on me and let me go.”