BooksBarbecue
Back The Other Daughter Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. OCTOBER 2014 London, UK
  4. PART ONE
  5. FEBRUARY 1976 London, UK
  6. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  7. FEBRUARY 1976 London, UK
  8. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  9. MARCH 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  10. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  11. MARCH 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  12. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  13. MARCH 1976 Lausanne/Bern, Switzerland
  14. JUNE 2016 Lausanne, Switzerland
  15. MARCH 1976 London, UK
  16. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  17. MARCH 1976 London, UK
  18. PART TWO
  19. APRIL 1976 London, UK
  20. JUNE 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  21. APRIL 1976 Oxfordshire/London, UK
  22. JULY 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  23. MAY 1976 London, UK
  24. JULY 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  25. MAY 1976 London, UK
  26. JULY 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  27. JUNE 1976 London, UK
  28. JULY 2016 Lausanne/Montreux, Switzerland
  29. JUNE 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  30. JULY 2016 Thun/Reichenbach, Switzerland
  31. JULY 1976 London, UK
  32. AUGUST 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  33. PART THREE
  34. AUGUST 1976 London, UK
  35. AUGUST 2016 Lausanne, Switzerland
  36. SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  37. AUGUST 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  38. SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  39. AUGUST 2016 Montreux, Switzerland
  40. SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  41. AUGUST 2016 Montreux/Lutry, Switzerland
  42. SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  43. AUGUST 2016 Lutry, Switzerland
  44. SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
  45. AUGUST 2016 Lutry, Switzerland
  46. OCTOBER 1976 London, UK
  47. AUGUST 2016 Vevey, Switzerland
  48. SEPTEMBER 2016 London, UK
  49. Author’s Note
  50. Acknowledgements
  51. More from the Author
  52. About the Author

You may agree with women’s lib

But what would be your view

If you came home to your liberated wife

And she gave you the washing to do?

Would you change places with your wife

And do her daily chores?

She has to do them all her life

Cleaning windows, clothes and floors.

‘A man works harder than his mate’

Oh surely that’s not true!

Each works in their appointed way

With certain things to do.

So let us say each works as hard

As he or she is able

One earns the money to pay for the food

The other sets the table.

A Man’s Nightmare, by J. L. Hale of Haydock, Merseyside, printed in the Liverpool Echo, 1976

FEBRUARY 1976 London, UK

SYLVIA

‘Feminism,’ Roger said, each syllable thick with scepticism. ‘Been done to death, hasn’t it?’

Sylvia had been prepared for the snort of derision from Clive, the amused smiles from the other men around the room, Valerie’s unfathomable gaze. But she’d also been prepared to stand her ground. She would not be cowed on this one; she would look her commissioning editor in the eye until he gave her a good enough reason to turn her story down. If only she didn’t feel so damn nauseous. She really didn’t have the stomach for a fight today.

‘Hardly,’ she said. ‘And certainly very little about Switzerland. They’re barely getting started with sexual equality. I mean, it’s only five years since women got the vote at national level. They were the last democratic country in the Western world to get there.’

‘Liechtenstein,’ Clive said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Liechtenstein still doesn’t have women’s suffrage. So Switzerland wasn’t the last country in the Western world.’

‘That’s a tiny principality, it’s hardly the same thing.’

She saw Clive mutter something to Ellis and they both laughed. She turned her gaze back to Roger. The less she looked at Clive’s overstuffed face, the better.

Roger lit another cigarette and took a long drag. His shirt was crumpled, tie askew. Broken capillaries sprawled over his nose. In front of him on his desk, his usual mug – its British Press Awards logo fading and chipped after too many washes – was releasing pungent wafts of coffee mixed with whisky, only exacerbating Sylvia’s queasiness.

‘You’ve found someone to interview?’ he asked.