As Sylvia continued to walk, talk and photograph, she saw her feature taking shape; she knew whose stories she would highlight, whose words she would quote, which picture she hoped would turn out well enough to use. Powered by the crowd’s energy and her own adrenaline, she felt hyper-alert, as though on a high from a drug she couldn’t find anywhere else but here – and she understood in that moment that she loved it, this drug. She loved being right in the middle of something important, experiencing history in-the-making. She loved talking to these women leading such different lives to hers, and yet seeing herself reflected in their passion, in their basic need for freedom, for escape from society’s constraints, for control over their own bodies. But most of all she loved being in a position to tell their story. This job was what made her happiest. It was what she was made to do. And she knew she just couldn’t give it up.

JUNE 2016 Lausanne, Switzerland

JESS

On Wednesday, I drop the kids at the sports centre in Lausanne for their tennis lesson and drive on up the hill until I reach Sallaz. On the phone, Nina described this area as ‘the Bronx’, but it’s far from that, just not as pretty as the old town centre or the manicured lakeside. Rows of fairly new but unimaginative apartment blocks sit on both sides of the main road. They are so identikit that I have trouble finding the right one, but after ten minutes of driving up and down I find block eighteen and park up on the road outside.

‘Bienvenue. I do not know what I can tell you, but you are welcome.’

Nina Favre ushers me in. Probably in her late sixties, she’s stylishly dressed in a cream shirt and navy trousers, a red scarf tied around her neck. Dark hair cut into a sleek bob skims her shoulders. Her smile is wide and there’s a warmth in her face that makes me like her immediately.

I slip my shoes off at the apartment door and attempt to avoid the little yappy dog that barks in excitement.

‘Arrête, minou, arrête!’ Nina Favre flaps her hands at the dog and it trots over to a leopard-print basket in the corner and curls itself into a circle, nose on paws. ‘Would you like a café?’ she says. ‘Or du thé. You are British, yes?’

I nod and accept the tea when it arrives, even though it’s just a mug of already cooling water and a Lipton Yellow Label on the side. I made the mistake of ordering tea last week in a cafe in Montreux and it came like this. Maggie would be aghast.

‘I do not speak of Le Mouvement des Femmes Lausannoises for many years,’ Nina says once we’re installed on the cream leather couch.

‘You were part of it?’