Erica nods. ‘She never went to university, you know, when she was young. She got a job as an administrator in a private junior school when she was eighteen. When I was studying GCSEs she started a degree at the Open University, so she could keep me company, she said.’

‘That’s really something,’ Vee says. She can’t square it with the Ursula she remembers, but being a mother changes people.

‘It was,’ Erica half-laughs, ‘I didn’t appreciate it at the time.’

Vee can’t think of anything to say. She concentrates on her breath, making its way down to her belly and up again, and tries not to think about her headache.

Erica sighs, ‘The generation that is coming up now – people younger than me, people I teach – they lack context for the past. The world is nuanced now. I think it’s important to look back to when things were . . . black and white. No pun intended.’ She smiles. ‘When men were the enemy, and—’

But Vee doesn’t hear anything else. The headache, that has been licking at her temples since she entered the gallery, opens up its jaws and bites.

Part 2: Light

Part 2: Light

To be a photographer is to be a student of light. If you want to be a good photographer, all you need to do is learn to see the light. Study it, understand it, anticipate what it is going to do when you expose film to it. Light is equally accessible to all.

Veronica Moon, Women in Photographs (unpublished)

‘Weeping Beauties’

Veronica Moon

Exhibition Section: Early Days

Camera: Nikon F1

Film: Kodak 400 ASA

First published: Marie Claire magazine, 1970

It is 1970. The paparazzi has yet to invent itself. Photo-calls are respectful. Beauty queens are seen in carefully orchestrated settings, where they are groomed, polished, always smiling.

Now, consider how radical this photograph is.

It was taken late in the evening following the Miss World contest in 1970, which was disrupted by feminist protesters opposing the objectification of women. After the demonstration and stage invasion at the Royal Albert Hall (see video, left), the protesters moved to the Café de Paris in the West End of London, where the after-party was being held.