• A demonstration in London’s Grosvenor Square against US involvement in the Vietnam War ended in violence and mass arrests

• the Abortion Act 1967 came into effect, legalising abortion on a number of grounds

• Agatha Christie’s novel By the Pricking of My Thumbs was published

• The film Rosemary’s Baby was released

• The iconic photograph ‘Earthrise’ was taken when the Apollo 8 spacecraft orbited the moon

And the female machinists at the Ford Dagenham car plant went on strike because they believed their skilled work should be appropriately rewarded, and they should be paid at the same rate as men doing equivalent grade jobs. Veronica Moon went to take a look.

15 June 1968

15 June 1968

‘WHAT ARE YOU SIGHING ABOUT now, Dad?’ Veronica’s father, Stanley, reads the Daily Mirror less for news and more as a starting point for discussion.

‘I’m all for equal rights but this is going too far. Listen. “Thousands of car workers will be laid off next week unless 187 women sewing-machinists call off a strike for more pay.” ’

‘You ain’t really for equal rights, then, are you?’ Vee has her kit spread out on the dining table, and she’s checking and cleaning each part in turn: camera body, lenses, filters, strap, the case she carries it all in. When she presses the shutter and winds on, the sound always seems synchronised with the beat of her heart.

‘I am. But it ain’t an equal situation, now, is it, Veronica?’ He leans forward in his armchair, crumpling the newspaper into his lap, and says, ‘The women will only be working for pin money. The men who get laid off – they’re the ones putting bread on the table. And their wives will have something to say if they come home with nothing.’

‘I thought I might go down, later in the week. I’ve got my day off on Thursday.’

‘Bob isn’t sending you to cover it, then?’

‘It’s a bit out of our way, and anyway, Bob wouldn’t send me. He’d send George. I just get the jobs George don’t want.’ A jumble sale to raise money for the Spastics’ Society was the highlight of last week.

When Vee got a start as a junior photographer at the Colchester Echo she knew she was lucky, and she knew she would have to work her way up. (Not least because she suspected that her dad had probably twisted Bob’s arm to get her the job in the first place. The two of them were at school together. Veronica hasn’t asked if that swung it for her, because she really, really doesn’t want to know.)

Stanley gets out of his chair. ‘Well. That allotment ain’t going to weed itself.’

‘That’s for sure,’ Vee says.

‘It’s a nice day. But you’ll be shutting yourself under the stairs, will you?’

Vee smiles. ‘What else would I be doing?’