Vee thinks about George, who behaves as though she should be paying him for the privilege of working under him, and the male journalists who barely tolerate her, the secretaries who’ve done their best to make her feel welcome. She’s a fish out of water, really. No, it’s not that. She’s a fish that the other fish refuse to make a space for. She would swim as fast, if she could. ‘I don’t think so,’ she says.

‘No surprises there,’ says someone else, and Vee nods – she doesn’t trust herself to speak, suddenly, feeling the enormity of what she is up against and, at the same time, the possibility that is offered here, for all women. She takes photographs of the gathered strikers, the banners; drops to her knee and changes to a wide-angle lens so that she can capture the size of the factory behind them, how it both dwarfs them and creates a dull background to their light and power.

What if this isn’t as simple as another strike, interesting because it has women at its heart this time? What if what is happening here is – connected? Part of the same power in the world that means she has to be grateful for being ‘a woman in a man’s world’, that her married friends look down on her and talk about meals for their husbands as though housekeeping is a vocation? ‘Women’s lib’ is an easy joke in Vee’s world; she remembers Barry’s dad laughing about it getting out of hand, when he did the washing up at Christmas. Barry’s mum laughed back and said if that was the case she wouldn’t bother washing her hair. But what if women’s lib is more than men pulling their weight? What if it could be about genuine equality? What if Vee could be judged on her merit? What if no one cared whether she was a woman or a man and only cared about the work she did? The rhythm of her blood accelerates at the thought of it: she feels it in her temples and her wrists, at her throat. She nods her thanks to the women, stands, and takes a breath and she tells herself what she always tells herself when she feels overwhelmed or out of her depth: do your job, Veronica. Do your job and do your best.

She’s changing back to a standard lens when she hears something behind her: a woman’s voice raised in a catcall, laughter. She turns to see a postman.

‘I go on holiday and miss all the action,’ he says, ‘this is the famous picket line, is it, girls?’

‘Equal pay for equal work,’ says a short, short-haired, bright-blonde woman, ‘you ain’t going to argue with that, are you?’