Author(s): Rachel Cooke

History

In 1956, a widow, Mrs Violet Wright, was accused of the murder of her baby twins; according to the prosecution, she had deliberately set fire to the houseboat in which they had burned to death. At her trial, Wright's defence saved her from the gallows, having convinced the jury that she would not have gone to bed in her curlers if she had planned the fire: not even a murderer, it was argued, would want to face firemen and police officers in her curlers. For many, such a defence neatly encapsulates the Fifties: a conservative, inward looking decade during which women retreated once more to the safety of the kitchen. But Mrs Wright was defended by Rose Heilbron QC, the first woman to be appointed silk in Britain, the first woman to defend in a murder trial - and a tabloid celebrity. In Her Brilliant Career, Rachel Cooke tells the story of Heilbron and some of her extraordinary contemporaries: women whose pioneering professional lives and flexible private lives paved the way for feminism and all that followed. Muriel Box, film director. Betty Box, film producer. Margery Fish, plantswoman. Patience Gray, cook. Alison Smithson, architect. Sheila van Damm, rally car driver and theatre owner. Nancy Spain, journalist and radio personality. Joan Werner Laurie, editor. Jacquetta Hawkes, archaeologist. This is the Fifties, retold: vivid, surprising and, most of all, modern.