Description
Excerpt from Jessie Kenney’s unpublished autobiography, “The Flame and the Flood”.
In this excerpt, Jessie shares memories and anecdotes about Annie. This includes Annie’s “heart trouble”, which meant that she would very quickly cry or sob when she felt hurt or troubled. Annie’s easily shed tears went against the Lancashire custom to cry only when someone dies.
Annie was also a rebel in the fashion department, as she “could not bear a thing tight around her wrists, her head, or her waist", which meant that she hardly ever wore her “stays”, a type of corset. She would say that she preferred “to be comfortable to being beautiful”. Jessie writes: “However m[y] sister Molly need not have troubled about her figure for many years to come, as the Suffragette Movement in its early days would strip the fat and flesh from her bones.” Despite this, Annie “loved fun and made friends wherever she went.”
