Tributes paid to Mossley campaigner who protested in Glossop for wages for housework

Tributes have been paid to a feminist campaigner who once demanded wages for house work.

Mossley-based feminist, environmental campaigner and peace activist Christine Clark will be remembered in a memorial meeting on Sunday, January 7, at 2pm at George Lawton Hall, Mossley.

Growing up in the 1960s she was married and a mother at 18, but in later life Christine pursued her art degree, returning to her then husband and children at the weekend.

Her personal circumstances influenced her politics. In the 1980s she was involved with setting up the Tameside Well Women Group and took to the streets of Glossop demanding Wages for Housework. She was a member of the national Wages for Housework campaign.

Her women’s politics were at the forefront of her activity: locally, nationally, and internationally. She took up the issue of nuclear weapons at Greenham Common and travelled to Beijing in 1995 China as a delegate to the International Women’s Conference, spending three weeks there.

Christine was active locally in the Green Party and stood as a councillor in Mossley on several occasions. She challenged privatisation in the NHS through Tameside Keep Our NHS Public and opposed benefit cuts in Tameside Against the Cuts: just some of the numerous campaigns in which she played a direct role.

Christine was a sister, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.

Her partner Mike said; “We would like all friends of Christine to join us on Sunday to celebrate her life.”

Christine did not come from a political family. Her dad was a bus driver and had had little education due to the First World War, whilst her mum came from a farming background, left school at 14 and was apprenticed as a seamstress at 15. Luckily she was encouraged by a local doctor to return to education and eventually, her mother after completing a chemistry degree, became a pharmacist.

In the 80s she got involved in women’s  issues in Tameside.

She told the the lipsticksocialist website: "I started listening to what was going on. Locally there was a group of women who started a WellWomens group. I went to the first meeting and so many women turned up that we didn’t have enough chairs.

"There was a call in 1982 for people to go toGreehnam Common. I went and just felt the power of women. It was revolutionary and I hadn’t seen anything like it."

From there Christine got involved with the peace movement and the Wages for Housework Campaign had been set up in 1972 by Selma James who said: "By demanding payment for housework we attack what is terrible about caring in our capitalist society, while protecting what is great about it, and what it could be. We refuse housework, because we think everyone should be doing it.”

Christine  did her own one woman action outside a Post Office in Tameside. She said: "My placards said that women’s right to benefits is sharing in the wealth of the country.

"I went to live by myself. I was becoming more politically aware and active. I became involved with the Labour Party and more formal politics. My involvement included raising issues such as Greenham Common and the new Child Support Act."