When I was eight, back in the eighties, women’s suffrage barely registered on my horizon. (I’m confident it wouldn’t have been a complete unknown, thanks to an avowedly feminist mother, who had me doing a school project on the Pankhursts before I was ten…..) However, one significant event in my life – being “matched” with my first and longest-lasting penpal – was indeed eventually to tie in with what is now the 100th anniversary of (some) British women receiving the right to vote.

Some would say that even in twenty-first century Britain, we still have some way to go. The gender pay gap, only now being raised to real public visibility as a consequence of new company reporting requirements, and the #MeToo movement are just two contemporary examples. Moreover, women still lack the visibility that is accorded to men almost as a birthright. All too frequently relegated to supporting (or sexual partner) roles in Hollywood films or forcibly retired from prime time television slots when male contemporaries are not, we are apparently supposed to find solace in our literary representation by male authors and rejoice as our small daughters are showered in unicorns, rainbow and glitter.

It was to address the dual goals of marking the centenary of women’s partial enfranchisement and raising the visibility of some of today’s women and girls that Miranda, a writer and performer from Hackney, set up 100 voices for 100 years. Over 100 days, 100 women share a short story from their lives. The stories are recorded orally, and listeners can hear a new one every day. (Transcripts are also available.)

My story – A Future in Mid-Flight – is here. It’s about that early and very dear friendship. For fifteen years, my friend and I wrote to each other, growing up together through our shared words, laughing, crying, planning and hoping together – and then she was gone. She’s now been gone for longer than I knew her; soon she’ll have been gone for longer than she was alive. I still have her words, though, and they’ve spurred me on. I hope they don’t stop until I do.