2013 Annual Report - Jesus College - University of Cambridge

HISTORY I Jesus College Annual Report 2013 21
into it. And in truth, leaving academia felt like
a liberation. No more exam scripts, no more
second marking, no more stupid forms to fill
in, no more departmental meetings where
every sits around and fiddles with their
agendas while some miserable sod reads out
the latest directive from the top brass. Instead
I’ve spent much of this year walking up and
down streets talking to a camera that nobody
else can see, while passers-by recoil in horror
from what they presume is an escaped lunatic.
Well, that and writing articles for the Daily
Mail about what Britain will be like in 2081
when Prince George comes to the throne.
Now that’s more like my idea of fun.
Dominic Sandbrook’s books include: Never
Had it So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to
the Beatles; White Heat: A History of Britain in the
Swinging Sixties; State of Emergency: They Way We
Were: Britain 1970-174; Seasons in the Sun: The
Battle for Britain 1974-1979.
When I was asked to write about being a
free-lance historian while being a
mother [writes Lizzie Collingham] I sat down at
my desk and began to wonder what that
would mean. It might mean a few remarks
about the equitable apportioning of childcare
and housework with my husband; the need
for flexibility; the necessity of returning to
one’s desk after a long day in the library and
after-school activities, dinner and bedtime
were over, in order to put in the necessary
number of writing hours; the joys of
watching a child grow and the way this puts
the demands of work into perspective.
I soon saw this line of thought had a
drawback. You will have heard it all before.
Furthermore, I felt vaguely depressed.
To quote Virginia Woolf again, women are
now educated, they are legally entitled to
possess property, they have the vote, the
professions are open to them, they bear
children in twos or threes not tens or twelves,
but it still makes sense to ask a woman this
question.
Just as an academic feels she should be
working all the time, so does a writer,
whether she is a mother or not. Nevertheless,
the free-lance life has many compensations.
I am on continuous sabbatical, free from
marking, meetings and administration.
When I was a visiting fellow at the Australian
National University’s research department,