File 88 - Mary Stott

2 minidiscs, 2 cds, 1 file, 9 AIFF files (801.3 MB)

Interview with Mary Stott, woman's editor for the Guardian. Conducted by Terry Coleman on 26 July 2001. Also includes a data sheet containing biographical details about the subject and information about the recording.

Summary contents of interview (with rough timings):

Disc 1:
Tracks 1-2
Test

Track 3
01.16 Journalism was a vocation - 'smitten' when thinking of being a journalist
02.21 Loved smell of newsprint - used to go to Leicester Mercury when she was very young
03.40 Bolton Evening News. Recalls Tillotson family who ran paper
04.42 Early political memory of Winston Churchill
06.37 'I was a socialist when I was a girl'
07.12 Witnessed the procession of Hitler and Mussolini in Rome whilst on holiday
09.24 Working for Manchester Evening News was 'thrilling... loved subbing'

10.33 'The one paper I wanted to work for was the Guardian'
11.15 Discusses husband
12.33 Wrote to Guardian and asked for job. Interviewed by Alastair Heatherington
12.33 Suggested starting woman's page to AP Wadsworth
14.40 Discusses Heatherington. Got editorship because he was young. Not very chatty
15.29 Worked part-time as still had young daughter.
17.05 Remembers former colleagues
19.02 John Rosselli - 'very nice man...one of my favourite Guardian colleagues'

Tracks 4-5
Test

Track 6
00.01 Alison Adburgham, Betty Thorne, Fiona McCarthy, Jill Tweedie.
03.53 Christopher Driver
04.41 Peter Preston - found him hard to communicate with
07.22 By early 1970s felt that editorship of women's page had drifted out of her hands
09.09 Discusses 'Guardian women'

10.45 Being a woman in workplace - harder to get promoted. 'God bless the NUJ' for equal pay
13.03 Wanted to use women's page to broaden women's interests
14.33 Discusses OBE
16.38 Differences between Guardian women pages and other papers
17.57 Guardian women were 'teachers and teachers wives'
18.54 Pleased when the Guardian tried to expand readership
19.21 Portrait in Portrait Gallery - daughter said 'you look very grumpy'

21.11 Successor Linda Christmas and then Suzanne Lowry
22.10 Given lunch by the Guardian for her 90th birthday

Tracks 7
00.25 How the women's page has changed today. What Mary would do differently today as women's editor
01.35 Women as readers. Women then living in the kitchen and the nursery. How things have changed today for women
04.50 Time at the Manchester Evening News
06.00 Problems facing women in the 1970s

Track 8
00.10 Salary at the Guardian
01.25 Discussion of portrait of her grandmother

Disc 2:
Track 1
00.00 Starts mid sentence talking about grandparents
01.23 Interviewer suggests feminists are fierce
03.34 Most memorable article was 'learning to be a widow' in 1967
05.40 'In those days women didn't have much chance of making their views known'
06.38 Not many women journalists in Mary Stott's early days. Rebecca West was an important influence
08.27 Didn't like London office, Manchester had more room

12.00 Looking through her book collection
14.36 Discusses music - Mary sings and plays piano

Access to recording via GNM Digital Respository

Copyright: Guardian News & Media Ltd and Mary Stott's estate

The Women's Library holds 9 boxes of Mary's archive (ref 7CMS).