The Mary Quaile Club was set up in 2014 to celebrate the life of the Mancunian trade union pioneer who was hugely active in the early 20th Century, leading a strike of café waitresses and later becoming an organiser for the Manchester and Salford Women's Trade Union Council. Her life was suffused with passion for people's rights and when Mary died in 1958 the Manchester Guardian wrote…
"Her determination to get trade unionism for women accepted was often met with jeers, boos, rotten apples, and threats of violence. She spoke at hundreds of factory gate meetings in both the East End of London and Manchester; she never betrayed any sign of fear when faced with hostility. Her warmth and lovable personality won for her many friends in the labour and trade union movement."
Mary Quaile came from an Irish working-class background and rose from being a waitress in a Manchester cafe to one of the most well-known women trade union organisers in Britain in the 1920s. She was the first women's officer of TGWU and spoke at rallies during the General Strike of 1926.
The Mary Quaile Club doesn't just celebrate her life, but links her history to modern day fights against things like the slashing of welfare benefits and the Government attack on trade unions. Now the Club is actually bringing Mary back to life in a new play, Dare To Be Free, being premiered on 30th April at the trade union May Day Festival.
Written by Jane McNulty, directed by Bill Hopkinson and starring Catherine Kinsella, it's backed by some of the biggest names in credible drama and credible politics. Amongst the individual backers are Salford's Christopher Eccleston and Maxine Peake, the legendary tv/film vérité producer Tony Garnett (Cathy Come Home, Kes, The Cops etc) and feminist icon Sheila Rowbotham.
Also supporting the play is the General Federation of Trade Unions plus BECTU, Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, Communication Workers Union, the Professional Footballers' Association and branches of the Fire Brigades Union, NUJ, NUT and UNISON.
Dare To Be Free is set in the past and present. It's 1908 and waitresses in a Manchester cafe are fed up and ready to strike for proper pay and decent working conditions. It's 2016 and workers in a Manchester `fast food experience' are fed up and ready to strike for proper pay and decent working conditions. Linking the two eras is Mary Quaile, come to help out her modern-day sisters because the issues she fought on one hundred years ago are back with vengeance…
"We thought that a play about Mary would be a wonderful way of making her life and work as a trade union organiser better known to a new generation" says Bernadette Hyland, a co-founder of the Club which commissioned the play.
"It is not an exercise in cosy historical nostalgia" she adds "but will directly link Mary's work in organising workers in the early 20th Century to the conditions faced by many workers today ie low pay, zero hours and the hostility by many employers towards the very idea of trade unions."
Also being launched by the Club is Dare To Be Free, the pamphlet, with a biography written by top local historian Michael Herbert, and ten interviews with women active in trade unions at grass roots level, written by Bernadette Hyland.
There will be four performances of Dare to Be Free...
Saturday 30th April 1.45pm
Manchester May Day Festival
Manchester Mechanics Institute
103 Princess Street (free, no tickets required)
Saturday 14th May 2pm
Inspire Centre
747 Stockport Road
Levenshulme M19 3AR.
Sunday 15th May 2pm
Glossop Labour Club
15 Chapel Street, Glossop SK13 8AT
Saturday 4th June
Three Minute Theatre
Afflecks Arcade
35 Oldham Street M1 1JG.
This is also the launch of the Dare To Be Free pamphlet (2pm) followed by the play (3:30pm)
For further details see the Mary Quaile Club website – click here
A full preview of the Manchester May Day Festival will appear shortly on the Salford Star website. In the meantime check out its Facebook page - click here
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