KP/JK/4/2/2/3/1 - Excerpt from Jessie Kenney's unpublished autobiography, 'The Flame and the Flood'

KP/JK/4/2/2/3/1

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Excerpt from Jessie Kenney's unpublished autobiography, 'The Flame and the Flood'

1964-1966

3 leaves Manuscripts

Kenney, Jessie

In this excerpt Jessie shares memories from her childhood. She remembers her family procuring a piano which brought them great joy. Jessie writes that music was one of the “greatest delights” of her life. “We loved the Scottish ballads, the Irish songs, and Welsh ballads and sang them.” The Kenney family would go to Hey church, where they had a pew, and join in hymn singing often. She recalls singing Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide hymns which brought her great joy. “Little did we realise then,” she writes, “in the great simplicity of our lives, in its yearnings, its hard work, its passionate love of justice and … and its love of the Natural beauty which we adored in the moors of the future battles we should be engaged in.” Here she thinks of her brother Bert, was “blocked, for nearly four years on the Western front [during WWI], with only fifteen days spent with his wife and three boys.”

Copyright: Estate of Jessie Kenney.

A digital copy of this excerpt may be viewed at Suffragette Stories: https://suffragettestories.omeka.net/items/show/57