In this, the centenary of at least some women gaining the vote in Britain, I have been surprised and disappointed than none of our major national opera companies have revisited the works of Ethel Smyth who was both one of our greatest, yet most ignored, British opera composers, but also a major fighter in the battle for votes for women.

Why is her work and contribution being ignored? Maybe it is as simple as because she was a woman and female composers always had a major struggle to make their way in a man’s world? They were so often not taken seriously at all.

Or was it because her political activities so upset the establishment that she never received the recognition she deserved? After all she did throw stones through the window of the colonial secretary and it didn’t stop with breaking windows. She also stormed 10 Downing Street itself to hammer out her Suffragette anthem the March of Women on Prime Minister Herbert Asquith’s piano while the Cabinet was still in session. Some things are not easily forgiven even after a hundred years.