Seventeen years after losing her council job due to needing endometriosis surgery, Michelle Dewar’s campaign for paid menstrual leave gained 50,000 signatures in a week, reports ELIZABETH SHORT

Before visiting Beatty Orwell in East London, I asked writer Kate Thompson’s advice on what to bring. Thompson had interviewed Orwell and her peers for her book The Stepney Doorstep Society, and got to know her well.
She suggested I stopped at Rinkhoff’s on Vallance Road, just round the corner from Orwell’s flat.
This turned out to be a good steer. Talking to the celebrated Jewish bakery’s owner, I mentioned I was visiting a woman who had been around slightly longer than his shop — 101 years to Rinkhoff’s mere 100. He knew exactly who I meant, pointing me in the direction of Orwell’s favourite pastries.

The Morning Star invites readers to join Jeremy Corbyn and others to celebrate a working-class female victory that echoes through the ages


