The Home and No-Home of Strong Women
A personal and historical account of female oppression
Romans are buried in the garden. The house is built on a Centurion graveyard. Her stepfather, Colin, digging deep for vegetables, finds fragments of mosaic, a terracotta oil lamp. Normal for the Lexden area of Colchester, once Camulodunum, the Roman capital of Britain until Boudicca scared the colonisers to centre themselves fifty miles away, in what becomes London.
Boudicca, warrior Queen of the Iceni tribe, enraged by the gang rape of her virgin daughters, slaughtered every Roman in the town, and burned down the Temple of Claudius.1 The women of Britain were powerful. They inherited wealth and kingdoms. The Romans, when they invaded, brought male domination with them. Didn’t believe that women should rule, and lead. And when Boudicca’s husband died, they stole everything from her. Including her daughters’ mental health. Generational trauma begins here, in male violence.
East Anglia has a history of strong women. The Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins, started his witchhunt in Mannin…
