Can Any Mother Help Me?

The Story of the Cooperative

Correspondence Club

In 1935, a young woman wrote a letter to the women’s magazine Nursery World:

 ‘Can any mother help me? I live a very lonely life as I have no near neighbours. I cannot afford to buy a wireless. I adore reading, but with no library am very limited with books…I know it is bad to brood and breed hard thoughts and resentment. Can any reader suggest an occupation that will intrigue me and exclude ‘thinking’ and cost nothing!’

Women from all over the country and from all walks of life and all socio-economic backgrounds wrote back expressing similar frustrations. They were full of ideas and opinions but, since they belonged to a generation of women whose choices were limited by the expectation of becoming housewives and mothers, had nowhere to express them. So they decided to start a private magazine.

The Cooperative Correspondence Club – or CCC as it quickly became known – was a place for these women to describe the subjects close to their hearts: the pain and elation of childbirth, the difficulties during wartime, or the struggles and comedies of daily routine. It also became a clandestine platform for the women to voice their personal theories on subjects as provocative as the female orgasm, racism, and wartime politics.

None of the women anticipated the way that the magazine would come to play such an important part in their lives. The letters contributed over five decades by the extraordinary group of wives and mothers who made up the CCC provide an intimate and moving collection of personal stories, and, above all, a portrait of inseparable friendships.

Drawing on the newly published book Can Any Mother Help Me? (Faber 2007), and working closely with its author, Canadian Jenna Bailey, Foursight Theatre will create an evocative, dynamic and touching piece of physical theatre, bringing to life the funny and often moving stories of over twenty women. Women whose lives became intimately connected through the simple act of writing letters.

Can Any Mother Help Me? is a co-production with The Courtyard, Herefordshire's Centre for the Arts and the Women's Arts International Festival at the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal.

 

Touring February – May 2009

Hereford Courtyard Theatre , 12^th - 14^th Feb 09
01432 340555
Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton , 24^th - 25^th Feb 09
01902 321321
West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds , 3^rd - 7^th March 09
0113 213 7700
The Door, Birmingham REP , 18^th - 21^st March 09
0121 236 4455
Oxford Playhouse , 24^th March 09
01865 305305
New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich , 25^th - 26^th March 09
01473 295900
New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth , 27^th March 09
023 9264 9000
Jersey Arts Centre , 31^st March, 1^st April 09
01534 700444
Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury , 3^rd April 09
01227 769075
Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury , 11^th - 12^th May 09
01743 281281
Women's Arts International Festival, Kendal , 15^th May 09
01539 725133
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry , 19^th - 21^st May 09
024 7652 4524

NEW DATE ADDED!
Greenwich Theatre, London 23^rd - 24^th May 09
020 8858 7755

 

The Phoenix Correspondence Magazine

This magazine grew directly from the Cooperative Correspondence Club and is still going strong. If you would like any information on the Phoenix magazine, please contact Maureen Fair, Editor, on 0114 225 7181.