Jill Tweedie

Lovely biography in my inbox this morning from DNB on Jill Tweedie, written in a beautifully dry style: " ... one of her uncles, by then resident in Vancouver, to spend time with his family in Canada. She stayed there for six months, fell unsuitably in love again-this time with a cousin-and was dispatched home; however, she cashed in her air ticket and stopped off in Montreal instead. There she got work, initially as a reindeer in a Christmas display ...."

I knew her Letters from a Fainthearted Feminist, my battered copy of which I have just dug out. I realise from the pencil pound sign inside I must have acquired when I first came to Europe in 1990. (So it has since been to Australia, Thailand and back to England.)

I hadn't known how dramatic her life had been, however, or that there was a sequel, More From Martha; off to abebooks ....

But I'm left pondering how DNB are going to keep up the current email rate. They're sending male and female biogs on alternating days, but since I heard somewhere it is still only about 15% female, aren't they going to run out?