The Unstoppable Letty Pegg
Blending historical accuracy with high adventure, this well-paced story explores the life of Lettice Pegg. Strong willed and intelligent, Letty explores women’s suffrage in 1910. Letty’s middle-class mother and working-class father’s marriage is a bone of contention for her aristocratic grandmother. At school, Letty doesn’t fit in and asks her parents for roller skates in order to bond with classmates.
During a suffrage rally, Letty’s mother is assaulted, then arrested; Letty witnesses not only the brutality of the patriarchy but the true spirit of suffrage. She also sees how some suffragettes defend themselves with jiu-jitsu. After being befriended by Edith Garrud, a known suffragette, Letty also learns jiu-jitsu, using going out to roller skate as a cover for her training. From here, Letty begins a journey from a young and perhaps, at times, naive girl into an empowered and driven woman.
The story is engaging and easy to process and the flights of fancy, combined with historical fact, carry the reader through the fast-paced and believable narrative.
In real life, Edith Margaret Garrud was one of the first female martial arts teachers in the west, responsible for training the Bodyguard unit of the Women’s Social and Political Union in jiu-jitsu. Through her underground dojo, The Golden Square, she also passed on her knowledge to other members of the suffrage movement. The novel also touches upon other pertinent themes for readers, including racism and spiritualism. This is an important read for any young mind, informing them how women fought for equality, and in some cases, sacrificing their lives for this cause.
