Today a Protest Thread of #FridayMotivation about single mums & illegitimate kids. 1st my favourite short story writer bar none Lorna Moon who wrote Holywood screenplays in the 1920s & had an illegitimate child with Cecile B DeMille's brother. Hugely talented she died young. /1

Single mum by choice, suffragette & doctor, Grace Cadell adopted several children (girls & boys) & left them equal shares in her will. Grace looked after suffragettes post hunger strike. She once paid a fine in pennies just to annoy the baillifs. /2

Born illegitimately in Oban (her father was rumoured to be a Whig MP) Rose Blaze de Bury moved to Paris, where she hosted a salon, wrote several novel, drafted an economic plan for Austria & helped set up a bank. She corresponded widely with Bismark. A jawdropping, top lass. /3

Medieval royals cd be blase about illegitimacy when it came to girls especially. Affrica of Galloway ('bastard daughter' of this guy Henry I) married King Olaf of Man & furthered her family's interests by becoming Queen. Dream big, Affrica. /4

Marion Adams-Acton a kids writer known as Jeanie Hering. Illegitimate, she was adopted & ended up a leading light in high society fundraising alongside Catherine Gladstone.Independent minded one summer she walked from London to Arran with her children. Great kid, great mum. /5

Illegitimate, Georgiana McCrae was a brilliant portraitist who 1st showed at the Royal Soc aged only 12. In the 1820s she won 2 major art prizes. Eventually emigrated to Australia, where she struggled cos she wasn't financially recognised in her father's will. Bastard. /6

For most unmarried women tho getting pregnant was destructive. In my book I put up a monument called the Lone Lass - the figure of a woman tottering on a cliff edge, testament to the stigma endured cos of the thoughtless attitude personified by the comments of our PM yesterday /7

Single parents are a huge resource and deserve our respect and far better manners from our politicians than Mr Johnson displayed. Stigmatising 'illegitimate' kids is low. There are NO 'illegitimate' kids. Lastly, here's a lovely poem by Helen Cruickshank about a single mum.

Oh yes, and you can pick up my book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Where-are-Women-Imagined-Scotland/dp/1849172730/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=where+are+the+women+by+sara+sheridan&qid=1575016626&sr=8-1 which includes 1200 stories of amazing women, pretty much all of them with more grit, achievement & wonder than Mr Johnson will put in, in his entire puff. And that's all I'm going to say about that.