Saturday 9 July 2016

Olive Wharry - Suffragette and Hunger Striker

Olive Wharry used several names; Joyce Locke, Phyllis North and possibly others. In 1913 she burnt down a tea kiosk in Kew Gardens believing to to be property of The Crown. The archive shows how she was moved around various prisons from Holloway, to Carnarvon, to Liverpool and so on. Medical records show how she was force-fed through a tube into the esophagus leading to a gradual deterioration in her mental and physical health.

My mother has always loved her food. Since entering a care home she has insisted that the food is poisoned and existed on a diet of jacket potatoes, cheese sandwiches and yogurt for most of the last six years. She self neglects in other ways too - for example she won't shower or wash her hair. Apparently there is little that the care home can do because any force is now seen as a violation of her human rights.












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