Eleanor Morton on debut book Life Lessons from Historical Women

When thinking of Mary Queen of Scots, the first thing that springs to mind for many is her beheading.

But there was so much more to her life, from her love of dancing and music to her poetry and the embroideries she made while imprisoned featuring some rather awkward looking animals.

It’s the perfect example of what comedian Eleanor Morton explores in her debut book, Life Lessons from Historical Women, which looks at the otherwise ordinary stories behind women often just known for one extraordinary moment.

The book features 18 women from throughout history who she feels have been misrepresented or ignored, looking at why their lives deserve more attention, and what they can teach us today.

“There’s a famous cushion cover Mary embroidered and the cat looks quite goofy,” Eleanor explained. “There’s something very humanising about seeing those everyday aspects of people you think of as very distant.

“The past is often seen as very serious; nobody had fun and lived like we do. The parts I find the most interesting are the human parts, everyday and social history.

“Women, if they’re remembered, are often held up on pedestals as almost God-like. But they had to do real things and weren’t always perfect.

“I think there’s a problem with women’s history having to be inspirational or it’s not worth talking about. What if they’re fully-rounded humans who actually have lots of different aspects to them?”

Life Lessons from Historical Women

Alongside Mary Queen of Scots in the book are the likes of Mary Bryant, one of the first successful escapees from the Australian penal colony, pioneering mathematician Ada Lovelace and Bobbi Gibb, who snuck in to became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.

Also included are Irish campaigner Bernadette Devlin, The Goon Show musician Angela Morley, who came out as a trans woman in the 1970s, and Josephine Baker, the superstar performer who was also a French Resistance spy and a civil rights pioneer.

Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech at the ceremony of Josephine Baker's entry to the Pantheon in Paris in 2021. — Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech at the ceremony of Josephine Baker’s entry to the Pantheon in Paris in 2021.

“I could never take a boat and sail around Australia or be a spy, but I could definitely identify with the sense of feeling that, as a woman, you have to fight against a system that’s set up for you to fail,” Eleanor added.

“With Bobbi, for example, I hate running and I will never do a marathon, but I know what it’s like to be in a world that’s constructed for men and have to say no, actually, we can do this – we won’t die of shock if you let us.

“There’s also a lot of pressure to be the best at stuff as a woman – you can’t just be mediocre.

“There’s a lot in comedy as well, maybe less than there used to be. When I started, there was only room for one woman, so you’d better be good enough to be that woman. I think a lot of women in the book also felt that pressure.”

‘They lived life at 100%’

As the book is called Life Lessons, were there any Eleanor took of her own from writing it?

“There were a few women in it, Angela Morley and Josephine Baker specifically, where I felt like they lived life at 100%,” Eleanor said.

“Josephine was never confined by one label. She was a pilot, spy and pioneering actor. She was all these different things and didn’t really care what people thought of her and was able to achieve a lot.

“The word inspirational is a bit overused but, when you look especially at the way trans people are treated today, you can’t imagine how it must have been for Angela Morley to be a trans woman in the 50s, 60s and 70s and to say ‘this is how I want to live my life’ and not be afraid of that.

“These women made decisions and stuck to them. As someone who finds that hard and worries about doing the right thing, I admire the way they took their life into their own hands.”

Humour and history

Growing up with Horrible Histories books and TV series like Blackadder taking very serious history and making it funny, Eleanor drew from her comedy writing, packing the book with humour.

As well as her stand-up, she’s also known for online sketches featuring characters like Craig the unenthusiastic tour guide, which have amassed millions of views.

“There’s the idea that history is just a very dull, serious thing where everyone’s very sad all the time – I just don’t think that’s true,” she said.

“There’s no environment in history where people didn’t have jokes or laugh about things.

“Not everything can be made fun of, there are lots of sharp turns in the book into depressing territory, but I don’t think we should take away the light side of people’s lives just because they went through difficult things or they had a sad death.

“It does people disservice to remember them in a very formal, boring way.”