Book of Inspiring Women

A collection of books created by teachers and students all about women's history.

Women's History

Jenny Lyne is a former Rugby Union Player who played at both blindside flanker and lock for England. Lyne starter her career at the Chichester RFC, before playing for Crawley, Richmond and Saracens first teams. She was selected for her first England match against Wales, where she came on as a replacement to score her first international try. Jenny Lyne has 38 caps for England. Her height is 1.78m. She was part of the England squad that bean New Zealand Black Ferns at home during an international tour in June 2001, ending a 10-year unbeaten track record for the Black Ferns. Lyne was part of the Five and then Six Nations Grand Slam winning squad in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2006. She played at the 2002 Women&#8217;s Rugby World Cup in Barcelona, in the final and again in the 2006 Women&#8217;s Rugby World Cup in Edmonton, Canada. Furthermore she is the only woman ever to have had children and return to rugby at an international level. Jenny Lyne teaches Year 3 pupils and coaches pupils across the Prep school at Westbourne House.

"All the effort, all the commitment, all the dedication, all the pain, sweat and tears - ALL worth it."

When Holly was at Westbourne, she really enjoyed cricket. She played in the 1st XI in years 7 and 8 for Westbourne. She went on to Brighton, continuing to play cricket. She played for the Sussex Cricket Club from May 2005 to July 2008. Then she was the youngest English test cricketer ever. She played many matches for England, including against India on 14 August 2006 and against South Africa on 2007. In 2018, Holly was selected in the the women's all-time T20I XI.

The 17 year old Juliane fell out of a plane in a storm at 12000 ft&#160;and was the sole survivor. She was strapped to her seat when she finally awoke. Koepcke had loads of injuries. Also she was in the Amazon Rainforest!&#160;She knew that if there were any civilizations nearby they would be along the river. She very quickly found it and started to swim downstream. Within a day or two she started collecting maggots under her skin! She soon found a small hut and outside there was a small pot of petrol. She decided that she had no choice but to pour the petrol on her skin! She watched 40 or so maggots drop out of her arm! She was soon found and taken immediately up- stream to a hospital. Her sheer will &#8211;power to keep going was EXTRAORDANARY! You&#8217;d be surprised at the amount of self- belief it takes to be the only survivor from a plane crash for 10 days in the Amazon Rainforest when you know that your mother is dead.

&#8220;When we have really resolved to achieve something, we succeed&#8221; my father once said. &#8220;We only have to want it."

One of the most inspiring women is Caroline Wozniacki, who is a Danish tennis player even though she lives in Florida. She won the Australian open in January 2018 and, to date, she has&#160;won&#160;28 singles titles, including a grand slam. She is currently (2018) world No. 2, and has previously been No. 1. She is the first ever Scandinavian woman to be world No. 1. She inspires me to be a tennis player who never gives up. When she doesn't play tennis, she is still a very happy person and has lots of fun. She is also a very good sport.

Helen Keller was a very smart little girl. When she was just six months old, she said &#8216;wha-wha&#8217; when she wanted water. Helen became deaf and blind at the age of two because of an illness. At first was just a fever that she had for days and when the fever passed she became deaf and blind from an illness called meningitis. The only word Helen could speak after her illness was &#8216;wha-wha&#8217;. But she overcame everything and a lady called Anne Sullivan changed her life forever. Helen went to school and learned braille and sign language to communicate with others. When she wanted to hear other people speak, Helen took her hands and put them over somebody&#8217;s mouth to feel the way it moves. Helen even finished college. &#160; She is very inspiring and is such a role model because she keeps on trying until she achieves what she wanted to do, despite all the difficulties along the way.

&#8220;Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.&#8221;

Malala is a Pakistani school pupil who fights strongly for women&#8217;s rights for education. Due to this and her heavy criticism of the Taliban forces, she was shot in the head at close range by a Taliban gunman on the bus to school. She then moved from Pakistan to Birmingham to recover from her&#160;injuries. She survived the gunshot wound and has become a leading role in the fight for women&#8217;s rights in education. On her 16th birthday she spoke at the UN about women's rights in education. She still wishes to return to her home country. She is the youngest Nobel Laureate.

"If one man can destroy everything, why can&#8217;t one girl change it?"

Tamara&#8217;s family lived in four different countries while she was in school. From the age of 10, she would go on a plane on her own to boarding school and wouldn&#8217;t see her parents for three months. She was homesick, but it was fun and exciting. Her family was always active: sailing, skiing, any type of water sport. Fashion was always experienced from pictures ripped out of magazines, as there were no nice shops where they lived. She was always asking her mum to make the difficult ones to design, and she would try the easier ones. She made some clothes and sold them to help fund a trip to Vietnam, where she looked for clothes in factories. On return, she worked for an underwear company back in England but was made redundant. She decided to create SweatyBetty because she wanted to create a women&#8217;s activewear brand. Their mission from the beginning was to empower women through fitness, and they have now extended their reach to girls to encourage them to lead an active lifestyle.

&#8220;Follow your dreams, and don&#8217;t let anyone stop you.&#8221;&#160;

Katherine Johnson (ne&#233; Coleman) showed a talent for maths at an early age and graduated from high school when she was only 14! In 1952 she heard the NASA was hiring mathematicians and so she applied and got it. At first, she worked with a group of 20 women performing maths calculations. One day, Katherine was temporarily assigned to help an all-male research team. Katherine&#8217;s knowledge of analytic geometry helped her make male friends because they respected her. Katherine was assertive, asking to be included in editorial meetings (where no women had ever gone before). She simply told people that she had done her work and that she belonged. From 1958 to her retirement in 1986, Johnson worked as an aerospace technologist moving, during her career, to Spacecraft Controls Branch. She calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space.

&#8216;Girls are capable of doing everything men are capable of doing. Sometimes they have more imagination than men.&#8217;

Jessica Ennis-Hill was raised by her father Vinnie Ennis, and her mother Alison Powell. Her love for track and field emerged at a young age when her parents took Jessica and her sister to an event at the Don Valley Stadium. She took to sport immediately, drawing attention at her near perfect hurdle technique at just 10 years old. She soon met her future coach, Toni Minichellio, and joined Sheffield Athletics Club, winning the high jump competition at just 14 years old. &#160; She carried on and eventually tried the Heptathlon and did extraordinarily well at it. She became an Olympian and won gold at London 2012. She is now retired.

"If you want to achieve greatness, stop asking permission"

Whilst her full name is Joanne Rowling, we know her as J.K Rowling because this is her pen name. She is most well known as the author of the Harry Power series and went from someone living on state benefits to a billionaire author. She lost her status as a billionaire after giving much of her earnings to charity. But she is still one of the wealthiest people in the world. In 2013, she decided that she would see if she was really a good author, or if people saw her name and just said it was a good book, so she published a crime series under a new pen name. People loved her books and started comparing it to J.K. Rowling. This proves how talented she truly is.

"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."

Madeline Stuart is a world famous model. However she is not just any model &#8211; she has Down syndrome. Madeline always loved clothes and wanted to be a model. However it was not easy at all to become one &#8211; it was even harder for her as she was the first woman to be a model with Down syndrome. &#160; Madeline Stuart dreamed of being a model but no one wanted her because she had Down syndrome. But she didn&#8217;t stop; she and her family set up a social media account to attract attention. Soon Madeline had 750,000 media fans and was a household name. After that, many fashion companies wanted her to model for them. &#160; She has modelled for the likes of Vogue, Cosmopolitan and the New York Times as well as New York Fashion Week.

"The first step to changing something is becoming aware, and the second step is acceptance."

Li Tingting has been campaigning for&#160;gender equality&#160;and&#160;sexuality for several years. She was named in BBC News 100 Women list in 2015. Li was born in 1989 and grew up in rural Beijing. During her second year of university, Li set up a Lesbian Community Training Group. As a student in 2012, Li protested against domestic violence, by walking down a shopping street in Beijing dressed in a blood-splattered wedding dress. Her activities caught the attention of the local police, and Li and four other protesters (known as &#8216;the feminist five&#8217;) were arrested. Li was released 37 days later after a global outcry. She is openly gay and also campaigns for LGBTQ+ rights. Same sex marriage is currently illegal in China however that didn&#8217;t stop Li from holding a wedding ceremony for her and her partner.

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born in Tottenham, London, to an English mother. Her mum was called Penny Adkins and her Welsh father was called Marc Evans. Her father left her and her mother when Adele was only two, leaving her mother to raise her. She began singing at the age of four and then became obsessed with voices, having been inspired by the Spice Girls to start singing. Adele wanted to join her school choir but was told she had to learn how to play the clarinet to be in the choir. She is now a record-breaking, best selling singer-songwriter, famous for her albums 19 and 21, the ages at which she released them.

&#8220;I don&#8217;t make music for eyes. I make it for ears.&#8221;

Darcey Bussell is a world famous British ballerina. At the age of 13, she went to White Lodge, the lower school of the Royal Ballet. At 16 she progressed to the upper school, before joining the Sadler&#8217;s Wells Royal Ballet in 1987. She became principal dancer at just 20 years old. &#160; She has performed in many ballets, including Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, the Nutcracker and Giselle. She retired from dancing in 2007. She now appears as a judge in Strictly Come Dancing. She has also written several children&#8217;s books about &#8220;Delphine&#8221;! &#160; She is my inspiration because she is a beautiful dancer and I want to become just like her.

"Criticism and bullying are part of life. It&#8217;s how you cope with it that matters."

Gemma Nuttall was diagnosed with cancer and she wouldn&#8217;t make it to her child&#8217;s first birthday, unless she had a very specialized treatment that cost &#163;300,000. Her family could not afford it. Kate Winslet found out about Gemma and donated some money to her. She also sent an email to all her friends asking them to donate, but Gemma still didn&#8217;t have the money she needed. Kate and Leonardo diCaprio helped raise the rest of the money at a movie festival, where they auctioned off &#8220;dinner with Jack and Rose&#8221;, referring to their roles in Titanic. Gemma Nuttall had her treatment and is still alive today. Kate inspires me because she helped someone.

&#8220;The good and bad things are what form us as people&#8230; change makes us grow.&#8221;

Princess Diana was brought up in a place near Sandringham. Her parents divorced when she was young and her father took custody of her and her brother. She married Prince Charles on 29 July 1981 and they had two sons, before divorcing in 1996. Whilst married to Prince Charles, Diana worked tirelessly for charities around the world. A few of the things she did for these charities include: visiting a landmine field in Angola, visiting injured children in Angola, visiting an HIV and AIDS centre in London, shaking hands with a patient with leprosy in Indonesia, and visiting a London children&#8217;s hospital. Princess Diana died of wounds from a car accident in Paris in 1997. She is still remembered and cherished by the whole world.

&#8220;Always do what your heart tells you&#8221;&#160;

Ariana&#8217;s mum and dad split up when she was eight or nine years old. She was always into music, but she wasn&#8217;t in the choir at her school. There was a bombing attack at one of her concerts. A month later, she came back and did a special concert with lots of pop stars. Not many people came because they were scared that the bombing would happen again. She was not scared to sing again and inspired other people support the victims of the attack

"I do not belong to anyone but myself. And neither do you."

Mother Teresa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner (1979), aimed at looking after those who had nobody to look after them through her own order "The Missionaries of Charity". She worked tirelessly towards her goal until her ill-health - that included two heart attacks, pneumonia and malaria - forced her to step down in March 1997, following which she took her last breath in September 1997. Mother Teresa was a humanitarian. This means she did things to help out other people. Her entire life was fully devoted to helping other people. Mother Teresa is inspiring to me because she dedicated her life to the Catholic Church and helped out with the poor and unfortunate people. She is a excellent role-model for us at the present day.

&#8216;Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.&#8217;

Once upon a time, a girl named Venus Ebony Starr Williams lived in Lywood, California, with her four sisters, and parents Richard and Oracene. Her father taught her tennis on public courts in Los Angeles, using books and videos about tennis. She is now a professional tennis player who is ranked eighth in the WTA singles rankings. By the age of ten, Venus&#8217; serve was more than 100 miles per hour and became her most important asset. She won her first professional match on Halloween in 1994, at the age of 14. Her father shouted, &#8216;That&#8217;s one for the ghetto!&#8217; Venus was ranked world number 1 for 11 weeks in 2002, until her younger sister took over and held the number 1 ranking for 316 weeks! Venus has captured seven Grand Slam titles, including 5 Wimbledon championships. Venus is the most decorated tennis player in Olympic history since 1896, and has been in 5 consecutive Olympic Games. Venus has had some challenges in her life. She found out she had Sjogren&#8217;s syndrome in 2011 but overcame it. Venus also runs two businesses: EleVen, an athletic-clothing line, and V*Starr, an interior design company. Together with her sister Serena, they have grown the popularity of women&#8217;s tennis.

"There have been many frustrating games... That happens, but that's sport. Otherwise why would there be so much glory in victory."

Fran Kirby plays for Chelsea ladies football club and inspires me to play football. Fran shows me that I can play football even though I am a girl and still be successful, where football is normally played by men. She started at a local team in Reading and worked her way up to be in both the England squad and one of the best league teams &#8211; Chelsea - even though she had struggled with depression after her mum died. Therefore, Fran shows me that even though you are going through tricky times, if you persevere, you will get through it. Fran also inspires me as a team player and to give her best. An example of this is how she helps the team in whatever position she is playing in, as demonstrated in the 2017 European Championships where she played in midfield rather than her preferred striker position.&#160;

"That is one thing I relish, the pressure of having to try and beat the best teams in the world."

A huge thank you goes out to all the pupils and teachers who contributed so thoughtfully to this book. The book was compiled by Abi C, Fraser L, Issy A and Laura H, Year 8 pupils at Westbourne House in 2018. Every effort has been made to use images that are rights-free, and photographers have been credited wherever possible.

Westbourne House School was founded as a boys’ school in 1907. For 80 years, the only girl pupils were the daughters of Mr Sharman and Mr Shilcock, previous Headmasters. When the Pre-Prep opened in 1987, the first girls ‘officially’ joined Westbourne House, and girls joined the Prep School five years later in 1992. In celebration of 30 years of girls at Westbourne House, and to mark International Women’s Day, we decided to create a Book of Inspiring Women, written and illustrated by the Westbourne House community. Inspired by the popular crowd-funded book Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, Inspirational Women is filled with stories about women who inspire Westbourne House girls and boys today.

Liz Carr is best known for playing Clarissa Mullery in the BBC drama Silent Witness, she is an actress, comedian and disability rights activist. Liz Carr has been in a wheelchair since the age of seven, due to a condition called athrogryposis multiplex congenita. She has had many roles in plays and programmes and is the creator of Assisted Suicide the musical. She is inspirational to me because she is not afraid to speak out about discrimination directed at the disabled. In addition to this, quite recently, Liz Carr and her personal assistant were attacked by a man by scissors in London. She was badly injured, but rose up from the commotion and still fights for what she believes in and her personal rights today.

Elise Christie inspires me because she never gives up, and always tries. She once was in a race and someone knocked her and she fell and had to go to hospital. Even though that happened, she still kept on going and managed to get back on the ice. &#160; Also she&#8217;s a world champion and hasn&#8217;t even won an Olympic medal yet! Once at a winter Olympics she got to the semi-finals and fell over. She has been so close to getting into the final so many times. Hopefully she&#8217;ll keep trying at the 2022 winter Olympics. She is a great ambassador for team GB.&#160;

"I only see gold. And I am going to do what I have to do"

Zendaya loves drawing and writing poetry. In 2013 she was the youngest contestant on Dancing with the Stars. She spent 3 years dancing in a dance group called future-shock and began her career by working as a fashion model. Zendaya has three dogs, a blond one called Tater, a black one called Cranberry and a brown one called pumpkin. Recently, she played the part of Anne Wheeler in the film 'The Greatest Showman'. She inspires me because she started her journey of fame by being a backup dancer in one of Selena Gomez's videos and has worked her way up to be where she is now.

"I think women are very powerful and we are more powerful together than separated."

Emma Watson is British and is a strong believer in woman&#8217;s&#160;rights, having travelled to Bangladesh and Zambia to promote girls&#8217; education. After she had been appointed as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, she launched the campaign HeForShe, to help empower women. She has been harassed for being a feminist but said that &#8220;If they were trying to put me off, it did the opposite&#8221;, and it simply made her more determined. She started a feminist book club to help people come together and empower and celebrate women, helping people to get together and share opinions on equality. She has always fought for women's rights and has recently been involved in the campaign, TIME&#8217;S UP, to stand up to abuse of women, both physical and mental. She is inspiring because she fights for what she truly believes in, making the world a better place, and overcoming the obstacles along the way.

"Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong."

When asked at the age of 7 what her aim was upon joining my class at Westbourne House, Tinka Allingham replied, &#8216;be the best I can and help others be the best they can.&#8217;&#160;Profound words from someone so young, let alone from somebody who had disabilities. Tinka was born with an anterior cell dysfunction with bulbar palsy.&#160;This is an abnormality of the cranial nerves, causing weakness of facial muscles, right shoulder and left lower limbs, together with a reduced range of tongue, jaw movement and severe swallowing difficulties. Tinka therefore takes all her nutrition via a gastrostomy. As a result of her medical condition, Tinka&#8217;s speech is severely dysarthric.&#160;I soon learnt however, that nothing would deter Tinka from getting her message across! Whilst Tinka has some restriction of movement at her hips and knee joints, her mobility and joy of sport participation is hugely impressive. Her right arm is considerably weaker than her left and with reduced muscle around the right scapula she finds it difficult to initiate forward and sideways movement of her right arm in elevation. Despite all of this; Tinka triumphs. Over the years, Tinka has proved that despite a disability, nothing will prevent her from participating in activities that most able-bodied people may find challenging.

Activities such as skiing, fishing, horse riding (eventing and taking part in the local hunt) water skiing, training and walking her beloved spaniels and labradors, looking after her two donkeys, harness racing and sailing.&#160;There seem to be few activities Tinka has not tried and succeeded in! Triumphs without difficulties are empty; indeed it is difficulties that make triumph. Tinka&#8217;s dogged determination against adversity has been truly moving. In over 35 years of teaching, never has anyone impacted on me like Tinka. Her perseverance, staunchness and single-mindedness to succeed are truly inspirational.&#160;

When Ali Sparkes was in Prep school they thought that the alphabet wasn&#8217;t groovy enough, so they decided to mix it up a bit. Instead of A, she got something like apple apocalypse. So when she moved to secondary school she couldn&#8217;t really read, so she was the bottom of her class. Back when she was young there weren&#8217;t any video games or iPads or anything like that, so her idea of passing time was to go to the library. One day the librarian recommend a book to her and she loved it, so she got into reading. She wrote her first book in secondary school. She took it to one of her teachers and he said she should send it to a publisher, which she did. She got rejected by publishers 14 times. She persevered and today she is a top author even after all her let downs.&#160;The Shapeshifter series is one of the most popular and was originally called Dax Jones and the COLA Club. She recently visited Westbourne House during book week.

Anne Frank was born into a Jewish family and although she was born in Germany, she moved to the Netherlands when she was just four. Anne&#8217;s dad, Otto Frank, said &#8220;Though this did hurt me deeply, I realized that Germany was not the world, and I left.&#8221; Anne Frank was inspirational for many different reasons. Firstly she hid from the Nazis who had killed up to 6 million other Jews. She and her family were arrested and taken to a concentration camp, and most of them died there. Secondly she was extremely courageous for hiding for over 2 years in her secret annex hidden above the house. After that she was found and taken to Bergen-Belsen, where she died along with her mother and sister. As her efforts were so fearless, she became such a role model to never give up. Although she was found, some of her other friends still kept on going and both she and they had a lot of perseverance.

&#8220; I don&#8217;t think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains.&#8221;

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