walked around the city and almost everywhere I have gone I’ve remembered Valerie there.

Valerie was a community activist of extraordinary commitment and belonged to a huge number of local groups. In Brighton & Hove it’s hard to meet anyone who did not know her. 

She was well known as a welfare rights adviser, a student organiser,  a peace campaigner and a health activist. In my mind’s eye I can see her now: teaching English in the Jubilee Library; setting the world to rights with friends in the Italian cafe; leafleting with peace campaigners on the Old Steine; demonstrating for the NHS in front of the County Hospital; running a stall in Brunswick Square; attending a meeting at the Unemployed Centre; jumping up to ask awkward questions in the Friends Centre; or pitching up at the Regency Town House for a meeting of the Women’s History Group with purple hair and a huge mischievous grin. I remember her as I saw her last, on a

sunny September Saturday, helping us petition for the Mary Clarke Statue in the Pavilion Gardens. Nothing could stop her, until cancer did.

She was a founder member of the Brighton & Hove Women’s History Group and one of its most avid campaigners for suffragette plaques.

She was there at the Brighton Centre on 18th November 2018 when we launched the campaign to get a statue for Mary Clarke. She was one of the Appeal’s most committed supporters. 

I knew her best as a campaigner for women’s rights and I suspect this is what mattered most to her. She was passionate about the need to commemorate women and celebrate their achievements. Like Mary Clarke, Valerie was a ‘late developer’, attending university as a mature student with huge success. Like her great friend, the local historian Val Brown, she was horrified by the loss of women’s history. That was why she campaigned so hard for blue plaques for women, especially for local suffragettes.

I remember once complaining to her that so many

obituaries are written for men and so few by and for women. She agreed and we joked that we should set up a group so we could all write our own.

We never did, but there’s no need for dear Valerie. We will not forget her. 

Jean Calder (19/10/2025)

Please also see an article about Valerie written with her input on 1st May 2024 for the Argus by Andy Winter, who is one of our Trustees.

Valerie Mainstone: a campaigner who remains a true colossus

committed and generous than Penny Iveson, someone many local people will remember as a brave and life-long campaigner for women’s rights.

Very sadly Penny died last week at the age of eighty, after a long struggle with cancer that tragically affected her sight and balance and stripped her of her once confident stride. She lost the wild beautiful hair that had been one of her most noticeable features and walked with a new hesitancy, but, as our Trustee Andy Winter has written, “cancer could not blunt that fighting spirit”.

Andy recalls Penny as I do “Tall, elegant with a shock of red hair falling below her shoulders, it wasn’t just her appearance that made an indelible mark. It was also the fire in her belly for social justice, particularly the rights of women, that is unforgettable.” You can read Andy’s Argus article about her here. https://wp.me/pDTWu-2kX?

In her later years, ill and struggling to see, Penny remained  full of fight. From time to time, we’d meet for lunch. We’d often argue. She gave and asked no quarter. 

Over the years Penny was active in almost all areas of feminist campaigning. She’d been a peace campaigner at Greenham Common, then went on to campaign against pornography (well before the internet) and all forms of misogyny and domestic and sexual violence. 

In her last year of life, she became fascinated by the story of Mary Clarke and our campaign to commemorate her and others like her. Penny was fierce in defence of any women or girl subject to sex-based violence – and she admired those, like the suffragettes, prepared to resist injustice and make personal sacrifices in so doing.

She leaves two wonderful daughters and for those of us that knew her, treasured memories. She was a bright star and it is hard to believe she has left us.

Valerie is a committed campaigner for memorials for women and has supported the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal since it was set up in 2018. She is often to be seen dressed as a suffragist or sporting suffrage colours.

Valerie was with us on 14th December 2023 when the Mayor of Brighton & Hove councillor Jackie O’Quinn posthumously  awarded Mary Clarke the Freedom of the City.  On that occasion Valerie posed with the Mayor and our model of Mary’s inspirational Lamp.