Frances

[Crazy Vibes @CrazyVibes_1]

November 1971. Chiswick, West London.
Erin Pizzey is 32 years old. She is not a lawyer. Not a politician. Not a doctor.
She is a woman who talked Hounslow Council into lending her a cold, rundown building on Belmont Road — a former community hall — for almost nothing. Her original plan was modest. A warm room. A cup of tea. Somewhere for mothers with young children to simply get out of the house.
Then the door opened.
A woman stood in the entrance. She was covered, head to foot, in bruises. She was holding two small children. She was shaking.
She didn't want tea.
She needed somewhere to hide.
Erin let her in. She didn't turn her away. She didn't tell her to call the police.
Because Erin had already called the police. They told her the same thing they told every woman in Britain at the time: they could not enter a private home over a "domestic dispute." That was the law. The home was private. What happened inside it was a family matter.
When Erin contacted a female civil servant to report what she was seeing, the response was astonishing. The woman told her flatly: "There wasn't a problem of battered wives until you made one."
Erin put down the phone. Then she went back to her residents and made sure they were fed.
Within weeks, 40 mothers and children were sleeping in four tiny rooms. No funding. No staff. No legal authority.
She didn't stop.
By 1973, word had spread through quiet whisper networks — one woman telling another, "There is a place. Go to Chiswick. She won't turn you away." That same year, Erin hosted the first National Women's Aid Conference in the UK. Women from across Britain arrived, and they all recognized the same thing at once: what she had built needed to exist everywhere.
In 1974, the council set a maximum of 36 residents. At peak times, 150 women and children were living inside those walls — sleeping on floors, on chairs, in hallways. The building smelled of cooking, fear, and something else entirely: relief.
Erin was taken to court for overcrowding. She appealed all the way to the House of Lords.
She kept the doors open the entire time.
That same year, she wrote a book. Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear. It was the first published account of domestic violence in British history. It used real stories from real women inside the shelter. Overnight, a problem that had no official name was on front pages from London to New York.
The movement spread. Refuges opened across the UK. Then Australia. Then Canada. Then the United States. The pattern she created in four small rooms in West London — no blueprint, no permission, no funding — had been replicated in hundreds of shelters across the Western world.
MP Jack Ashley stood up in Parliament and said: "It was she who first identified the problem, who first recognised the seriousness of the situation and who first did something practical."
She was ranked 14th in a poll of the 100 women who shook the world. She was awarded the Italian Peace Prize. She received a CBE. The charity she founded — Chiswick Women's Aid, which became Refuge — grew into the largest domestic violence charity in the United Kingdom, with over 460 employees and an annual income of more than £33 million.
Erin Pizzey passed away on October 4, 2025, aged 86.
She never stopped.
It all began with one woman, one borrowed building, and an absolute refusal to say no.
Forty women and children showed up with nowhere to go.
She made room.

Share this if you believe one ordinary person, refusing to look away, can build a shelter that holds the whole world.

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[Frances @fneil35]

#Waspi_Campaign Pat McFadden should hear the often heartbreaking testimony of WASPI ladies! See you in court DWP.

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

‘On 29 January 2026, 1950s-born women were told by the new Secretary of State, Pat McFadden, that hardly any of us have suffered injustice despite years of DWP delay in sending us letters to tell us about changes in our state pension ages and that none of us will be compensated despite the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) forcefully proposing that should happen after its longest-running investigation.’

We refuse to accept that the government should get away with ignoring its own watchdog in this way. If they can do it to #WASPI women it opens the floodgates to do it to anyone that suffers an injustice.
Please help us reach our target today on our CrowdJustice appeal here :
https://t.co/azZsZ8O57y

[Frances @fneil35]

#Waspi_Campaign says ‘stand with us as you never know when you may need an ombudsman to fight your corner against the Government’. So donate to our cause now to make sure an ombudsman is there for you!

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

By standing together with our families, friends & supporters, #WASPI women can have our day in court & make the Government answer to a Judge about its shameful response to the Ombudsman’s report. Please help by donating & sharing our Crowdjustice appeal.
https://t.co/Unq0XH7aCh

[Frances @fneil35]

#Waspi_Campaign have been left with only one option, court action! Please donate to the cause to support 3.6 million women born in the 1950s whose State Pension was subject to Maladministration by the DWP.

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

A Government that rejects the evidence of its own independent watchdog. A Government that repeatedly rejects Mediation. When faced with such intransigence, we have only one option - Court. Please help & donate to our legal fighting fund. #WASPI
https://t.co/Unq0XH7aCh

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

The Government's shocking defiance of its own independent watchdog cannot go unchallenged. #WASPI women are fighting back @newsaboutwomen Please help us by sharing our fighting fund appeal so that we can challenge this in court. Thank you.
https://t.co/Unq0XH7aCh

[Frances @fneil35]

Thank you for your support for #WASPI women @MichaelRosenYes! Shame on the government that we must fight in court for justice….again… as they defy their own watchdog.

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

Government continues to defy its own independent watchdog & we must again fight back in Court. @MichaelRosenYes please help & share this appeal for donations to our legal fighting fund. Thank you. #WASPI #JusticeForWASPIWomen
https://t.co/Unq0XH7aCh

[Shelagh Simmons 💙 @shelaghas]

It's a disgrace when you're forced to take legal action against your own Govt to get justice. Please help @WASPI_Campaign hold the #DWP to account for proven Maladministration. Please donate to the legal fighting fund. #WASPI #JusticeForWASPIWomen 👇
https://t.co/hoeh9Y0hnx

[Solent WASPI @solent_waspi]

Our fight is hard. Our fight is long. But we must carry on our legal challenge to the Government. Please help us get #JusticeForWASPIWomen & donate to our fighting fund. Every single pound really does count. #WASPI @WASPI_Campaign
https://t.co/ooSdVCTQUN

[Frances @fneil35]

Don’t let the government diminish the work of their own Parliamentary watchdog as it’s trying to do against #WASPI_Campaign! If you need help against the government who will be there if the Ombudsman isn’t? Support #Waspi

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

If the Govt can ignore the Ombudsman over #WASPI injustice, they can ignore them again and again in future. Don’t let them get away with this. Help support #WASPI’s legal fighting fund. Donate here: https://t.co/jWgT1eyG7X

[Frances @fneil35]

#WASPI_Campaign oh look!! 👀

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

Just saying ….. #WASPI

[Frances @fneil35]

#Waspi_Campaign “legal challenge to go ahead” 👍Here we go again - yes, we’re still fighting for justice for WASPI women!! 💪💜

[Mirror Politics @MirrorPolitics]

WASPI legal challenge to go ahead as campaign chief sounds warning to Labour
https://t.co/kH4l2RbzXc

[Frances @fneil35]

#WASPI_Campaign

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

3.6 million #WASPI #1950swomen haven’t forgotten @UKLabour leaders reneging on the promises they made. We are the generation most likely to vote and we outnumber the MP’s majority in over 50% of constituencies.

[Frances @fneil35]

@WASPI_Campaign read and digest this UK Government. Please support 1950’s women and implement your own PSHO’s recommendations!

[Seamus Logan MP @SeamusLoganMP]

I'm a signatory on a cross-party letter to the Pension Ministers on pension justice for women born in the 1950s - @WASPI_Campaign - the UK Government must accept the recommendations on compensation for #WASPI women given the PHSO's findings on maladministration by the DWP 👇

[Frances @fneil35]

Thank you for supporting #WASPI @AndrewGeorge MP 💜

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

.@AndrewGeorge MP for St Ives Cornwall speaks out for #WASPI women.

[Frances @fneil35]

Supporting #WASPI? Ask the questions below….

[Fawcett Society Hampshire and the Isle of Wight @FawcettHantsIOW]

Voters in 11 councils in Hampshire going to the polls in 3 weeks for local and county elections. Suggestions from Solent WASPI on questions for your candidates 👇 Solidarity! ⁦@WASPI_Campaign⁩ ⁦@solent_waspi⁩ ⁦@WomeninUNISONSE⁩

[Frances @fneil35]

#Waspi_Campaign

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

London and the Home Counties need your help! Email your MP today using the template letters on our interactive map whether you’re a WASPI woman, a partner, husband, friend or relative of a 1950s born woman. Support NOW! Click on this link - https://t.co/pUtAtAlqwT #JusticeForWASPIWomen

[Frances @fneil35]

#WASPI Campaign

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

With local and devolved parliamentary elections coming up, are you wondering where the parties stand on #WASPI compensation? Here’s a handy guide. Ask candidates where they stand on compensating 1950s women and what they’ll do to support us.

[Frances @fneil35]

Send your emails in support of #WASPI women. Link here👇

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

Find the template emails here to send to YOUR MP! Be in the top of his or her inbox.... https://t.co/YqL1V9dHya

[Frances @fneil35]

Speak up for #Waspi Campaign send an email to your MP using the link below 👇 #everyoneknowsawaspiwomen

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

Will you speak up for #WASPI today. You can find an email to send to your MP here: https://t.co/YqL1V9dHya #JusticeForWASPIWomen

[Frances @fneil35]

#WASPI ladies vote wisely!

[#WASPI Campaign @WASPI_Campaign]

With local and devolved parliamentary elections coming up, are you wondering where the parties stand on #WASPI compensation? Here’s a handy guide. Ask candidates where they stand on compensating 1950s women and what they’ll do to support us.