The Story of Carmen from Metal Liverpool on Vimeo.
Marjorie Morgan is a Liverpool based playwright, director and producer developing The Story of Carmen as part of Metal’s Remote Residencies programme. The radio play will be available soon, please watch the trailer above and read a short piece of writing by Marjorie on her research while writing the work.
More than one woman
by Marjorie H MorganThere are times you remember forever, like the moment Nelson Mandela was released, or the moon landing, or the death of Princess Diana.
I remember meeting people like that, whether I meet them in person or in a footnote at the bottom of an academic text. Carmen Bryan was a footnote that my brain refused to ignore for decades. There was something about her that kept me coming back for more, but I couldn’t easily find much else apart from that isolated selection of words at the bottom of a page. So I kept digging, researching, uncovering hidden information.
When I was working as a Research Assistant at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, I worked for Professor Patricia O. Daley, who was an enigma being the first Black female don in the University. What Professor P.O. Daley represented was her personal achievement, but to me her being present in that space represented more than one woman.
It was there I also read another footnote of a different professor, Professor Sir Godfrey H.O. Palmer, this set me on new, still continuing journey, to write biographies of people who previously merely existed in the footnotes of British history: Professor G.H.O. Palmer is more than one man.
Carmen Bryan, Professor Patricia O. Daley, Professor Sir Godfrey H. O. Palmer … more than one. Much more.
The Story of Carmen is coming soon.
