A former militant from the Women's Suffrage Campaign looks at her middle age life in 1928 and commits herself to a new cause helping girls exercise their bodies and minds and fight fascism. Original. 25,000 first printing.

1928. Matilda Simpkin is a woman with a thrilling past and an infuriatingly dull present. As a militant suffragette, she marched, smashed windows, heckled Winston Churchill, and was jailed five times. Now in middle age, the closest she gets to the excitement of her old life is the occasional lecture on the history of the movement, given to a lukewarm audience.

But after being shocked to discover that an old comrade has embraced Fascism, Mattie realizes that there is a new cause and a fresh generation to fight for. Thus, the Amazons are formed, a club that gives girls a place to exercise their bodies and minds, igniting a much-needed interest in the world around them. It’s a wild success until a new recruit sends Mattie’s past crashing into her present, and every principle she has ever stood for is threatened.

Old Baggage is a funny and bittersweet portrait of a woman who has never given up the fight and the young women who are just discovering it.

“Mathilda ‘Mattie’ Simpkin is a clever, lovably nonconformist heroine… a vividly complex, sympathetic if flawed protagonist.”