Highland postie’s stand saw her pedal toward freedom

It was the early 1940s and Jean, whose General Post Office round took her through Glen Clova on her trusty bike, was about to force through a change so profound it would make national headlines and transform the working day for countless women like her.

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Jean’s determination to be granted permission by her male boss to wear trousers while cycling her bike is told in a new film which celebrates the pivotal role of the bicycle in helping women find freedom on the road, and far beyond.

Jean Cameron on her rounds (Image: Newsquest)

Set to be premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival and featuring archival footage spanning over a century, the film shows how the humble bike introduced women to new opportunities to shake off the confines of home, explore the wider world and challenge society’s view of how they should behave, dress, and enjoy themselves.

Pieced together by Scottish film curator Jo Reid, The Freedom Machine also explores how the arrival of mass produced, two-wheeler safety bicycle, designed to accommodate women’s long, flowing skirts, helped to drive forward the feminist movement – sometimes to the disdain of the patriarchy.

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Jo, a regular cyclist, said: “Bikes were viewed by feminists as a tool for freedom and emancipation, it allowed women to get out of the house without a chaperone and to travel further.

“They presented an opportunity for freedom, friendship and camaraderie.

“Women didn’t only use bicycles for pleasure, they offered them a means to get to and from work, and that gave them greater opportunities.”

Such was the impact of bicycles on 19th century women’s lives, that American women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony – a pivotal figure in the women’s suffrage movement – credited the bicycle as “having done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”

She dubbed it the “freedom machine” and women members of the suffrage movement – despite having to pedal in long, heavy skirts and tight corsets - embraced the independence it offered them to gather and campaign.

Jean Cameron taking time out for a catch up (Image: Newsquest)

But while the dawn of the age of cycling for women brought opportunities, it also created rumblings of discontent from some quarters.

“There was almost a moral panic, it was a cultural war with feminists at the centre,” adds Jo.

“This was an opportunity for women to get out and explore the world beyond their immediate space and be in public.

“But there was a backlash – at one point Cambridge students hung an effigy of a woman cyclist.

“There was lots of debate over what women should wear – it became a political statement, long skirts were acceptable but  much less practical than bloomers.”

The drop frame bicycle made cycling less of an ordeal and safer for women, while war offered women new opportunities to travel on bikes to carry out jobs which would typically have been done by men.

For postie Jean, just 19 in 1941, that meant a challenging 16-miles round, sometimes in snow up to her knees, all while wearing a skirt.

It took a special request to the Postmaster General for her to be allowed to wear trousers. According to one newspaper report, having initially “demurred” he had to be persuaded of the “exceptional circumstances” of her rural route which included side tracks to isolated farms and 16 miles of rough going.

Once granted, there was a flood of requests from her fellow women posties and the trousers being named “Camerons”, with 14,000 pairs being worn by the end of 1943.

The new film draws on footage from across the UK and shows how women also went on to work in the bicycle industry and pushed boundaries on how far they could go on two wheels.

Some were particularly daring – the film shows the astonishing effort by one woman to cycle the Thames using a ‘hydro bike’, a bike with skis attached.

Still, it would take until the 1980s before women cyclists were allowed to compete in the Olympic Games.

Among the most familiar images, however, are the sequences which show women enjoying the Scottish countryside on their bikes – tackling lung-bursting inclines on heavy cycles and without today’s benefits of multiple gears.

“The cyclists tend to appear much more graceful as they cycle uphill than I ever have,” added Jo.

“The footage of women on bike rides, with their sandwiches and Thermos flasks, is very much like the women I see today, gathering with friends and enjoying cycling, but 50 or more years apart.”

The film will be shown for the first time at the Glasgow Film Festival on March 12, before touring cinemas across Scotland from April.