Di Parkin became a radical political activist from 1963 – first in the Labour Party Young Socialists (as a Trotskyist), and later in the International Socialists and Workers’ Socialist League in the 1970s. She had a two-year break in the sunnier climes of anarcho-syndicalism in late 60s. In the 1980s to 2000s she was employed as an equality and women’s officer in local government. Her 1987 PhD studied nation, class and gender in World War Two.
Di has published on gender, a history of Betteshanger Colliery in Kent, activism in the North of Ireland and with BRHG on the workhouse study 100 Fishponds Road. She has been involved with BRHG since 2010 and now lives in France.
She presented a paper on the events of 1968 at the 2018 Radical History Festival and also on the same topic at the F*ck May 68, Fight Now, event in Liverpool in May 2018.
She is speaking on Women’s Networks and Letters at the West of England and South Wales network event in Bath July 2018.
Appeared at:
- Pauper burials in Greenbank Cemetery – new research
- Bristol dockers strike of 1949 in support of Canadian Seaman
- 1949 Dockers’ Strike in Avonmouth
- Studio 2: What I remember…memories of 1968
- Book Launch: The Northern Ireland Troubles in Britain
- 100 Fishponds Road
- Life and Death in two Victorian Workhouses
- Book Launch
- Pauper deaths and burials in Victorian England
- Bristol Local History Bookfair 2014
- Running down Whitehall with a black flag
- The Fight against Blacklisting
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