A joyous and momentous march for liberation – Chandan (Sally) Fraser’s best photograph

t was early March in 1971 and bitterly cold, but the snow and sleet didn’t dampen our spirits. Thousands of us had gathered for the. We were singing and dancing as we walked through London and there was street theatre at Trafalgar Square, where the march ended. It was a joyous occasion. Our banners reflected our primary focuses: equal pay and equal opportunity, free contraception and abortion on demand. There were also lots of men of all ages taking part, kids too.

I was taking pictures the whole time, running to get ahead, climbing up lampposts or on to bins. I remember passing Billingsgate fish market was a whole lot of fun, as workers came out to watch and cheer. I’ve got lots of pictures of passersby laughing with us – and some of them at us. But even if there was the occasional bit of mocking, things were never nasty. We weren’t being aggressive, so that wasn’t the reaction we got.This shot must have been taken as we were approaching Oxford Circus.

One thing I’d like to set the record straight on is the number of people who were on that march. The figure that’s usually given – and was repeated on captions whenin Revolt! was at Tate Britain – is 4,000. Of course I can’t prove it but I’m sure there were tens of thousands of us.

My love of photography began when I was very young – I was first given a camera aged 10. When I was 17, my family were living in Caracas, Venezuela, where my father was a diplomat. Caracas is in a valley and the surrounding hills are full of huts and shanty towns. I used to head out there every day to take photographs, and it became obvious that this was what I wanted to do. I went back to the UK in 1967 to study photography at the London College of Printing.

The women’s movement made a lot of advances, although it’s still got a long way to go. But I feel proud now to have been part of it all.

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