Elizabeth Fry Leaves Our £5 Notes          

During September 2016, a new plastic £5 note featuring Winston Churchill came into circulation and gradually the notes with Elizabeth Fry will be withdrawn. By May 2017 they will no longer be legal tender.

Orphans and I decided to mark this rather sad occasion – glowering warrior Winston replacing gentle pacifist Elizabeth – with a campaign to raise money for charities of which EF would have approved.

We joined forces with Women in Prison, an organisation which does trojan work helping women deal with all aspects of the legal world including prison. We launched #LastFryFiver and asked everyone to donate their last Fry fiver to a worthy cause.

The campaign got a great response. TV celebrity Eamonn Holmes and his wife Ruth Langsford came on board. We even tweeted across the world to Piper Kerman who wrote ‘Orange is the New Black’ based on her experience in prison. And Jenni Murray discussed the subject of women in prison on Woman’s Hour.

We hope that our campaign has started some worthwhile dialogue on the subject. There are over 3800 women in 12 prisons across the UK; not all of them can read. Already this year 16 women have died in jail. And about 60% of those released are homeless. The statistics go on and on. It is a shocking picture.

We owe it to Elizabeth Fry’s legacy to keep her work alive. She would be appalled by the current state of affairs.