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2022 Year 6 Third Prize
What if it was me?
by Sofia Lomax-Barranco 

Don’t you know about the match girls, and all the pain they suffered.

 

Have you ever wondered, if that was me?

 

Well, I am a girl, she was a girl,

I live in East London,

We are still treated unfairly because we are girls, but not all-out,

They were the ones that got treated unfairly and no-one,

Really knew about them until the strike…

 

But have you ever wondered, the different things about us?

 

I am treated equally, they weren’t.

Terrified, horrified, distressed,

I can eat and learn in a safe environment, they couldn’t,

They had to eat with phosphorus and hear the,

Sizzling and scoring of the matchsticks.

I get to choose what I can do, they didn’t.  No

They COULDN’T.

 

Infuriated, outraged, incensed, they strike.

 

What if that was me though? would I still be alive?

Would I get the courage to strike?

 

This is why we need to remember The MATCH GIRLS.

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On 5th July 2022, a new English Heritage Blue Plaque was unveiled at Bow Quarter (the old Bryant and May Factory) to commemorate the Matchgirls Strike of 1888.

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The Matchgirls Memorial ran a schools poetry competition to celebrate the unveiling. 

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Judges were Alice Trickey-Roberts, English Heritage Education Visits Officer, Tanya Landman, Author, Emma Purshouse, Writer and and Poet.

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Sofia Lomax-Barranco from St Agnes Catholic Primary School won Third prize in the Year 6 category with the poem, 'What if it was me?'.

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