When did you last go to the pictures? It’s so long since I’ve been that I had to look up the film on Google – and found it was way back in 2009.

To tell you the truth, I was wondering when I would be motivated to go again.

So many films these days just seem to be about action and violence and, as I’m a sensitive soul, I’ve never been much interested in either.

And when a film comes out that I do fancy watching, I’ll happily wait for the DVD.

I insist on calling it ‘pictures’, by the way, even though my children think it is the most ridiculously archaic phrase in my vocabulary.

They go to the ‘cinema’ and sometimes even the ‘movies’ – but I would never call it that, for the same reason I don’t put out the trash or take the elevator, which is: I’m not American.

The film that will get me back in front of the big screen and possibly even shelling out for popcorn is called Suffragette, and I’ll be going because of the local interest.

If you haven’t heard already, it’s based on real events, and Helena Bonham Carter (no relation) is one of the stars.

She is playing a real person who was born in Swindon – at 24 North Street, off Eastcott Hill, to be precise.

Her name was Edith New and she was as influential as any suffragette who wasn’t called Pankhurst.

In 1908 she was the first person in history to chain themselves to railings as a form of protest, and was also the first suffragette to use ‘physical militancy’ when she broke some windows.

They weren’t just any old windows, but in 10 Downing Street – a fact that for some reason always gets a cheer when I tell people about it.

Frankly, the Prime Minister of the day, Herbert Asquith, deserved to have all his windows broken because he was a lifelong opponent of giving women the vote, despite calling himself a Liberal.

In other words, Herbert has gone down in history as… well… a herbert, but by a weird twist of fate he was Helena Bonham Carter’s great-grandfather (but still no relation to me, despite being a herbert).

So I’m really looking forward to seeing Suffragette at the pictures, and will be quite proud to watch it, being a Swindonian like Edith.

I’ll also be pleased for my friend and colleague Frances Bevan, who is a local historian with a lot of knowledge about a lot of things, including women’s history in general and Edith New in particular.

She is so excited about the film that she is organising some events, including a special screening and even a mock protest in costume.

Somebody asked her if she would need to get permission from the Council for this, but Frances got an uncharacteristically subversive look in her eye and answered: “Edith didn’t.”

So I’m really chuffed for Frances that her heroine is going to be recognised, and as the film is already being tipped for an Oscar, even though it’s not even out until October, our Edith is going to be world famous.

But I’m also proud of this paper.

A century ago, when Edith served four prison sentences for her actions, not many people knew what to think about suffragettes, and The Times, for instance, saw them as hooligans.

But cuttings from 1908 show the Adver was proud of Edith and supportive of the cause – 20 years before women finally got the vote.

Not for the first time and not for the last, Swindon was years ahead of the times, and years ahead of The Times.