A CAMPAIGNER from Helensburgh was among thousands of women who marched through Edinburgh last weekend to mark 100 years since the first British women won the vote.

Ann Greer, who is seeking pension equality for women, joined the colourful procession which made its way from The Meadows to Holyrood Park.

The march was part of a UK-wide event where participants wore either green, white or violet - the colours of the suffrage movement.

They were carefully choreographed to create a mass artwork showing a striped suffragette banner.

For Ann, co-founder of the Argyll and the Isles branch of WASPI - Women Against State Pension Inequality – the occasion was tinged with pride and nostalgia as it was the third time Ann had been in Edinburgh to campaign for causes close to her heart.

The first time was in 1999 when she took part in a Women’s Aid march through the capital.

She told the Advertiser: “At the time I worked for a Women’s Aid group in Dumbarton, which included Helensburgh when it started, as we were still Strathclyde.

“I worked with them for more than 20 years as a counsellor for women affected by childhood sexual abuse/rape and was on a march with them in Edinburgh in 1999 - along the same route as we went on Sunday.

“The march was about funding cuts to Women’s Aid - although this was resolved at the time.”

Ann’s second campaigning trip to Edinburgh was in 2016 when members of the WASPI movement took their case to Edinburgh and held a demo at the Scottish Parliament, at which Jackie Baillie MSP was a speaker.

Then, on Sunday, Ann was joined by other local women and girls for the march to mark the suffrage movement.

They had banners made by Helensburgh and the Peninsula Banner Art Group and travelled on an open top bus from Waverley to the Meadows to gather for the start.

Ann was proudly marching with her WASPI banner, but joined Women’s Aid marchers for the occasion.

She added: “As a long term women’s activist, it was good to meet up with friends old and new as the sun shone down on us.

“Though some had political statements on banners, the procession as a whole was a living art work, thanks to the way women decorated themselves and their children.

“For many, this was a once-in-a lifetime experience for women with no political affiliations joining with other women to express their voices on banners.

“It was to celebrate women’s past achievements but shows history is also a living thing and that women’s activism is still going on in Argyll and Bute.”