At 11, I passed the scholarship - only just; I wasn't very good at maths - to Ilford County High for Girls. When the Second World War started we were evacuated, first of all to Ipswich, and then to Aberdare, Queen of the Valleys, in south Wales.
I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.
I'm one of the only members of the U.S. Senate who isn't a millionaire. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a millionaire. But there ought to be a little economic diversity in the Senate and I try to provide it.

