Fading away.

This morning, the news that the Bank of England is issuing a new five pound note reduced me to despair. Unreasonable, I know. But when Churchill replaces Elizabeth Fry, we will be left with no woman currently honoured on a British bank note – apart from the Queen. Who is of course a woman, not a very well-disguised twelve foot lizard. But she's only there through a freak accident of hormones and history: not on merit.

Over Easter, me and my husband were in the North East, doing initial research for a new show, Story Hunt. It's a walking tour of invisible things: buildings that are no longer there, people dead and gone, events and stories that in some cases changed the fabric of the nation's history – but left no visible trace. We spent several days in each of three towns, talking to local historians, reading books in libraries, walking the streets, and asking for memories in marketplaces. And in each place, we would put together our initial findings, look at them, and say, 'we need to find more women'.  The stories we found first were always about men.  The women we had to dig for.

I'm studying part-time for a Masters in Early Modern History. I sat in a seminar the other day where my fellow students bemoaned the Henry VIII phenomenon: the fact that public knowledge of the period 1500-1800 basically boils down to that bloke and his six wives. Personally, I don't see why historians mind so much. Whether you think Anne Boleyn was a husband-stealing witch or an intelligent woman working to Protestantise the nation, at least you can name her.

Name me a non-royal woman from that period.

I always wanted to have kids. I haven't, yet. And I'm starting to realise something that disturbs me. Sorry if you find this distasteful, but to have kids feels like giving in. Like failing.

I mean, there are loads of reasons not to have kids: finance and time and climate change and my pathetically low pain threshold and how boring small babies are and the startling rage induced in me by lack of sleep and the fact that my selfish genes are doing rather well via eight nephews and nieces, thanks very much. But those are the logical reasons. The illogical one, the feeling that actually stops me, is that then I'll disappear.

Because you're not strictly a woman until you've had kids. I mean, you're a sexual object and you probably shouldn't have any authority over men and you're obviously incapable of reading maps – but you've not undertaken the most important job a woman will ever do, so clearly you're not quite a woman yet.

And so, in some dark corner of my subconscious, I'm avoiding it. Because who the fuck would want to be a woman? What have they ever done?

There are one hundred and seventy-one names on the Bank of England's list of people who have been suggested to go on our bank notes. Twenty-four of them are women: for every one woman on the list, there are about six men. Sixteen of the people on the list have been used on a bank note: two were women. Statistically, it's quite possible the Bank of England just stick a pin in this list to choose who's next. Sadly, I don't think that's what happens. But please, could we add some more to the list, and increase the statistical likelihood of the next tenner featuring Claudia Jones or Elizabeth Garrett Anderson or Anna Atkins or Edith Cavell or Marian Evans or Ada Lovelace? Because I don't want my nieces to grow up scared of fading away.  

The email address is enquiries@bankofengland.co.uk.  Thanks.

(Update: the hashtag #WomenOnBankNotes has more great suggestions)