Albert Pierrepoint and the cultural persona of the twentieth-century hangman

Albert Pierrepoint was Britain’s most famous 20th-century hangman. This article utilises diverse sources in order to chart his public representation, or cultural persona, as hangman from his rise to prominence in the mid-1940s to his portrayal in the biopic Pierrepoint(2005). It argues that Pierrepoint exercised agency in shaping this persona through publishing his autobiography and engagement with the media, although there were also representations that he did not influence. In particular, it explores three iterations of his cultural persona – the Professional Hangman, the Reformed Hangman and the Haunted Hangman. Each of these built on and reworked historical antecedents and also communicated wider understandings and contested meanings in relation to capital punishment. As a hangman who remained in the public eye after the death penalty in Britain was abolished, Pierrepoint was an important, authentic link to the practice of execution and a symbolic figure in debates over reintroduction. In the 21st century, he was portrayed as a victim of the ‘secondary trauma’ of the death penalty, which resonated with worldwide campaigns for abolition

We Grandmothers Know Plenty: Breastfeeding, Complementary Feeding and the Multifaceted Role of Grandmothers in Malawi

This paper has two purposes: first of all, we examine grandmothers\u27 role and views of child feeding practices in northern Malawi, and their influence on younger women\u27s practices. Secondly, we consider the implications of these findings for health promotion activities and models of health education. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews, focus groups and a participatory workshop. Findings demonstrate that, to address child feeding practices which have an effect on nutrition, attention must be paid to the broader context that influences child nutrition, including extended family relations. Paternal grandmothers have a powerful and multifaceted role within the extended family in northern Malawi, both in terms of childcare and in other arenas such as agricultural practices and marital relations. Grandmothers often differ in their ideas about early child feeding from conventional Western medicine. Some practices have existed in the area at least since colonial times, and have strong cultural significance. Despite the important integrated role, older women have within households and communities in this part of Malawi, hospital personnel often have disparaging and paternalistic attitudes towards ‘grannies’ and their knowledge. Health education rarely involves grandmothers, and even if they are involved, their perspectives are not taken into consideration. Hospital staff often reject grandmother knowledge as part of a broader modernization paradigm which views ‘traditional knowledge’ as backward. Grandmothers view current child health conditions within a broader context of changing livelihood conditions and a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. The paper concludes by discussing the challenges of involving grandmothers in health education, and the difficulties of incorporating local knowledge into a medical system that largely rejects it