Anne Summers remembers exactly the moment she dreamed up Elsie. It was the night of Tuesday, September 4, 1973. The feisty young journalist and academic was lying alone in her bed in a share house in Balmain. It was the heyday of the women’s liberation movement.
Earlier that evening a friend, Jennifer Dakers, had mentioned reading about a “shelter for battered women” in England, and had wondered whether a similar enterprise was needed here.
Over the years, Anne had inadvertently found herself helping more than one woman escape domestic violence. She remembers a young mother scaling her two-metre-high back fence with a baby in her arms to escape a knife-wielding husband. So right away she knew the need was real, and once the idea had been planted, she couldn’t let it go.
Anne understood she would need a team of willing volunteers, so she posted a sign at Women’s House in Sydney and called a meeting. They were an