Hi, Claudia Nandwani here! I joined the Chateau DIY team here at Spark Media North a few weeks ago and already feel like part of the furniture. The team have been so welcoming and really champion women in the workplace. As a young woman forging a career in the TV industry, the number of industry-leading women at Spark is an inspiration!
This feels all the more poignant as we approach International Women’s Day (8th March 2026). Something I’ve learned about Spark during my first few weeks of working here is that the team never fails to celebrate the small joys and wins of everyday working life… and International Women’s Day is no exception!
To celebrate the wonderful women of Spark Media, the lovely Helen, Head of Production, put on a ladies’ lunch: a Mediterranean fair of Ottolenghi delights that was to.die.for! Picture mountains of hummus next to ready-to-topple piles of falafel, fritters and more salads than I can name. Delish! Of course, the Chateau DIY team piled our plates high before joining the rest of the wonderful women in the office.
The lunch was such a joyful celebration of womanhood! Alongside natters and laughs, the event was a meaningful reflection on what it means to be a woman in the workplace, and how privileged we are to be part of a society that allows women to thrive and reach their full potential. Spark really celebrates the women who make up the fabric of the company. But it is at times like these that we must partner celebration with reflection: reflection and consideration for those women globally who don’t have access to education, healthcare, careers and happiness in the same way that we do. International Women’s Day gives space to celebrate how far women’s position in society has come, and (in many cases) how far it still has to go. It is a time for the stories of women from all walks of life to be shared.
And in a room full of storytellers, we heard from our very own, Tara Honeywill, who works on the Production team at Chateau DIY. Tara was generous enough to share the story of her own inspirational female figure: her great, great aunt: Flora Murray. History is so often told by and about men, and Tara’s antidote to this offered a fascinating insight into the role women played in World War I and the medical profession.
Tara’s aunt Flora was a true pioneer of women’s rights! What a woman! Hailing from Scotland, she would go on to be a medical pioneer and active member of the Suffragettes. After gracing the halls of Durham and Cambridge Universities with her intellectual prowess, she gained her MD (Doctor of Medicine) in 1905, when few woman dreamed of the possibility.
When WWI broke out, and frustrated that women were left at the peripheries of the war effort, Flora and her partner Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson founded the Women’s Hospital Corps (WHC), recruiting women to run it. Women from all walks of life sprung up, inspired by Flora’s efforts, to help the war effort. The British Government were not keen on the idea of women practicing wartime medicine, but the French needed all hands on deck. And so, undeterred and with little experience of operating on battlefield injury, Flora and Louisa headed to the frontline: determined that their capabilities would not go to waste. The French Red Cross gratefully accepted her help, and offered the pair a newly built hotel in Paris to convert into their hospital. Visiting British representatives were astounded to see a hospital thriving under the supervision of female leads, and quickly reclaimed the hospital for the treatment of British forces. As the war trundled on, Flora and Louisa were invited to run a mammoth wartime hospital in London, which treated almost 50,000 soldiers in the 4 years of its operation. Flora was awarded the CBE in 1917; one of the first to receive the honour.
Flora Murray wrote in her memoir Women as Army Surgeons “the long years of struggle for the Enfranchisement of Women which had preceded the outbreak of war had done much to educate women in citizenship and in public duty. The militant movement had taught them discipline and organisation: it had shown them new possibilities in themselves and had inspired them with confidence in each other”.
She plunged into the cause of Women’s Suffrage with as much devotion as she did her medical work, and became a leader and activist for the cause. Not only did she speak publicly at gatherings, she used her medical expertise to treat those who were injured in activism. She even treated Emmeline Pankhurst and her fellow hunger-strikers after their release, and campaigned against forcible feeding of prisoners.
Flora Murray’s story, told 100 years later through the love and care of her great, great niece Tara moved the whole Spark Media team. Flora and Louisa took the war effort by storm, and changed the landscape of women in medicine forever! They proved that the strength and capabilities of women know no bounds. That society just wouldn’t tick without the efforts of the ladies who make up that society.
As a passionate woman living in London in my 20s, hearing Flora’s story has given me the drive to strive for what I believe in. Her story is an inspiration to women globally who have their place challenged because of gender. Cheers to you Flora- and to all women who have shook and shaped society!
