BILL Bennett grimaces when he contemplates the number of women who 'can't be bothered' to vote.

"Women today just don't realise what it's all about," says the president of the York Postcard Collector's Group and owner of more than 200 highly-collectable postcards charting the history of the suffragettes.

"It makes me so cross when I hear them saying they can't be bothered.

"What the suffragettes did was something quite heroic - and I really admire them. But people don't know what they actually went through."

It is 80 years ago since the suffragette movement won women the right to vote.

By 1897 the campaign to allow women the vote was well under way and in York, at the Women's Suffrage Society meeting, a Mrs Arthur Phillip gave a long and powerful address to the assembly in the adult school in Lady Peckitt's Yard.

"Women who are householders, who pay rates and taxes just as men do, and have to bear in like manner all the burdens of citizenship, are denied the franchise - a privilege which, according to our constitution, was always supposed to go with the payment of taxation," she said.

Mrs Phillip was confident of change. A Bill for extending the franchise to women had already passed its second reading in Parliament and had got into committee.

Unfortunately, such confidence was misplaced.

It was 1918 before women over 30 were granted the vote, and 1929 when the age limit was dropped to 21.

It is 20 years since Bill Bennett, a York chimney sweep, started his postcard collection.

Today, however, it is priceless.

"I've travelled to antique collector's fairs all over the country to find out who has got what cards in private collections," he said.

"The photographers at the time didn't bother to produce many of the cards because they only sold them to villagers, so many of them are quite rare.

"The most I've ever paid for a card was £100, but I don't have any favourites.

"They are all equal to me and all have their own story to tell.

"And I'd never even consider selling my collection."

In his spare time Bill travels around the region, recounting tales of the suffragette movement to interested groups.

"I do it for fun - I'm not a professional speaker," he said.

"But I get a lot of satisfaction out of passing on my knowledge to those who maybe don't know a lot about the suffragettes" I only hope that when I've left they understand what those women went through."

Bill is currently trying to locate people in York who have memories of the suffragette movement in the city.

"There's a renewed interest and awareness of postcard collecting - people want pictures of the streets where they were born and the church where granny was married," he said.

"Because postcards tell the tale of our history - the history of our country."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.