12/06/2026
Founders Friday - Kathy Coe, MBE
Escaping domestic abuse is hard enough now, but imagine what it was like before Erin Pizzey opened the first women's refuge. It wasn't meant to be a refuge, no one had thought of those. It was a place where women could go and have a cup of tea, sit and talk to someone, and be safe for a while. However, women were turning up and being too scared to go home. The first woman turned up covered head to foot in bruises, with her two children, and was not going home. Within weeks there were 40 women and children sharing the four rooms.
These are the words of one woman who stayed there -
'I did leave a few times with the children. I got us all out. But it was so frowned on … You couldn’t leave your husband. It wasn’t done. I would have been horribly ashamed if anyone found out. And if I left, how would I support them? And there was never anywhere to go to … I didn’t have the money for a rented flat – I didn’t have any money at all of my own … just what I sneaked from the housekeeping he gave me, without him noticing. What could I do? After a few hours – or once we spent a night in a cheap hotel – we always went back'.
When Pathway began I spent a lot of time visiting refuges around the country and hearing their stories. For all of them, and for Pathway too, there was no funding. It was always a case of finding a free building, as the cost was just too high. One group moved into a council building which was not being used, and set that up as a refuge. They were asked to move out but refused and became such a pain to their council that they were in the end given a pub which had closed down. Pathway's first refuge was a gatehouse at our local psychiatric hospital. We had it for a year on a peppercorn rent (£0).
I want to thank Erin Pizzey and every warrior woman who became part of setting up and managing refuges. So many lives were saved and so many children were safeguarded and grew up seeing how relationships should work. If you were in one of the early refuges we would love to hear your story. You can contact us through our website and we will only share anything if you agree to it.
In the meantime I look forward to seeing how much refuges change as we head into the future. Wouldn't it be good if we didn't need them at all?
