Eliza Gearty

In November of last year, there was a brief moment of light amid the darkness that was 2020. Scotland became the first country in the world to make period products free for all.

Just as the weekend and the eight-hour-day are now regarded by many as a given, future generations may be in disbelief that period provisions ever had to be fought for.

Yet fought for they were: by multiple grassroots campaigners and ordinary people who believe that every person who menstruates has the right to safe, hygienic and dignified periods.

Alasdair Gray, the author, illustrator, artist and political commentator, died aged 85 at the turn of the last decade on 29 December 2019. He will be remembered for his polymathic talent, the sheer force of his creativity and his life-long commitment to the notion that a better world is possible.

The child of factory and warehouse workers, and brought up on a council estate in the east end of Glasgow, Gray was raised with a strong socialist sensibility.