"Hunger striking and force feeding were acts committed by, and on, individuals in their own cells. Whether force fed by a cup, tube through the nostril (the most common method) or tube down the throat into the stomach (the most painful), the individual suffragette struggled on her own and often feared damage to the mind or body. Kitty Marion’s screaming in prison greatly upset the other women, but she found it was the only way she could fight against the torture of forcible feeding and remain sane. Rachel Peace, an embroideress, who had already experienced several nervous breakdowns, was not so fortunate. During a period of prolonged hunger striking and forcible feeding three times a day she feared, “I should go mad ... Old distressing symptoms have re-appeared. I have frightful dreams and am struggling with mad people half the night”. Her fears became true when she “lost her reason in prison” and spent the rest of her life in and out of asylums, with Lady Constance Lytton, an upper-middle-class WSPU worker, maintaining her. The forcible feeding of the disabled May Billinghurst in Holloway in January 1913 brought a particular wave of revulsion since she was “small, frail, and ha[d] been a cripple all her life”. Paralysed as a child and confined to a tricycle for mobility, she told how the three doctors and five wardresses who held her down: “forced a tube up my nostril; it was frightful agony, as my nostril is small. I coughed it up so that it didn’t go down my throat. They then were going to try the other nostril, which, I believe is a little deformed. They forced my mouth open with an iron instrument, and poured some food into my mouth. They pinched my nose and throat to make me swallow”. After 10 days of “almost incredible suffering”, when she was fed three times every 24 hours, she was released “a physical wreck”. Margaret Thompson, in prison in 1912, had a facial disability, resulting from a car accident; after examining her face to see if it was “fit” for forcible feeding, the doctor decided she should be fed by the cup rather than the tube. Miss McCrae, in prison at the same time, thought she too should take food through the cup, on account of her deafness, although she feared the other women would scorn her for doing so. For women with disabilities such as those mentioned here, imprisonment and forcible feeding were particular acts of courage."