This speculum is in the Lynette Willoughby collection, together with Lynette’s explanation. “In the 1970s local women’s liberation groups ran ‘self-examination’ sessions so that we could get to know our own bodies better. I was in Chapeltown Women’s Group (Leeds) and we had a session where we used mirrors, lights and speculums (cheap plastic ones) to enable us to familiarise ourselves not only with our external genitalia but also with our cervix.

“Much later I had a coil fitted and the following day I could feel that it wasn’t right – it felt as though it was coming out, and using my speculum I saw that the coil was poking out of my cervix. I went straight back to the clinic and while waiting for the doctor I overheard him say ‘Where’s the woman who thinks her coil is coming out?’ When I told him that I’d used my speculum to check he looked quite horrified. But he took the coil out.”