The pioneering feminist editor and publisher died in October. The Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit author looks back on the close friendship they shared

I met Philippa Brewster in 1983. She was a commissioning editor at Routledge & Kegan Paul – in those days an independent London publisher, specialising in nonfiction. Philippa had been given the go-ahead by RKP to launch Pandora Press. Back then, publishing was a male-dominated industry. Editors were men, authors were men, reviewers were men. This was normal. Feminism had begun to change the normal.

Virago led the field in 1973, initially republishing female writers whose work had gone out of print. The Women’s Press, founded in 1978, was more directly political, and interested in the work of women of colour whose voices were not heard. Philippa saw a gap in the market for a nonfiction imprint covering history, biography, travel, cultural studies – the kind of books she was already championing as an editor, now given the boost of their own brand and a marketing budget.