Jemimah Clegg is a person of determination and creativity, two qualities she attributes to a woman who has had a profound impact on her life and who she has never met.

“Oh, Bessie would probably laugh at me if she knew,”

“I like to think she has a sense of humor.”

The woman she speaks of, “Bessie”, Bess Alexandra Gough (nee Anderson) is Jemimah’s great, great grandmother and a woman who she shares uncanny parallels with.

Jemimah discovered this by chance when she was helping clean out her great aunts house and stumbled across a photo of Bessie.

Originally from Western Australia, Jemimah’s family affectionately tease her that she abandoned  the great Western state to head south to Melbourne “you’ll always be a Western girl at heart,” they say.

But Jemimah’s family is not originally from the West, Bessie was a Victorian girl born and bred and around the same age as Jemimah made the trip south, Bessie did the same in reverse.

“I always felt a pull to Melbourne and I like to think that Bessie is there in the background.”

Jemimah is a writer, dancer and singer and Bessie too was a creative woman, making hats.

“History has a way of repeating itself and certain traditions get passed down.”

“I like to think about where I have come from and what we can learn from the past.”

This sentiment has materialised with Jemimah starting up an online magazine Brown Paper For Bessie, to pay homage to the woman who has been an inspiration to Jemimah.

“Brown Paper for Bessie is about learning from the experiences of our great great grandmothers – actually even just our grandmothers – but making them fit into our modern lives,” Jemimah writes.