I’VE just unearthed an interesting fact that is great news for writers everywhere – particularly those with a burgeoning collection of rejection slips.

The work of William McGonagall, generally considered to have been the world’s worst poet, sold for £6,000 five years ago. That was £600 more than a set of Harry Potter first editions signed by JK Rowling at the same sale.

I discovered this information about the wordy Scot when I was reading up on Emily Davison, the suffragette whose name is everywhere at the moment.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was the 100th anniversary of the day she stepped out in front of King George V’s horse during the Epsom Derby.

It seems incredible that in our much-lauded democracy, women at one time weren’t allowed to vote, but Emily was one of many brave people in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) who stood up for this cause. She was jailed nine times and force-fed nearly 50 times.

However, I think Clare Balding in her Channel 4 documentary on May 26 was wrong to describe them as terrorists; they were militant and disruptive but I don’t recall suffragettes deliberately killing innocent people.

Anyway, while researching Emily and co myself, I discovered a piece by the hapless poet McGonagall called Women’s Suffrage. It goes:

Fellow men! Why should the lords try to despise

And prohibit women from having the benefit of the parliamentary franchise?’

Oh dear. Not very good in the old scanning department is it? It got me wondering whether students these days study this process of getting pleasing rhythms from strings of words.

(I suspect that many would first think of scanning as the computer process used to record photographs and documents, or maybe even the ‘beep beep’ of the gadget at the supermarket checkout.)

At least McGonagall’s heart was in the right place, particularly in his support of women getting the vote, and thanks to brave suffragettes like Emily – whose gravestone bears the WSPU slogan Deeds not Words – we did get the right to put our crosses on the ballot paper.

Please, fellow females, tell me you use it…