Cambridge University Press – final melt

Today I concluded the first in a series of new posts which I want to do. They may well be more tedious than my general ramblings, or, possibly (though it is unlikely) more interesting, as long as you are  interested in Baden-Powell’s visit to see the Scouts in Australia.

I’m practicing writing about medallions so I have tried to keep it tight. If I’d given myself free rein I would have covered the story of Lady Sarah Wilson, one of the world’s first female war correspondent. She was also Winston Churchill’s aunt. Recruited by Alfred Harmsworth to work for the Daily Mail after his previous correspondent was arrested by the Boers.

She was sent away from  Mafeking for her own safety at the start of the siege but was captured by the Boers and taken back, where she was swapped for a horse thief who was being held by the British. Before you ask, your guess is as good as mine – I don’t have a clue why they wanted a horse thief or why they went to the trouble of capturing Lady Sarah. She later worked in the hospital at Mafeking, was wounded, and decorated with the Royal Red Cross for her nursing work.

Cambridge University Press

She was working in a hospital in France in 1914 when she received news that her husband, Lt Col Gordon Chesney Wilson had been killed in action, leading his near Ypres. He was interesting too. People were in those days. Wilson helped tackle and arrest the would be assassin that attacked Queen Victoria at Windsor railway station in 1882 when he was a schoolboy. This was the eighth attempt on her life. I’ve written enough now and will leave Wilson and Queen Victoria to you, Look up Herbert Wilson too, one of his brothers – soldier, treasure hunter, and Olympic medal winner. More about him here. Reading about him, it is fitting that he died in one of the few mounted actions of the Great War.

One day I may write a book about how i pressed a button on Wikipedia and emerged several days later, awash with tea and blinking at the daylight.

Pictures are, again, random – August 2019.

Red Kites