Remarkable Emily's lessons for today

I WONDER what Emily Hobhouse would have made of recent events at her old family home. Staring out of the rectory where she grew up with her stern father, Reginald, who was the Anglican priest at St Ive, near Liskeard, the young girl would undoubtedly have loved the folk music being sung in the garden. She would have smelled the delicious South African food sizzling on the grills nearby.

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The event was 'Fire and Folk, the first summer gathering at The Story of Emily a day filled with rhythm and warmth, high energy live performances, storytelling and nostalgic games amongst other fun events put on for a summer gathering.

Little would the young Emily have realised, back in 1875 when she was 15, the significance of the event, had she been able to look into the future.

Restless, living at home with her sick father, she longed to travel, and be of use to the world. So in 1900, two days after Christmas, a determined Emily arrived in Cape Town by ship.

Emily had been moved by the news of women suffering in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). Determined to help, she went out to work with those families separated from their men folk and held in British concentration camps. Her campaigning would become a huge irritant to some of the most powerful men of the time, including Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and Lord Herbert Kitchener, who called her "That bloody woman".

Few of us in the UK seem to know much about the Anglo Boer war in detail. Not surprising the war was not the finest achievement for the British Government.