Lady Crawford

Lady Crawford, who is a member of the Club, was our speaker at the 2016 AGM in March.  She is a Parisienne by birth, who married an Englishman more than 50 years ago.  She and her husband lived in California for 17 years, but have lived in Oxford since 1997.  She read German at the Sorborne, and pursued graduate studies in both French and German literary disciplines at Stanford University.

Her literary training and experiences of three cultures and languages gave her a wide outlook on life, and assisted in developing the techniques required in creative writing, travel writing, and short stories.  She has entered literary writing competitions and had her works performed at literary festivals.

Her book "Voices on the Great Wall" was the subject of her talk to the Club.  It is the true story of her trek on the Great Wall of China.  It is a travel memoir in the sense that it weaves together the detailed description of an arduous physical journey, and the evocation of a life-changing spiritual journey that became a pilgrimage in memory of her son, who died in his early 20s.  The book, however, is not a book about grief, but rather a story of survival, courage and hope, and of step by step triumph over grief.

Her excellent talk was full of anecdotes of the trip, starting with the delay in setting off from London, descriptions of her companions (who were all many years her junior but who all accepted her as one of them), her levels of fitness clambering up and down the vast Wall, the accomodation, food, local culture and overall the beauty of the place.  She also gave us an insight into the trials and tribulations of writing the book on her return, and eventually of self publishing it.