Understood Backwards

Conceived in the nick of time after 8 years of marriage Caroline Jardine was a much wanted baby. In the years of the Depression, 80 people applied to be her Nanny and the chosen one was known to call a spade somewhat more than a spade. Childhood travels took her to East Africa, South-East Asia and the Caribbean.

Later she worked in Copenhagen, Johannesburg and the homeland of the Zulu people. Christian commitment led her into theological studies and more than two years with an Anglican community of deaconesses. A spell of group psychotherapy following a breakdown was followed by a return to secretarial work with the then infant Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. Marriage brought her to live in Lewes in the early 1970s, a town she has happily made her home ever since.

The book covers a peripatetic childhood followed by work as a social secretary in London to an MP and his wife, a spell with the Foreign service in Copenhagen, and immigration to South Africa at the height of the apartheid years. Working for a South African missionary bishop and becoming friends with his family led to a theological training and time in a London convent.

On marrying Michael Pybus in 1973 Caroline went to live in Lewes, county town of East Sussex where she has lived ever since.