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Title: Daughters of Britannia

Author: Katie Hickman

Narrator: Katie Hickman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-01-12

Publisher: BBC Worldwide Limited

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

In this fascinating BBC Radio series, Katie Hickman examines the lives of 'diplomatic women' through their letters and diaries. From the first exploratory expeditions into foreign lands, through the heyday of the British Empire and still today, the foreign service has been shaped and run behind the scenes by the wives of ambassadors and minor civil servants. Accompanying their spouses in the most extraordinary, tough, sometimes terrifying circumstances, they have struggled to bring their civilization with them. Their stories - from ambassadresses downwards - never before told, are a feast of eccentricity, genuine hardship and genuine heroism, and make for a hilarious and compelling series.

Members Reviews:

Amazing

The life of diplomat's wives and international political visitors is familiar to me; I had so much fun and many déjà-vus - just wish I had read this rich and amusing "report" at the beginning of my career, I might have been in for less surprises!

A must read!

A spectacular history the wives and sisters of English diplomats throughout the centuries. An eye opener to the sacrifices these women made to represent England abroad.

Daughters of Britannia

Fabulous book, very entertaining! Fascinating stories and anecdotes archived from British diplomatic wives, dating back to the days they had to use camels to travel.. would recommend to anyone.

Inaccurate (and offensive) information

I live in Uruguay, so the part of the book that deals with the wife of a diplomat living in Uruguay (and the inaccuracies concerning that country) naturally caught my attention.

While one can sympathize with Mrs Jackson's troubles during her husband's kidnapping, this reader felt offended by the way in which Ms Hickman treats the Tupamaros, whom she (besides misspelling the name of their movement) defines as "terrorists" who were "dedicated to the overthrow of the current order of society". The current order of society was an increasingly dictatorial and authoritarian government, which in fact handed over the reins of the country to a military dictatorship two years after Mrs Jackson's ordeals, in 1973. That dictatorship, which was as bloody and savage as all US - sponsored dictatorships in South America, lasted for 12 years, ending in 1985.

While one cannot justify the kidnapping of any person, whatever its motives, it is strange that Ms Hickman completely fails to mention that (unlike the Tupamaros captured by the military dictatorship) Evelyn Jackson's husband was released unharmed and was never hurt, starved or otherwise tortured during the time he was held prisoner.

It is also hard to sympathize with either Mrs Jackson or the author when the latter approvingly quotes the former as saying (presumably of diplomats living in Third World countries) that "we're always in the middle of a revolution. They just wait for us to arrive, and then they get cracking". What a racist, patronizing, thoroughly unpleasant comment to make (and to quote).

This is not meant to be a review of the whole of the book, since I have not read it all. But finding such inaccuracies (and contempt) with regard to the country I find myself living in, I wonder whether there might not be others concerning countries that I don't know about.