Our speaker is a journalist, Ian Gill.

He will tell the extraordinary life story of his mother. Adopted as a baby in 1916 by Frank Newman and his Chinese wife Mei-lan, she was named Louise Mary Newman, later to be known as Billie. Frank had been brought up in China and spent his career with the Chinese customs service and post office. His mother was hotelier Mary Anne Newman, née Warner, originally a farmer’s daughter from Malvern Link. Billie was educated at a private school in Shanghai and became a secretary and radio broadcaster. Trapped in Hong Kong when the Japanese took over, she spent the war years in an internment camp. She went on to make a successful career for herself at the UN in Geneva, and received an MBE in 1977.

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