Everysooften, onceinawhile, Shedman meets someone who makes a special impression. It’s good to record and remember such encounters.
This week, on Chapel Street in Penzance, Shedman met a woman, walking with the aid of a support frame with wheels. She is dressed in bright purple, fuschia and lilac. She immediately reminded Shedman of Jenny Joseph’s famous poem:
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
The woman was first attracted to Shedman’s golden retriever. She then told him her father had been a vet in Sri Lanka.
One day the local zoo rang up and asked if he could look after a baby elephant found in the jungle. He said yes and developed a food for it based on Complan that became the standard food for baby elephants worldwide. The baby elephant would occasionally go into his office, preceded by a serpentine little trunk curving round the door.
She said she had travelled a great deal and the people she learnt most from and for whom she had the greatest admiration were the Inuit and North American first peoples.
When one of her daughters was electrocuted she found solace and healing in the teachings and training of both groups.
The woman was Marie Herbert.
https://scarylittlegirls.co.uk/stories/lady-marie-herbert-penzance/
She was married to polar explorer Sir Wally Herbert who died in 2007.
https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2007.00250.x
Their daughter Kari lives in Cornwall too.
https://www.essentialmindfulness.co.uk/
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