The passing of...

...a great lady from the finest days of the BBC World Service. Dora Lavrencic had a remarkable life. She was brought up in Maribor, Slovenia, and was studying law, planning to be her country's first female judge. Her father was acting Mayor of  Maribor when the Nazis invaded. He refused to fly the swastika flag and was arrested. He died in Dachau. Dora and her mother later escaped over the mountains to Austria  where in due course  she worked for the British Army as a translator. She married Karl Lavrencic, lawyer, linguist, and author and together they worked for the BBC World Service and were leading figures in Britain's Slovenian community, and a voice for freedom in the dark days of Communism.. Read more about it all here: it's inspiring.  Their daughter Alenka, herself a distinguished journalist and author, is one of my greatest friends. It was a privilege to be at the funeral Mass held in the church at Cobham in Surrey.