Read the fascinating story behind the Save the Children charity (From Watford Observer)

Read the fascinating story behind the Save the Children charity

2:40pm Friday 19th March 2010 in

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A curl of baby hair, an early campaign poster crumpled down the side of an archived box and love letters from a past admirer, this is the stuff that Clare Mulley has used to bring to life the characters in her excellent biography The Woman Who Saved the Children: A Biography of Eglantyne Jebb, Founder of Save the Children.

Clare, who grew up in Harpenden and spent her formative years “living it up” in several St Albans night spots, is delighted to be coming back to see friends and family in the city this Saturday for her Meet the Author event at Waterstone’s St Albans.

“I feel a bit like a local author,” says Clare. “My mum and dad still live in Harpenden and last year I spoke at the St Albans Festival Literary Dinner at the cathedral café.

While living in Harpenden she attended Roundwood Junior School and St Georges before going to university in Sheffield. In 2006, she gained a distinction for her masters in Social and Cultural History at Birkbeck College and the following year she won the Daily Mail Biographers’ Club prize for her book. A mother of three daughters aged two, six and eight, Clare moved from London to Saffron Walden in Essex three years ago.

There were times when I was crying in the British Library and I had to leave as I didn’t want to make a noise

Clare Mulley

She first discovered Eglantyne when working as a fundraiser at Save the Children in the 1990s and started her biography when she left to have her first child.

“Her story resonated with me,” explains Clare. “She had great foresight and I was curious as to why she didn’t feature more in our literature, so I went to root her out in the archives. I found letters and papers, plus crumpled down the side of one box, an original leaflet she’d used to campaign for children’s rights on which she had written in pencil ‘suppressed!’.”

Clare went on to research the details of Eglantyne’s arrest in Trafalgar Square for distributing leaflets showing starving children, the private triumphs, passions and tragedies of her family and their life in Shropshire.

“The grandchildren of Eglantyne’s elder brother Richard still live in the house. The first time I stayed I discovered so many papers and it was such an amazing house. In the end, the family became friends and I stayed quite often. I slept in her bedroom but didn’t rest the whole night because I thought is her ghost going to come, but, of course, it didn’t.”

Clare also researched the archives in the British Library and travelled to the United Nations in Geneva. As her story unfolded, Clare admits it affected her deeply, particularly being a mother herself.

“There were times when I was crying in the British Library and I had to leave as I didn’t want to make a noise.

“At other times I questioned why I was delegating some of the responsibility of bringing my children up to someone else in order to focus on a project for myself, but it’s made me happy and I’m a better mother for it.

“By the end, I was expecting my last baby and she came early. I had three chapters left to write so I was feeding while typing with one hand. I think it would have made Eglantyne laugh, she never had children but she had such a human sense of humour.”

Clare Mulley is at Waterstone’s St Albans this Saturday at 1pm. Details: 01727 834966