A Dorset Childhood

Rural England in the 1940s and '50s was often far from a rustic idyll. Just as the war was ending, Rachel Jordan was born to parents who were working on the land, her mother a member of the Land Army and her father a conscientious objector. Rachel was a happy child who excelled at school and harboured an ambition to become a nurse. Simultaneously, however, there was a parallel narrative going on in her life, because her father Arthur became Dorset County Organiser for the NUAW, and a convinced communist - a rare phenomenon in those days of the Cold War! Arthur's political views and those of his wife, Joan impacted inevitably on Rachel. Growing up in Dorset, childhood travels in Eastern Europe, married life in Communist Hungary, becoming a Nursing Sister, and a return to Dorset where her father had played the central role in reviving the Tolpuddle Martyr rallies, are key points in this personal journey.