'She Bought a New Dress to Meet Nehru'

2/20/2019

Freda Bedi never came back to make her home in Derby after she headed to Oxford University. But Derby kept a watchful interest in her - and on occasions she wrote for the city's daily papers.

News took a while to travel back then. By the time the Derby Evening Telegraph put on its front page news of Freda's imprisonment in Lahore in 1941, her sentence was almost over.

A few years later, it was Freda's mum who was making the news. She had received a surprise invitation to meet independent India's new prime minister - and Freda's friend - Jawaharlal Nehru.

'Mrs Swan's proudest moment came when [Nehru] stopped at her table and shook hands with her.' This is from the city's morning paper, the Derby Daily Telegraph, on 25th October 1948:

The Lives of Freda:
the political, spiritual and personal
journeys of Freda Bedi

by Andrew Whitehead

Speaking Tiger, Feb 2019, ISBN 978-93-88070-75-1

1 Comment

Alhadi Travel link

3/8/2019 02:39:09 am

You have chosen an impossible idea and made it possible for the common person to see and believe. Your content is full of respectable information that is usable for today’s readers. I am impressed with your different points and how you present them so clearly.

THE LIVES OF FREDA: THE BLOG