The first annual Charmian Brinson Guest Lecture was given by Dame Stephanie Shirley on 20 October in the Sir Alexander Fleming Building.
The event was well attended by staff and students of Imperial College, who came to listen to Dame Stephanie’s lecture ‘My Family in Exile’. She spoke movingly of her flight from Vienna aged only five years old, accompanied by her sister but without any adults, on one of the famous Kindertransport trains of mercy. She linked her experiences on more than one occasion with refugees today from Syria and elsewhere trying to enter the UK, touching on universal themes of loss, identity and recreating one’s life in a new country and language.
Afterwards, many members of the audience queued to buy copies of her book ‘Let it Go’ with the proceeds going to Dame Stephanie’s own charity Autistica, set up to support children, who, like her own late son, were born with autism.
It was indeed a moving and memorable evening.
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Reporter
Ms Jackie Twitchett
Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication
