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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you...ting-spirit-refused-sell-home-developers.html
Edith (right) was born in Oregon in 1921, but not much is known about her life. She told Barry stories from her past that seemed so extraordinary that he was never sure whether or not they were true. She said that she had been recruited by British intelligence as a music student and sent to Germany to spy on the Nazis.
That she was arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp, but escaped, taking 13 children with her to England.
She said she had a son who died of meningitis at the age of 13, fathered by her lover, the Austrian tenor Richard Tauber (below right), and that she went on to marry James Macefield who had a plantation in Africa where they spent months at a time.
Richard Tauber
‘Was she making all this up? It didn’t help Edith one bit if I figured out whether or not these stories were true,’ says Barry.
‘If I was going to be her true friend, and steadfast, then I was going to have to accept Edith for who she was: someone who had changed my life by giving me the chance to be a better person. She opened up my world and challenged me to do the right thing, even if that sometimes meant just listening.’
Edith became a symbol of the power of one individual against corporations. In the process she became something of a folk hero, and her story is said to have inspired the opening scene of the Pixar film Up (below), in which an ageing widower’s home is similarly surrounded by a housing development.
Edith died, aged 86, on 15 June 2008 at home on the same couch on which her mother had died. She left her house to Barry and his family.
Edith (right) was born in Oregon in 1921, but not much is known about her life. She told Barry stories from her past that seemed so extraordinary that he was never sure whether or not they were true. She said that she had been recruited by British intelligence as a music student and sent to Germany to spy on the Nazis.
That she was arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp, but escaped, taking 13 children with her to England.
She said she had a son who died of meningitis at the age of 13, fathered by her lover, the Austrian tenor Richard Tauber (below right), and that she went on to marry James Macefield who had a plantation in Africa where they spent months at a time.
Richard Tauber
‘Was she making all this up? It didn’t help Edith one bit if I figured out whether or not these stories were true,’ says Barry.
‘If I was going to be her true friend, and steadfast, then I was going to have to accept Edith for who she was: someone who had changed my life by giving me the chance to be a better person. She opened up my world and challenged me to do the right thing, even if that sometimes meant just listening.’
Edith became a symbol of the power of one individual against corporations. In the process she became something of a folk hero, and her story is said to have inspired the opening scene of the Pixar film Up (below), in which an ageing widower’s home is similarly surrounded by a housing development.
Edith died, aged 86, on 15 June 2008 at home on the same couch on which her mother had died. She left her house to Barry and his family.