Jean Heringman Willacy was an intrepid world traveller and photographer who, at sixty years old, began leading an extraordinary double life, alternating between a picturesque English village and volatile Afghanistan

When Jean died at the age of eighty-four in 2004, her daughter, Sue Heringman, discovered an unusual legacy. Sue knew about her mother’s work in Afghanistan from when she would return to the UK and share her stories and show her slides and photographs.

What Sue did not know was that Jean had kept detailed diaries of her life in Afghanistan and saved boxes and boxes of Afghan-related material. This material ranged from maps and tourist pamphlets, to rare eye-witness accounts together with photos of Mujahideen fighters, a collection of Afghan refugee children’s wartime drawings and several invaluable cassettes with spontaneous, on-the-street tape recordings from her travels around the country and in the refugee camps in Pakistan.

There was no question of what to do with it all once Sue read this sentence in a final diary entry: “I have a lifetime of memories and experiences during my years in Afghanistan and would deeply love seeing something rewarding from those days.The Keeper of Families: Jean Heringman Willacy’s Afghan Diaries is the compilation Sue made to chronicle those years, the most incongruous of her mother’s life. Jean didn’t set out to create a legacy of kindness and friendship, but through her advocacy for Afghan refugees, especially women and children, that is exactly what happened. Sue felt she owed it to Jean and to her adopted, extended Afghan family to make every effort to transcribe all the diary material and to publish her compelling narrative, together with everything she had so lovingly preserved of their lives together. You can find out more about Jean and get your copy of The Keeper of Families: Jean Heringman Willacy’s Afghan Diaries on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Keeper-Families-Heringman-Willacys-Diaries/dp/1728380642/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qj_TjAV9YxBx-j_yzVplzA.8RRXh8vMnkZfkfeRTHWci6dAfaUvIa2n49vEjxny3IM&qid=1731945128&sr=8-1

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