On the Fringe: Living in the Realms of Hitler and Stalin - Tapa dura

This book is a fascinating and historically invaluable first hand account of diplomatic life in the most troubled of times. On the Fringe takes us from the sublime to the ridiculous. Lady Katherine Harrison describes the terror and the brutality of life under two notorious dictators, and then takes us to the attic in the British Embassy where the hens were kept. Kristal Nacht in Berlin is described with a keen eye and chilling detail. The sound of breaking shop windows filled the streets with the sound of crashing glass, and the author describes fleeing the scene as if pursued by a swarm of bees. As a diplomat's wife, Lady Katherine has been sent to far-flung corners of the globe, and brings reminiscences from adventures in Siberia and Uzbekistan into this evocative memoir. This is a rich, textured picture of events that shaped world history over half a century ago.

Lady Katherine Harrison was born in 1913 in Switzerland. The daughter of a diplomat, she met her future husband, Geoffrey Harrison, in Tokyo, where her father was the British ambassador. Lady Harrison subsequently lived in innumerable countries, and in cities such as Stockholm, Beijing, Munich, Tangiers, Tehran, Rome, Brussels, Moscow and Rio de Janeiro.