The writer of this series of books, Audrey, had a reserved personality, a wicked sense of humor, an astonishing intellect and a lifetime spent working as a regular primary school teacher. Married with two boys – what made her produce over 10 separate comprehensive travel experience stories, unpublished in her lifetime?

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Early Life

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Audrey Ferrier Munro Forsyth, nee Smith, was born in 1946 and brought up in the small Angus village of Kirriemuir in Scotland, which is best known as the birthplace of J. M. Barrie who wrote Peter Pan.

An only child, her great joy was music, of which she excelled at sight reading, playing various instruments but primarily the piano in which she achieved high grades.

In 1964 she trained as a primary teacher in Dundee and it was there she met, Graham, studying civil engineering, who became her husband of 44 years and whose work would take them and family around the United Kingdom.

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Family Life and Teaching Career

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Graham and Audrey , both each aged 22, were married in Edinburgh in 1969 their two boys being born in the 70s. Her teaching life included the extremes of working with children in deprived areas, whom she enjoyed being with, as well as a position of deputy headship in a girls preparatory school.

Though not a professionally trained musician her musical abilities were always fully utilized and loved by the school children whether for hymns at assembly, the musical accompaniment to all the school productions or songs in the classroom.

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Audrey’s Interests

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Her greatest relaxation was playing piano transcriptions of the great composers straight through for a good hour or so. A polyglot throughout her life she had French, Italian and Spanish as her European language base and in her final years she became highly conversant in Russian, too.

Travel was her addiction, music her passion and family her love. Being a voracious reader, embroiderer, crossword fanatic and travel anecdote raconteur were only a few of her other interests and activities.

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Health Issues

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Ill health, however, affected her off and on throughout her married life, resulting in early retirement from teaching. In hindsight it is likely her then symptoms along with existing health problems obscured her underlying pancreatic cancer condition which was diagnosed in 2012 and took her life in 2013.

She and Graham had done much travelling, despite her poor health, it being an opportunity for her to use her languages to full effect and enjoy the history and people of the countries visited, always scribing copious notes on all she saw and experienced.

Her terminal condition brought about a great need and urgent desire for her to put these notes into the form of a journal which she then wanted to be completed in book form for grandchildren to read as teenagers. At this stage they had six grandchildren and two on the way. The completion of these manuscripts, 10 in all and at some cost, she achieved.

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