A passion for opera, and following their stars to America and Europe led to Ida and Louise Cook, opera mad sisters who rescued and sponsored Jewish refugees and were awarded Yad Vashem.
The Battersea Society is hosting a talk to them by their biographer Louise Carpenter in January 19th 2017. These opera loving, spinster sisters lived in Battersea at 24 Morella Road for over 60 years.
They were civil servants who stayed living with their parents but Ida started writing, first for Mabs Fashion, then Mills and Boon, writing over a hundred novels under the name Mary Burchell which supported their great passion for opera which led them to their involvement with rescuing Jewish people from the Nazis.
Ida was a subject of This is your Life in 1956 and they were awarded Yad Vashem for this in 1965. There will be a talk by the Battersea Society given by Louise Carpenter, their biographer, at St Mary's Church, Battersea Church Road, SW11 3EN on Thursday 19th January 2017 at 7pm for 7.30 . Admission £5. Jeanne Rathbone Battersea Society 0207 228 2327 Jeanne Rathbone Humanist Celebrant www.humanist.org.uk/jeannerathbone/
Based on information supplied by Jeanne Rathbone.
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