By Venkat Belief
Fast-paced, entertaining, humorous and provoking, Unintended Lives by Sylvia Holder and Lindsay Swan, to be revealed on 15 November 2024 by Black Spring Press, is a ebook about tragedy turned to triumph, ‘sliding door’ life changers, likelihood encounters and an excellent friendship. It tells the extraordinary story of how a younger man’s tragic loss of life in a poor South Indian fishing village led to the establishing of a charity, the Venkat Belief, which has remodeled 1000’s of younger lives.
Absorbing, amusing, shifting and provoking, here’s a vastly pleasurable learn.
Pre-war child, pure insurgent and boarding college survivor Sylvia Holder, who has spent a lot of the 60s and 70s working her method world wide between pitstops in London, meets Scots born Lindsay Swan, 13 years her junior, at a Johannesburg PR company. Right here their paths cross with unlikely characters from Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to the Wombles and the Monkees.
Returning to London, Sylvia units up a PR consultancy and is later joined by Lindsay. For the following 20 years, Holder Swan Public Relations – which bears greater than a passing resemblance to tv’s Completely Fabulous – handles an eclectic mixture of purchasers. These take them on safari in Zambia, to Mexico’s Mayan ruins, Iceland’s volcanoes and the excessive rises of Hong Kong. At house, they publicise Chichester Competition Theatre, Hampton Courtroom Flower Present and lots of extra. Different celebrities making an look of their memoir embrace Roger Moore, Joan Collins, Elton John, Diana Rigg, Cliff Richard and Patricia Hodge, in addition to members of the Rolling Stones.
“This ebook provides an entertaining and shifting account of the adventurous lives of that superb duo, Holder and Swan, two fearless, humorous and courageous girls. It’s a narrative of friendship and enterprise and extraordinary generosity, of conquer tragedy, with some wonderful anecdotes and an exhilarating sense of life lived to the complete.”
Dame Margaret Drabble, writer and fellow traveller to Zambia and India.
When not travelling the world, they maintain courtroom of their quirky London workplace, the unique Chalk Farm farmhouse, thought to have been artist Walter Sickert’s studio. Their entrepreneurial sidelines embrace a Metropolis sandwich bar and PR coaching enterprise. In parallel Sylvia builds a formidable property portfolio. Underpinning every thing is the authors’ friendship, their shared delight within the absurd, sense of journey, perception within the energy of the potential and enthusiasm for making issues occur.
“That is the story of a uniquely inventive feminine friendship. Its fruit was a PR company constructed for enjoyable as a lot as cash and a charity which has remodeled the lifetime of a poor Indian fishing village. Absorbing, amusing, shifting and provoking, here’s a vastly pleasurable learn. Dr Piers Brendon, historian, biographer, broadcaster and fellow traveller to Zambia and India.”
Aged 65, Sylvia retires to the south coast however issues take an surprising flip when Venkat, a poor Indian fisherman’s son she’d met as a thin 12-year-old 15 years earlier and whom she’d sponsored by college and college, is tragically killed in a street visitors accident. Heartbroken, she returns to Kovalam, Venkat’s village close to Chennai, and on impulse, pledges to convey training and a route out of the poverty of generations to the youngsters of the 8000-inhabitant village, the place free education is just about non-existent.
That she is aware of nothing about India, training or charities and is 65 years outdated, is of no consequence to Sylvia, who units about fulfilling her promise, working as at all times with Lindsay. The achievements are actually life altering: a state-of-the-art 1000 pupil greater secondary college, a 400-child sponsorship scheme and a college fund which pays the charges of 75 younger individuals a 12 months. Sylvia is now virtually 86, Lindsay 72 however retirement by no means happens to them. The ebook additionally reveals one other friendship, the necessary one between Sylvia and JR, Venkat’s brother, who with nice aplomb, manages the Kovalam finish of the Venkat Belief’s work. Regardless of a 36-year age hole, totally different backgrounds, nationalities, tradition, language and religions, they make a formidable group and their compatibility, affection and shared sense of humour lie behind the charity’s extraordinary success.
ACCIDENTAL LIVES How two intrepid girls travelled the world, ran an unconventional PR firm and arrange a charity in India by Sylvia Holder and Lindsay Swan is revealed by Black Spring Press on 15 November 2024, £16.99. 204 pages plus 16 pages of images. Obtainable for order in any respect good bookshops, and on-line at Amazon and Black Spring Press.
Royalties from the sale of the ebook will go to the Venkat Belief, www.venkattrust.org.uk
Press launch distributed by Pressat on behalf of Venkat Belief, on Wednesday 6 November, 2024. For extra data subscribe and comply with https://pressat.co.uk/
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Beforehand Printed on pressat.co.uk with Artistic Commons License
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Photograph credit score: For extra data relating to media utilization, possession and rights please contact Venkat Belief.
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