
Harriet`s parents hoped that, after leaving boarding school & doing `the Season`, she would meet & marry a suitable young man. But she was to disappoint them. Just after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, she set off for Peshawar to see for herself the plight of thousands of displaced Afghan refugees. Determined to do something about their dire situation, Harriet set up a small silk weaving project for illiterate Turkmen refugees, & was sent by UNESCO to Mazar-i-sharif to work with Afghanistan`s last remaining silk ikat weavers. During those years she was arrested by the KHAD, narrowly missed being blown up, survived acute bacterial meningitis in a Kabul hospital, & rescued an abandoned pi-dog puppy who became her devoted companion. At the end of the first Gulf War she travelled with the Peshmerga in the newly-liberated Iraqi Kurdistan. Then in 1994 she joined a group of unemployed builders & decorators driving convoys of food & aid from Croydon to the Muslim enclaves in Bosnia Herzegovina. Much has been written about conflicts in these countries, by war correspondents, diplomats & military personnel, but this is a different story. It is about young woman from a sheltered & privileged background travelling & working alone, in & around war zones, frequently with no financial or practical support, at a time of increasing Islamic fundamentalism. Harriet left her traditional, comfortable home & chose to live a life of adventure & danger helping refugees who had nowhere else to turn. She continues to raise money for charity through her business selling oriental textiles & remains friends with the refugees she helped in Afghanistan. However, she is now married, to just the sort of husband her parents always hoped for.