The following year, Mandarin Publishing issued it in paperback, describing the memoir as "A love story that knows no bounds": When World War II broke out, Dan Ranfurly was dispatched to the Middle East with his faithful valet, Whitaker.
For six years, travelling alone from Cape Town to Palestine, and meeting such charismatic characters as Churchill, Eisenhower, and a parrot called Coco on the way, she kept her promise.
[1]The Countess's lively prose style is characterised by frankness, a sharp eye for character – not least that of the short, chubby, phlegmatic valet Whitaker – and an acute ear for dialogue.
Dan and other British officers escaped following the Italian surrender in 1943 and, after several months on the run behind German lines, he was finally reunited with his wife in Algiers in May 1944.
After the war, Lord Ranfurly served as Governor of the Bahamas, where his wife established a lending library service in Nassau that she later extended to other parts of the world in need of English language books.