PROLOGUE
My parents, born at the turning of the twentieth century, joined the thousands of British civil servants, mercenaries and missionaries who invaded China. The incoming hordes of mercenaries and adventurers brought with them guns, alcohol, and new diseases. They also bought with them western materialism, western medicine, and western religions. My father […]

I left New York on 3rd April, 1977 after a whirlwind tour that exposed me to a variety of different groups of people who were all in the process of setting up refuge/shelters or trying to raise money to fund research into domestic violence.
I realised very quickly at the beginning of my tour that the […]

Interview with Australian columnist Bettina Arndt

Almost a soon as I opened my refuge and mothers and children poured through the door I was aware that many of the pregnant mothers were concerned upon their arrival that their unborn child was not moving.
At first I used to panic and rush them to the local hospital but very soon I learned that […]

Erin discusses the hijacking of her efforts to help troubled families, and the ineffectiveness of the prevalent approaches to solving family violence.

The first few days of April 1977 I found myself staying with Lenore Walker in Denver. At that time she was working as a martial therapist with her husband Mort Walker. Lenore was one of the organizers of the first conference devoted to the subject on ‘wife battering’ in that part of America.
Mort […]

We were due to fly to North Carolina to speak to the University of North Carolina, and by now I was desperate for a friendly face. It wasn’t that anyone was overtly hostile but I realized that we were living in two parallel worlds. My hostesses had their own agenda and I was […]

March 16th, a coffee morning with Lady Ramsbottom at the British Embassy in Washington was a very fraught event. I felt completely out of place and was very aware that my reputation in England would have made its way to the ears of the Embassy staff, and the only reason I was allowed to […]

On Monday the 14th March we left the loft where we were staying with a friend and took the train to Washington. There we were to meet Dr. Harvey Taschman. After experiencing the very frightening New York sisterhood it was a relief to find ourselves in Harvey’s comfortable home and to meet his […]

I arrived in New York on 12th March 1977 with a great deal of trepidation. I had already annoyed Gloria Steinem by insisting that she could only front the film to be shown on PBS on April 29th 1977 and I was aware from my bitter experiences in England that […]