Much-Travelled Woman

Press, Volume C, Issue 29706, 27 December 1961, Page 2

Much-Travelled Woman

IBy SUSAN VAUGHAN]

Who is the world’s most travelled woman? It would, of course, be almost impossible to decide among the film stars, the air hostesses, the women diplomats and officials constantly on the move from country to country. But I would certainly put Miss Freda GwHliam among the top dozen. Miss Gwilliam is an education adviser employed by the British Government's Department of Technical Co-operation. Wherever there are emergent countries, it seems that Miss Gwilliam. a resourceful neatly-groomed woman in her fifties, is there to help work out educational problems. Far East To Fiji During the last year she has been to the Far East Singapore, the Federation of Malaya. Hong Kong, Borneo. Sarawak and to the romantic but ill-equipped islands of Western Samoa. Fiji, the Solomons and the New Hebrides, She has been to Africa to Sierra Leone. Gambia, Kenya. Tanganyika, Zanzibar. She has been to the Bahamas, and she has paid a study visit to the United States. As she pauses in London before setting out on new travels, she can recall such unnerving incidents as one that happened in Addis Ababa. While she was attending a conference a gun battle was going on outside. Although she works for Britain. Miss Gwilliam has brought advice to many countries outside the Commonwealth. She is. for example, consultant to the

South Pacific Commission, which helps to look after territories in the Pacific administered by Australia, France, Holland. New Zealand and the United States. In a divided world, progress in education is one of the few things that is truly an international aim.