Thursday 5 June
9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
The Royal Automobile Club
Mountbatten Room, 89 Pall Mall, St. James’s London SW1
(Nearest tube: Green Park or Piccadilly Circus)

Guest Speaker Anne Sebba

Theme: “Ascot Ladies’ Day” Attire: Elegant Suit or Dress, Hats are encouraged

We are proud to be celebrating our 25th year of being London’s finest international women’s club! To highlight this milestone, members are invited for our much-awaited Silver Anniversary Luncheon. In addition to another wonderful speaker, we will hold a Silent Auction and Raffle to benefit our two designated charities.

A special guest entertainer, The Romantic Tenor Neil Simon will charm us with his eclectic repertoire of ballads and operatic arias and an anonymous jury will be looking out for the most eye-catching hat, so do please don one in the spirit of our celebration as a prize will be awarded!

GENERAL MEETING GUEST SPEAKER: BRITISH AUTHOR ANNE SEBBA

What subject could be more fitting for our Silver Anniversary than that of the quintessential expatriate woman, wife and mother: Lady Churchill! Jennie Jerome was a vivacious Brooklyn girl who, after a whirlwind three-day romance, married into the heart of the British aristocracy to become Lady Randolph Churchill.

Jennie Churchill: Winston’s American Mother explores in detail this ambitious and oft-misunderstood woman. An outsider and a true original, Jennie is infamously remembered for her reputed 200 lovers, with history granting her the unforgiving epithet ‘more panther than woman’. This biography dispels such simplified and subjective judgements, by combining the academic rigour of a historian with the emotional understanding of a soldier’s mother, British author Anne Sebba provides a heart-warming account of the fullest of lives. Once half of the “most brilliant, and extravagant, couple that advanced on London”, Jennie Churchill had, in the words of her son Winston, ‘the wine of life coursing through her veins’. She was, in her own right, a brilliant woman in an age before such brilliance was encouraged. The political dynamo behind her brilliant politician husband, she was also a talented pianist and notable philanthropist.

Anne Sebba has gained unprecedented access to the personal lives of the Churchill family. The author, who once lived as an expat herself in New York, is a biographer, lecturer and former Reuters foreign correspondent. Her past publications include Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image and Laura Ashley: A Life by Design. Mother of three, she lives and works in London. Copies of the book will be available for signing after the talk.