I’m thankful for Juliet English and her husband and for their contribution to Home Education in the UK and I am sure, also in South Africa.
In case you did not know, Juliet is the driver behind the Learn Free Education Conference an annual event in the UK which has been taking place at a physical location for the past 9 years and which for the first time went online this year.
Being thankful for her contribution and as a sort of tribute, I thought I’d share this anecdotal story of appreciation.
We first met Juliet and her family in South Africa when we holidayed there in December 1999, at the turn of the millennium, or very soon after. I had taken with me a load of homeschooling books over to South Africa and was hoping to sell them and I advertised in the local paper.
Either Juliet or her husband had contacted me and wanted to purchase most of the books, so Lydia and I and our two young daughters set out to meet them and deliver the books to their family, just south of Durban, I forget exactly where.
What Lydia and I and our two children met was an enthusiastic young woman devoted to her husband Larry and their family.
As I recall they set up a wonderful schoolroom for their children, it was large, airy and bright filled with learning materials (we were visiting from England and we were very impressed).
Lydia’s recollection is as follows: I just remember the back of their house, I think it had either a roof sort of thing or like a big pergola with a shrub growing over it. We were standing outside around a tall table chatting. I think we had cannelloni for lunch which Juliet herself had made from scratch along with some other delicious homemade dishes. She seemed to be a very passionate and able woman who loved her family and being a homemaker and Mum. She was obviously blessed enough to be able to do what she loved and not have to go out and work. Her husband also seemed to be a nice guy with the same love and devotion to his family as his wife.
I can’t really recall the children in the family but I think there were quite a lot of them, well to us at the time, because we only had two little girls. I felt at the time that we really got on well, and had we lived in South Africa they could have been potential friends. They were inspiring in their whole approach of family, home and education. I also got the impression that they worked hard at whatever they did to make it successful.
Fast forward 20 years to May 2020, and I signed up to an online homeschoolers conference to catch up on what is going on in the homeschooling world and who should I see introducing the conference, it was none other than Juliet English.
It is through the work of people like Juliet English who provide environments to learn more about home education and who promote the advantages of homeschooling.
- Excellent use of new technology
- Gathering wonderful presenters
- Consistent service to the Home Educators over 9 or 10 years
Find out more at https://www.learnfree.org.uk