Beatrix Potter Castle near Lake Windermere. Here Beatrix met Hardwicke Rawnsley, vicar of Wray and later the founding secretary of the National Trust, whose interest in the countryside and country life inspired the same in Beatrix and who was to have a lasting impact on her life. At about the age of 14, Beatrix began to keep a diary. It was written in a code of her own devising which was a simple letter for letter substitution. Her "Journal" was important to the development of her creativity, serving as both sketchbook and literary experiment: in tiny handwriting she reported on society, recorded
Brenda Rawnsley 1939, she enlisted in the ATS Officer Cadet training unit, but soon left to work for the Ministry of Economic Warfare in London. Through mutual friends she met Flt Lt Derek Rawnsley, who had made history by flying solo in a Tiger Moth from Australia to Oxford. In 1937 Lt Rawnsley had founded the Federal Union Movement with Charles Kimber and Patrick Ransome, seeking the unification of Europe to avoid war. Hugh-Jones and Rawnsley were married in February 1941, but he was immediately posted overseas in the RAF. By the end of 1941, Mrs Rawnsley was a Women's Auxiliary Air