Last month we were delighted to welcome some special visitors to The Exmoor Society. Sara Hudston, as part of her research for the new biography, A Life Outside: Hope Bourne on Exmoor, had contacted some of Hope’s Australian family – cousins on her father’s side. They had made the journey to the UK and were keen to visit Exmoor to find out more about their extraordinary relative. We took them to Withypool to show them the village close to where Hope lived, and then to the Society offices in Dulverton where we had some of our archive material ready to show them. They helped us expand our understanding about Hope’s father, Major Cecil Bourne, and to identify the location of one of the few items in our collection from her time visiting Australia herself. We now know that the extraordinary painting below is of Burrendong Reservoir near Stuart Town.
John and Anne have also volunteered for the final stages of our transcribing project, so are working on her newspaper columns at their home in Australia.
