Author: anne-fairbairn

My grandfather Sir George Houston Reid after being Premier of New South Wales, Prime Minister of Australia, became First Australian High Commissioner to Britain. He was voted into House of Commons during World War 1. He was extremely concerned about the Balfour Declaration in 1917. He was also very concerned about the Problems this would cause for the Palestinians. He talked about his grave concern to Clive, my father when my father was a school boy In London. My father’s older brother Douglas evidently believed that since the Balfour Declaration occurred in 1917, it was the main reason that the United States declared war against Germany He told me all this many years later when I was at school. George Reid’s wife Dame Flora Anne told me a lot about the problem when I was a teenager and she was living in Sydney. Professor Jabra Ibrahim Jabra who was Head of the Department of Literature at Bagdad who was a Palestinian told me a great deal about the suffering of Palestinian when I was a guest many times in Iraq at the annual Poetry Festival. My father’s brother, Douglas Reid’s two sons were killed in World War 2. My mother’s two brothers Colin and Keith Ross Munro were killed in the first World...