When Margie Crookes joined a London nursing agency and was posted at the King Edward the 7th Hospital, an establishment for officers and gentlemen, she nursed the likes of the Princess Alexandra and Monty of El Alamein. Monty was a WW2 general who lead Allied forces into Egypt. Then one day a request came through and Margie was asked if she would accept a position in Switzerland.
A meeting with Lady Chaplin at the Dorchester Hotel resulted in Margie travelling from London to the Chaplin's home in Vevey on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland for a six month tenure. During this time Margie formed a bond with Lady Chaplin, Oona, an American who had married Charlie when he was 56 and she was just 18 and the two kept in touch until 1991 when Oona died.
Getting to know this large family of eight children added to Margie's enjoyment of her time spent in Switzerland, fond memories of them, from Michael the oldest to Christopher the youngest come to mind as Margie revisits some photographs of the Chaplin family. The Chaplin family holds all the copyrights to Charlie's films and the eldest Michael has established their family home as a museum.
The life-lessons which Margie feels she gained from this adventure are two-fold, in the first instance she observed that South Africans are not generally in awe of celebrities but tend to judge the people they meet according to how these people behave rather than their wealth or social position. Secondly her interactions reinforced the belief that all people are the same under the skin, there are some nice and some not so nice people to be found just as often amongst the rich as amongst the poor.
Pictured above is Margie with Charlie Chaplin. Thank you Margie for sharing your insights!