RANSVESTIA

Communication was tricky but we made out and had a wonderful time. Dick left two days before I did to go to Scotland to look up some relatives and I joined him there in due course. We met a couple of Scots FPs at the hotel and then left next morning for Leicester to meet with Pamela who was a member of FPE and who had been the initiator of putting together the British FP group which became known as the Beaumont Society after our friend the Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont-our patron saint as it were.

Then down to London where I attended the first international Gender Identity Conference. Although I was not accepted on the program since they wanted to limit speakers to the professionals, there developed some spare time because one of the speakers became ill. I asked for the time and got it and had my say after all. It went over so well that I got invitations to dinner from four of the doctors present. I also got on BBC-TV and on the commercial station ITV. Later in the week I read a paper at the International Social Psy- chiatry Convention. This led to a request for an interview by a reporter for the London Observer, which I gave. When it was printed, it resulted in 40 or 50 letters from British FPs which were turned over to the Beaumont people and became the principal nucleus for that society. Before this it had about 18 members in the whole country so I was not only responsible for pulling the first few together as members of the American FPE but finding a whole bunch of other sisters to help them get rolling. Shortly after this they became not a chapter of our American FPE but a national organization in their own right and simply affiliated with FPE-USA. But the first three presidents were all originally members of American FPE-Alga, Sylvia and Alice, and all dear friends of mine.

I had several other interviews and meetings but eventually the time came to leave merry old England which I did on the SS France from Southampton. This was the event for which the boat trip to Montreal two years before and the Alaskan return boat trip had been planned as preparation. So for four days I had breakfast, lunch and dinner with the same five other people and got along fine. At lunch the last day talk turned to what we were all going to do after we landed. I said I had about 10 TV shows to do and they all wanted to know what about. Lunch was about over at that point so I told them I'd tell them all about it at dinner. I did so that evening telling them in a funny way because there was a man sitting on both sides of me and I

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