Columnist Brigit Brett to address Fallbrook Dems

Writer, columnist Brigid Brett to address Fallbrook Democratic Club

Widely read and admired columnist for the North County Times, Brigid Brett will address the Fallbrook Democratic Club on Thursday, May 7, at 7:00 pm. Ms. Brett, a third generation South African, was born in South Africa in 1959, and grew up during the dark days of apartheid and segregation. Like most white kids, she grew up with a “colored” maid who lived in here home, but never knew the maid’s last name.

From the beach down the road from her home one could see Robben Island, where Nelson Mandella was imprisoned. “All I knew about Mandella when I was a child”, said Brett, “was that he was a ‘terrorist’ like all the other ‘bad men’ who lived on the island and it made me feel safer to think they could never escape.

Ms. Brett will tell of her childhood and early years in South Africa, where mingling of the races was taboo, abortion was illegal, and freedom of speech was non-existent. More interesting is how, in spite of all this, she became influenced by a circle of free thinking, fair minded friends and felt the taste of what an open society had to offer.

“I am sure that much of my writing and the way I view the world has been colored by growing up during Apartheid in a country that had no separation of church and state,” said Ms. Brett. She will discuss all this at the club meeting and welcomes questions. She and her husband, born in the Northern Transvaal, have lived in Valley Center 15 years. For the last two years she has worked with injured veterans in their homes and in polytrauma centers treating PTSD and other injuries.

The Club meeting is at the Fallbrook Public Utilities building, at 990 East Mission Road at Santa Margarita Dr. The public is cordially invited.