'For Us It Was Heaven'

'I made a person out of myself and became an individual with a life and work of my own.' *** 'For Us It Was Heaven' tells the story of a young, upper middle-class nurse in the 1930s who becomes dramatically caught up in Spain's civil war and the passionate political issues of her times, but whose intimate writings reveal emotions and attitudes that will strike a chord with most self-aware and determined women today. Patience Darton's unpublished letters and papers from 1930s Spain and 1950s China are at the heart of this new biography, together with testimony from recorded interviews and a wealth of photographs that illustrate the life of this remarkable woman. While Darton was a medical nurse near the front lines in Spain, she met and fell in love with Robert, a German volunteer in the International Brigades, deeply committed to fighting fascism. Their passionate relationship colored the rest of her long life, taking her to communist China and then, finally, back to Spain.