Confessions of an Opera Tragic

So began a long career of travel adventure. Hitchhiking alone through the southern states of the US, when hitchhiking was illegal, she encountered the kindness of strangers, spent a few miserable hours in a Virginia jail in an attempt to save money on accommodation, and stayed in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, just weeks after Autherine Lucy was accepted as a student at the University of Alabama, the first African-American woman to be so, a decision that would ignite riots and help change the world. For over sixty years, on her many trips through Europe and North America, Gillian pursued music and sport, met famous folk, and made life-long friends, a joy that would continue throughout her life. But it was her love of opera that shone the brightest.