Interview: Family’s ties to distant tribes are a link forged by personal loss

THEY say out of tragedy comes triumph. Never a truer word was spoken when it comes to describing the life of Penelope Worsley.

On the surface she seems the epitome of a lady from a privileged background who wants to help those less fortunate than herself. But this is not someone content to sit on a fund-raising committee and organise charity balls. Penelope Worsley believes in getting her hands dirty.

“You have to run a charity from the ground up,” says the recent widow of Oliver Worsley, brother of the Duchess of Kent, who died just before Christmas after a long battle with Huntingdon’s Disease, which two of her children also have. “You can’t just sit on a committee and tell people what they need. You have to spend time with them and let things evolve and see what their needs really are.”

It is this plain-talking that has sometimes seen Penelope clash with members of other fund-raising committee. She was asked to leave the committee of the Sue Ryder Foundation after raising much-needed funds due to a clash of personalities.

“Life is too short not to say what you think,” says the 68-year-old from Heslington near York.

Last month Penelope received an honorary degree from the University of York for her work with the Karen hill tribes in Thailand. It followed publication of her first book Footsteps To The Jungle, a deeply moving account of how personal tragedy led to the creation of the international charity and how she handled her family’s battle with Huntingdon’s Disease. Since its inception in 2000 the Karen Hill Tribes Trust has raised more than £3m and helped transform the lives of some 40,000 people.

It was the death of her beloved son Richard which inspired Penelope to visit Thailand and start the charity.

“There was something special about Richard,” she explains. “He seemed to have an effect on everyone he met. He was talker, like me. He liked to talk to people and they responded to him.” Like her son, Penelope Worsley is fascinated by people, which is clear from her book which highlights some of the characters in Thailand that helped make her son’s dream a reality.

“Before Richard joined the Army he had a gap year and knowing that he came from a privileged background, he wanted to spend some time working abroad with people who had not been as fortunate as him.” Richard went to live with the Karen hill tribe for six months in 1990, installing fresh water systems to the remote villages north of Chang Mai and teaching English.

“His time out there affected him deeply and he came back saying ‘Mummy we must do something to help these people’. But I didn’t really know what we could do and then he joined the Army and I didn’t think much of it.”

Then in 1996 Penelope received the devastating news that her son had been killed in a car crash in Germany. Above all Penelope is a problem solver, a “doer”, she gets things done – a trait she says she inherited from her mother. Her methods may seem chaotic to others, but in a life which sees her thrown from one drama to another it is her way of coping. And it is effective.

It wasn’t until Richard’s death that Penelope realised the effect her son had had on the villagers and the charity he was working with out there.

“I was alone in the house when I was informed of Richard’s death. It was 4am and Oliver was abroad. I knew that I had a few brief hours before the press would get hold of the story and the phone would start ringing. I had to try to make some sense of it in those few short hours and I knew that I had to contact the people in Thailand.”

The response astounded her. “I received a four-page fax explaining just what Richard had meant to the Karen and the volunteers. ‘Good men do not die,’ they said, ‘he will remain as a star in the sky to guide us and we will not forget him’.”

Three months after his death, the Karen people dedicated a water system to Richard. A crude wooden plaque still bears his name. It was around this time that Penelope and other members of the family started to have visions of Richard.

“I know it sounds strange but I know he was trying to tell us something. I am a strong Christian, but I do believe that sometimes the Christian faith can be too rigid. I believe in spirituality.” She got an overwhelming desire to go to Thailand to see the people her son had taken to his heart.

Penelope may disagree but it was a brave decision to go. Oliver, who had started to become ill before Richard died, had an operation for a leaky heart valve, Penelope feared he may not survive.

Her eldest daughter, Georgina, who had always had problems needed her, as did her grandchildren, but she didn’t hesitate to drop everything and fly to Thailand.

“It was the middle of the rainy season and I arrived without a clue of where I was going. But I have always loved adventure and those two weeks completely changed my life.”

On her return to Yorkshire, Penelope decided to set up The Karen Hill Tribes Trust. She had worked in the voluntary sector all her life and had the skills and contacts to ensure her charity prospered where others had failed.

“Lots of people set up charities – virtually every time a child dies another one appears – but I knew it had to be sustainable. If it was to last it had to be a working partnership with the people of the Karen. It’s about giving the power back to them, letting them have control of their own lives.”

What makes her achievement even more impressive is that all the time she was dealing with Oliver’s deteriorating health and the tragic news that both Georgina and her eldest son had also inherited Huntingdon’s Disease, a degenerative illness which attacks the brain cells. Penelope is aware that some may criticise her for including so much personal detail about her family and their illness in the book, and she in turn is worried that too much focus may be put on Huntingdon’s Disease rather than the Karen. “I couldn’t really write a book about Richard and the charity without the background of Huntingdon’s Disease,” she says.

Despite the tragedies that have hit her life and her desire to talk about them, there is no sign of self-pity in Penelope Worsley.

Her energy is in running her charity and the army of young volunteers she sends over there, which are as much her focus as the hill tribes she is trying to help.

“It is an experience that will change their lives,” she says, and above all she knows it is what Richard would have wanted.

[email protected]