Globetrotting Bath ladies meet up for support

When she moved back to the UK after spending much of her life travelling the world for her husband John's job, Rosemary Brown knew it would be difficult to settle back into village life.

But the support of a network of like-minded people in Bath meant she was able to rebuild her social life, making new friends who shared similar interests to her.

Corona Worldwide is a group which brings together women who either live or have lived abroad and gives them an opportunity to share experiences and offer guidance and advice.

The Bath branch has been running for 20 years and meets on the last Wednesday of each month for a lunch at Bath Golf Club, so members can catch up and also listen to speakers give talks on various different topics.

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Since joining, Mrs Brown has now become Corona's national chairman and is keen to talk about the benefits she experienced personally in the hope that it might prompt others to join.

The 69-year-old grandmother-of-three said: "I didn't know anything about it until I joined, but it has become very important to us.

"As soon as we joined in Bath we have had a tremendous social life. We all just enjoy getting together."

She said that all the members wore name badges to the meetings, which included a list of the countries they had visited, meaning people could easily strike up conversations about places they had in common.

Branch president Pauline Bates, who is married to Graham and has five children and 14 grandchildren, spent time in Hong Kong and Gibraltar before moving to Bradford on Avon.

She said the support of the Corona group had proved invaluable to her because it had been a difficult time coming back to the UK.

She said: "Without Corona I would have been lost. It was very difficult to come back, I moved to Bath and I knew no-one.

"I actually found it more difficult coming back to the UK, than going abroad in the first place.

"Going out as an ex-pat there is almost a friendship group there for you, it is very sociable and you know you are going to need friends, but that isn't the case back here."

Some of the women joined Corona while they were abroad, using it as means to build contacts in a new, foreign country, and to get support in dealing with the everyday issues and problems they might face.

Sheila Griffiths, 66, who lives in London Road, became involved with the group while she was in Hong Kong and found it useful for co-ordinating her two children's journeys to and from boarding school.

Between them, the women in the Bath group have almost travelled the entire globe, with some living as far afield as New Zealand, Australia, Ghana, Nigeria and the Solomon Islands.

The group is always looking for new members and anybody interested should contact membership secretary Sheila Wood on 01225 867648.