How does a girl from Kimberley get to meet the Queen? When asked to help organise a Jewish Music Festival in London in 1983, Geraldine Auerbach MBE had no idea it would change her life. What began as a favour became a mission. Importing and nurturing specialist ensembles, unearthing old and commissioning new works and working with artists, venues and community leaders, she presented Jewish music – from ancient prayer chants and medieval motets to Argentinian Yiddish tangos and cutting-edge klezmer – in art galleries, concert halls, synagogues and churches and iconic spaces like Canterbury Cathedral, the Millennium Dome and Trafalgar Square. Her bold ideas, working with professors, scholars and figures such as Yehudi Menuhin and Valerie Solti, led to the founding of the Jewish Music Institute, a centre for teaching and research at the University of London. Yet Jewish music is only one part of Geraldine’s remarkable story. She brings her childhood in separatist South Africa vividly to life, capturing the texture and spirit of a lost time and place. Ever alert to new possibilities, her imagination takes unexpected turns – from creating a foundation for her late son-in-law, guitarist Bert Jansch, and shepherding guitars around the world, to transforming the strange isolation of lockdown into global online gatherings for Jewish music scholars, South African expats and 1960s medical graduates as well as embracing adventures with a duck and gardening projects with her grandchildren.

This is the engaging memoir of how one person’s vision, tenacity and resilience despite moments of despair and personal sadness, can make extraordinary things happen.