A Natural History camera technician and former head girl at Didcot Girls School was inspired to write a book about stories her grandparents shared about their lives.

Helen Hobin recently published the biography, titled Afternoon Tea with Mary and Marcus Braybrooke.

It focuses on the lives of her grandparents, Mary and Marcus Braybrooke, of Clifton Hampden.

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Mary Braybrooke was for many years a medical social worker at Oxford hospitals and also a magistrate.

Mr Braybrooke was vicar for eleven years of Marsh and Toot Baldon and Nuneham Courtenay and now helps out at local churches.

Both have played an active part promoting interfaith friendship and peace.

They have travelled widely and met several high profile people, including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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Mrs Braybrooke said: “It’s got quite a lot of amusing stories, it’s not a funny book but it’s an honest book.”

She added: “We have done interfaith work all over the world, we feel there will be no peace in the world until there is peace in religion.”

Their granddaughter, and author of the biography, Miss Hobin, studied English at York University, where she was head of York University TV.

She now works in Natural History film-making and she often travels to remote parts of the world.

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Mrs Braybrooke said: “It took her seven years to write it, when she came back from university she didn’t have a job so she decided to write. Now she works as a camera person for David Attenborough, she is very busy.”

Miss Hobin said: “I am very lucky that I get to spend a lot of time with my grandparents, just talking to them they have so much to say.”

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She added: “They have learnt so much over their lifetime I thought it would be helpful to a lot of people. I think it’s good to learn from the past. I wanted a record of what they had done.”

Miss Hobin said: “I wrote a lot about things I didn’t know of their early married life, which also included my mum.”

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Senior Rabbi Tony Bayfield commented on the book and said: “It’s a really thorough and proper nice piece of writing which recognises how extraordinary the Braybrookes are, tells the world what two good people can achieve but doesn’t minimise their academic, intellectual and spiritual qualities.”

He added: “That it should have been written by their granddaughter is so wonderful and unique- such an extraordinary labour of love and respect- that it brings tears to my eyes.”

It can be purchased from Braybrooke Press, 17 Courtiers Green, Clifton Hampden, Abingdon, OX14 3EN for £12.95.