A Woman on the Front Line

Moreton Senior Culture & Events

Last Tuesday was the grand debut of Mrs Lang’s much anticipated Bronwen talk! After years of organising the Bronwen Society, Mrs Lang finally agreed to take centre stage and tell us all about her absolutely incredible career prior to Moreton.

Whilst most of us here at Moreton know Mrs Lang as an English teacher and our esteemed ‘Next Steps’ careers advisor, before all that Mrs Lang worked in broadcasting. To be more accurate she was a researcher, producer and finally presenter with the BBC and the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS).

The main focus of Mrs Lang’s talk was her time with the BFBS in Bosnia, a time in the mid-1990s which she described as a formative experience. As she reminded us, at that time the British Forces were still predominantly male and although there were female drivers, logisticians and mechanics, it wasn’t until 2016 that women were allowed to join the infantry (frontline fighting) roles and it wasn’t 2018 that women were allowed to join the cavalry. This meant that as the presenter of a weekly radio request show, ‘Calling the Balkans’ and one of the civilian women visiting the 2,500 service personnel with the UN as part of Operation Grapple, Mrs Lang was quite the celebrity!

Mrs Lang shared some of her memories of interviewing soldiers to sharing the stories of their work there supporting the peace process. Their roles included monitoring checkpoints between rival factions; clearing landmines; educating children about the danger from landmines and helping the Bosnian people repair a country ravaged by war. Mrs Lang helped us understand how important it was as a woman to provide a slice of normality and joy within a less than joyful context. Snippets of audios from her interviews had the audience giggling and the more harrowing elements of the experiences moved everyone present. It was incredible to hear the heroism of our very own English teacher and celebrity journalist!

At the end of the talk, some of us stayed behind to browse through some of the hundreds of ‘blueys’, (airmail letters) sent to Mrs Lang, asking for requests and dedications for family, friends and each other, and sharing some of their Bosnian stories. It was a real insight to the very human experience of life on the front line.

Hannah (Upper Sixth)