North Wales Weekly News, March 17, 2011 AN ETHIOPIAN princess who spent 14 years in a prison cell after a military coup has told school pupils of her experiences.
On Monday, Princess Sophie Desta, 77, grand-daughter of the late Emperor Haile Selasse of Ethiopia, spoke at morning assembly at St David’s College in Llanrhos near Llandudno.
She recalled her happy schooldays in North Wales at Clarendon School, Kinmel Hall, Abergele, sixty years ago.
But she also described her imprisonment after her grandfather was deposed.
Princess Sophie is staying in Glanwydden with her old school friend, Mrs Janet Marshall whose husband Rev Peter Marshall is a former chairman of the governors at St David’s. She shared with the pupils her experience of fourteen years in the same cell at the Kerchele prison, Addis Ababa from 1974.
Her husband had been assassinated on a previous occasion, and her brother was executed without trial.
Her daughter Hannah, was at Clarendon School at the time, aged fourteen, and did not see her mother for seventeen years.
“Princess Sophie said she had been supported through her ordeal by her faith in God and the prayers of friends from all over the world. She was visited by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
“Many pupils took the opportunity of speaking to Princess Sophie whose story had been profoundly moving,” said Rev Marshall.
The Princess is now living in London with her two sisters who had also been in prison with her and survived, and who had been educated in North Wales.
On Monday, Princess Sophie Desta, 77, grand-daughter of the late Emperor Haile Selasse of Ethiopia, spoke at morning assembly at St David’s College in Llanrhos near Llandudno.
She recalled her happy schooldays in North Wales at Clarendon School, Kinmel Hall, Abergele, sixty years ago.
But she also described her imprisonment after her grandfather was deposed.
Princess Sophie is staying in Glanwydden with her old school friend, Mrs Janet Marshall whose husband Rev Peter Marshall is a former chairman of the governors at St David’s. She shared with the pupils her experience of fourteen years in the same cell at the Kerchele prison, Addis Ababa from 1974.
Her husband had been assassinated on a previous occasion, and her brother was executed without trial.
Her daughter Hannah, was at Clarendon School at the time, aged fourteen, and did not see her mother for seventeen years.
“Princess Sophie said she had been supported through her ordeal by her faith in God and the prayers of friends from all over the world. She was visited by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
“Many pupils took the opportunity of speaking to Princess Sophie whose story had been profoundly moving,” said Rev Marshall.
The Princess is now living in London with her two sisters who had also been in prison with her and survived, and who had been educated in North Wales.
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