Shirley Friedman was born in London before the war, but her family moved to Johannesburg, South Africa in 1948 when she was just 15. She married at the early age of 18 but the marriage fell apart. Later, she met the man she has written about, and they eventually married. She has four children, and nine grandchildren, and in 2003 she relocated to the UK. Shirley has many talents, so fills her time with acting, singing, and writing, and has appeared in several shows for local Amdram Societies, and student films, as well as professional films. She wrote her book ‘Flies in the Milk’ as a memoir for her late husband, and uses her acting skill to read extracts to her audience, and transport them to some of the seven countries and many problems she and her love had to go through before they could marry.