Lunching with a Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Today at work an exceptional experience.
I had lunch, and spent the best part of the afternoon, with Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Prize winner 1976.
Betty Williams was living in her native Ireland when she was driving her children to the local church. She heard gun shots, and saw a car careening around a corner. She was horrified to see the car smash at high speed into a mother and 3 children. The driver had been shot by the British army, and had fallen with his foot on the accelerator. All 4 were killed instantly, and Betty was the first on the scene.
What she saw propelled her to do something, so she went that night to the area in Belfast designated as IRA territory, and started to knock on the doors, asking the inhabitants to sign a petition for peace.
That weekend, she worked with the media, with whom she had never worked before, to tell them that she was organising a peace rally on the site of the accident. Worried that noone would turn up, she started to work the telephones, calling her family and friends.
That weekend 10,000 people turned up, Catholics and Protestants to protest that they wanted peace in Northern Ireland.
Her work in Northern Ireland started a crusade for peace that today led her to Italy, where she is working on a City of Peace for Children in the region of Basilicata.
And today, to the company, where she met with many colleagues to talk to us about her experiences.
She is an incredible person, for her work and the people she has met, but also for her way of just being herself. She is just a fun person to hang out with - she tells stories about her family, and her friends, and then about the Dalai Lama....
It was a pretty great way to spend the afternoon. Even if at the end it means that I am way behind on the rest of my work....
I even put on special green shoes for the Irish occasion!