”I find machetes so useful in the jungle, don’t you?” Cynthia Longfield, quoted in The Times, 9 July 1991 Cynthia Longfield, ‘Madam Dragonfly’, was born in London in 1896. Her home schooling there was interrupted by regular visits to her maternal grandparents’ farm in Cloyne, Co. Cork, where she enjoyed roaming the countryside. Her early love of…