Introduction

The lumbering Chinook helicopter carried us from Skopje, over the mountainous border and across the central, arable plain of Kosovo. As dusk encamped around us we could see many charred houses and a few which had recently been set alight. This jarred with the sight of whole families joyously waving as we passed overhead. Seated beside me were a number of Anglican Bishops, part of an official delegation invited by the Serbian Orthodox Church to begin efforts at reconciliation between Britain and Serbia. We arrived on 9 July, 1999, exactly a month after NATO’s last air strike.