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Turning a corner into Grosvenor Square, I was daunted by the vast eagle that dominated from atop the United States Embassy.
The precise date is long forgotten but it was early Spring 1964 when I was summoned for the interview which would grant me abode in the USA.
One of my mother’s sisters had been a GI bride, so for me it was a matter of paperwork and a chest x-ray. Noticing the queue of young people hoping for visas, I realized how fortunate I was.
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My beautiful aunt had many admirers and had even been engaged to one of them. She could so easily have made a different choice and it is unlikely I would have come to live in the States.
You don’t tend to think that your decisions can have long-reaching affects on other people’s lives.
It seems far-fetched, but it all came down to a dog.
The fact that my aunt managed to own a dog while engaged as a WAAF in WW2, is in itself unlikely.
Never-the-less, she had a black cocker spaniel called Minxie, who was riding with her on a bus one day and Ray ingratiated himself by making a fuss of the dog.
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That eagle daunted me, sixty years ago, but not the experience.
Surprisingly, the process of my application had not taken long, as the decision had only been made during a ’63 Christmas visit. I’d gone for the holiday, not realizing that was essentially an interview.
Just as well, depending on how one looked at it, since I have always been hopeless at interviews.
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In the event, I was asked if I’d like to live with my aunt and uncle. In their nice warm house with their two naughty dogs.
They previous two winters I had spent shivering in an English boarding school, suffering from a return of asthma and many weeks of hobbling about as my swollen toes were afflicted with sore, itchy chilblains.
As I recall, I wasn’t exactly encouraged to remain in England, in any case, so I took the option that suited everyone.
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My headmistress wrote that I was “mature beyond my years”, no doubt because I had spent so much of my early life exclusively in the company of adults.
Perhaps it was why I was left to make such serious decisions without guidance. I sent for the paperwork and in due course completed an extensive questionnaire.
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It surprised me somewhat to be asked whether I intended, in the United States, to engage in prostitution. I mean, if I did, would I have said so? I suppose it sets a trail to your ultimate deportation, if you are arrested doing something you promised no to.
But I wanted to annotate the question: “I’m only sixteen!” However, I realized this was not a humourous undertaking and when I was ushered in to see the under-secretary, or whoever he was, there was no trace whatever of warmth. never mind humour.
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No-one questioned my being alone.
After a cursory examination of my file, I was asked to stand and swear an oath which was something I had never had to do before! Could a 16-year old be bound by an oath?
Government officials had always seemed cold and arrogant and in Asia they had intimidated me. I suppose I wasn’t surprised to find the Americans equally unpleasant.
After all, the granting of visas is a serious business, but must they look at you as if you are some sort of criminal?
Would the hint of a smile give too much away?
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In Cambodia, I had been sent at first to the American school, which is where I learned about peanut butter, chocolate milk, root-beer and seersucker suits. The latter being favoured by American men at the time, apparently.
My first encounter was displeasing when I was found wanting by the teacher who tested my math/s skills. I knew pounds, shillings and pence which was vastly more complicated than dollars and cents which I had never encountered.
So I was put back a year, the first but not the last time I was to feel so demeaned.
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The children wore different clothes and their parents seemed to fuss over them rather more than I was used to. If a knee was scraped, it had to be painted with iodine or mercurochrome and a plaster applied that was brightly-coloured and bore stars.
Honey’s father was a 3-star general. I stayed with them when my parents went away. They were nice and I didn’t mind that they laughed at some of the words I used.
The general must have been transferred, so then I found myself in the care of another family that I cared for much less. For one thing, at breakfast I was compelled to consume a vile yellow-green substance that was called vye-damins.
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The worst part of staying with them though, was that I had not been told I was going to.
One day, instead of going home, I was taken to stay across town, with no way of even speaking to my parents.
For years after, I thought of it as having been kidnapped and strangely, I never asked my parents about it.
Eventually, I was released from my imprisonment and also from the school. I suspect I was thought to have been a bad influence, although as I recall it was the other way around.
Whatever the case, I was thrilled and furthermore for the best part of the next year, I did not attend school.
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It was then that I got to know some other Americans who were friends of my parents.
Ed may have been my first crush. I thought he was lovely. He may have been from Texas and he may, or may not have grown up on a ranch where they had horses.
In he evening, my father often played music on his tape-recorder and my favourite piece was Dvorak’s New Word Symphony.
It carried my imagination to the States where herds of horses galloped and bison stampeded.
One day, I was going to America to see them.
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Other good friends had a daughter who was also called Carolyn. She came to stay with me one night when my parents went out.
They did not call it baby-sitting!
The house was reputed to have a resident spirit, but I think we were more concerned about live intruders and when my parents returned, they found us barricaded in the bathroom.
These were lovely people who remained friends long after retirement.
(My beige plaster did not have stars!)
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In Thailand, we met Bob who claimed to be an anthropologist, although my father believed he was CIA.
We met a MAAG couple, who were alcoholics and tended to drive through shut gates which upset the local police. He upset me by calling me “button-nose”.
But vastly the majority of Americans I knew as a child were wonderful, fun people.
Those were the people I had in mind that day, looking up at the eagle in Grosvenor Square.
It isn’t there anymore. The Embassy moved in 2018.
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(Helen was English. Her husband had died on the Burma Railway)
You really should write a full memoire of your childhood you know
What an interesting post, Carolyn! I had to laugh at the questions you were asked, and sixteen!
Good that your life is sorted out so well, and you have a bright future ahead. Thank you for the beautiful pictures!
Joanna
Helen gets a mention at the end, but seems to have been edited out!
It isn’t clear, Peter, but that is Helen in the photo with Bob.
Thanks!
When I was an EMT in London, I attended calls to the US Embassy on several occasions. The first time inside, I was surprised to discover they had a ‘mini-hospital’ in the building. It was well-equipped, and staffed by medical professionals. So most of the calls were to take pregnant women to give birth in a major hospital where they had facilities for newborn babies. I found the staff at the Embassy to be very polite, but rather uptight and dramatic, by English standards. (It was in there that I first heard the expression ‘Stat’ to indicate hurry up.)
My only previous experience of the embassy had been as part of a protest against the Vietnam War as a teenager, when I was outside the building carrying a Vietcong flag!
Best wishes, Pete.
Reading your stories from your childhood is like sitting with a great book and only being allowed to read one chapter at a time … I can’t wait for the next chapter! My opinion of Americans were that they are loud and only care for themselves, until we walked the Camino in Spain and met Carl from Maryland … he’s the finest gentleman I’ve ever met! And I never thought I’d say that about an American!
It’s the loud ones we all remember, inevitably, which is sad because there are many good people.