Anniversary

Living in Asia, we had only two basic seasons, wet and dry. Some times of year were a little less hot. This delighted my parents. Once I’d acclimated to the humidity, I didn’t think much about seasons, though I loved tropical downpours.

What pleased me immensely was that in Asia, I did not suffer from asthma. Testing had suggested that I was allergic to dust and pollen, so I this was a nice surprise. Six years later, I went back to England where the asthma returned, flaring in foggy, damp conditions. However, the attacks were much less severe. I was fortunate to grow out of it.

It took time to readjust to living in a temperate climate and after the years in Southeast Asia, England felt uncomfortably cold. The two winters I spent there happened, in fact, to be among the coldest on record and the dormitory where I slept was in the attic of an old estate house, what would probably have been the servants quarters. No amount of blankets and eiderdown kept my bed warm!

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That first Christmas -1962, I went to stay with an elderly woman we had met on the voyage back to England. She lived in a lovely cottage in Ashburton, a little south of where I was at school. It was a white Christmas and the village was very pretty. I have forgotten most of that holiday, but I recall that my host kept apples picked from her trees in a spare room. Without being overpowering, the fragrance permeated the cottage. It was a warm, comforting aroma.

Very different was the following Christmas when I went to stay with an aunt and uncle in New York. My mother’s youngest sister Kay had married an American serviceman toward the end of WW2 and they lived on Long Island.

Kay and Ray had no children and a few years earlier, when my brother had gone to stay, they asked if he would like to come and live with them, but he was cricket mad, so – no! I suspect it was not the only reason he declined, but it was a comfortable excuse.

Long Island in those days experienced significantly cold winters and I had never before encountered such low temperatures, but it was very different to how I’d felt in England. When we travelled around, we rode in a warm car and indoors, you didn’t need to huddle by the fire. The windows were all double-glazed and the house was centrally heated. After what I was accustomed to in Bideford, it was heaven.

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In due course, I was posed the same question as my brother – did I want to come back to live with my aunt and uncle? Obviously, it would be physically a great deal more comfortable and I had quickly become very fond of my aunt. Spending another year in that draughty school with those – nuns had no appeal.

But none of that was what caused me to accept. Basically, I don’t recall being given any other choice. Lengthy paperwork was obtained from the US Embassy in London, which I filled out and sent back, then in due course I found my way to Grosvenor Square, where I had no trouble identifying the embassy dominated as it was by an impressive eagle.

There, a sour-looking individual required that I hold up my right hand and solemnly swear to be an upstanding and moral person, so help me God. Thus, I was granted permanent residency in the USA. I was 16.

Outside in the corridors were lines of young people queueing for visas, many of which would be rejected and I remember thinking how fortunate I was to have a sponsor.

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Everyone wanted to go to America. It was the land of opportunity, the land of milk and honey.

For a short while in Cambodia, I had attended the American school, so I’d got to know quite a few Americans. We spoke the same language, more or less, but I felt we were – different.

It was only the opinion of a young child, but I had the impression that American parents fussed over their children, something I was not at all familiar with. If I fell over and skinned a knee, mother spat in a hanky and wiped the injury vaguely, telling me to be more careful. No mercurochrome and multi-coloured bandaids. No food from the PX. Mum didn’t worry if I ate street food.

Even then, I was sensible enough to realise that it was just that different people had alternative ways of behaving. Eventually, I attended school with French, Cambodian and Vietnamese children and I adjusted, as kids do.

If I’d had an inkling of the enormous culture shock that awaited me in America, I think I would have begged for any other option and I would now be living, – who knows where?

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It is impossible to determine if I would be better or worse off, but I do know that I would have missed getting to know my wonderful aunt who became my best friend, as well as the dogs she had over the years I knew her. Although I became a “cat person”, I adore dogs too.

Then, if I’d not come to America, I would never have shared my life with the cats that came to mean so much to me. I daresay there would have been other animals and “my” cats would have found homes elsewhere, but I don’t want to imagine not having had them in my life.

Nor any of the other animals I have encountered here, or quite a few special friends.

There were many wonderful experiences I would have missed out on as well. So, I don’t believe on wishing for what might have been, or asking if I should have made better decisions.

There is only one way to face and that is forward.

(28th August 1964 is when I landed in the USA as an immigrant. An anniversary.)

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