7) Back To The Old Country

I continued working at Tops Market after graduation until July. Near the end of July, I took my first flight, except for the helicopter flight over the falls the previous summer, from Toronto Airport to Heathrow, London's major airport. I managed to get a window seat.

It was very cloudy for the British Airways flight. We took off in the evening and I could not see much on the ground except the lights of some towns in eastern Canada during breaks in the clouds. There were clouds all across the Atlantic Ocean. I had been hoping to see more from the plane.

We were flying eastward, opposite the direction of the sun, so the night was over prematurely and it was day again. The flight was supposedly nearing it's end but all I could see from my window was dense cloud. There was something that looked like a wiggly line in the cloud.

When I looked up again, the wiggly line had become more pronounced. Suddenly, we were out of the cloud and not far off the ground. The wiggly line in the cloud had actually been a river (probably the Thames, west of London). Below were trees and green fields.

The next thing I knew, we were over a strip of concrete, the runway. Then, there was a bump as we touched down and thirteen years after leaving, I was back in England.

It was drizzling in that typically English way. As we continued down the runway to the airport terminal, I could see a lot of other planes on adjacent runways. There was a large jet like our own from Iran Air. There was a smaller, propellor-driven passenger plane from South African Airways.

In the terminal was a modern art style sculpture with a sign "Welcome To Britain" and it really sank in that I was actually back in the old country after all of these years. (To a not-quite eighteen-year-old, thirteen years is a lot of years).

The customs official examined my U.S. passport, asked me the routine question of what I would be doing in Britain and stamped me a visa for six months, with the stipulation that I was not permitted to work in Britain, at least not without further process.

An aunt and uncle had visited us in Niagara Falls for three weeks a short time before, and they came to Heathrow to meet me. I had to get used to getting into a car as a passenger from the right side door (facing forward), as drivers in Britain drive on the left side of the road and the driver's position is on the right side of the car. Someone recently arrived in Britain must also take care to remember this when crossing roads.

We drove for a couple of hours or so across beautiful English countryside on the M4 Motorway before crossing the Severn Bridge and entering Wales. Then, back across the line into England and before I knew it, we were at our destination. This was where I had spent my early childhood, but although the area looked very typically English, it did not look remotely familiar.

After taking a nap to somewhat compensate for jet lag, I was taken to meet other relatives and then it was off for an evening out. All around were hills and trees and ferns and sheep and, of course, that Forest of Dean dialect. This was a far different world from Niagara Falls.

We ended up at a pub called The Angel at Ruardean. My parents often talked about "back home" and I would recognize a lot of the names, but I did not recall ever hearing of Ruardean. There was a group of guys there talking about wrestling matches and hunting wood pheasants in that forest dialect. Everybody seemed to know everybody else.

I quickly noticed that the Forest of Dean was made for walking. Across the hills and valleys, through the beautiful countryside and old villages, I would go for long walks. From Five Acres, where I was staying initially, through Coleford to the Speech House and back. Through Berry Hill, up to Symond's Yat. To Drybrook and Cinderford and back. Sometimes, I would just take a shorter walk to Edge End and back.

If my birth village of Lydbrook had not been pointed out to me, I never would have recognized it. The only thing that looked familiar was the view of the opposite side of the valley as seen from the side where I had lived as a young child.

Not long after arriving, I walked through Lydbrook and up to a place called The Pludds. The summer countryside was so nice that I always wanted to walk further and see more of it. I had a fairly good sense of direction but was not used to the hills that were all around and I suddenly had no idea where I was.

I noticed one of those bright red phone booths up ahead and placed a collect call to my parents back in the U.S. They told me how to get back to Five Acres from there. But soon, I would know my way all around.

There is a country road from Berry Hill, through Bicknor, down to the bottom of Lydbrook. That road was so gorgeous that the thought occurred to me that maybe I had died somehow and did not remember it and that I was now walking in heaven. I only walked the road once, I wanted to go back and walk it again but somehow never got around to it.

There are two really spectacular views from the Forest of Dean. One is from Symond's Yat Rock with the village and the winding Wye River down below and the other is across the Severn Vale, with the city of Gloucester down on the plain below.

One thing that I did recognize from my childhood there was the shops in the middle of Cinderford, which then included a Woolworth's. I happened to notice a mound of slag that my father once used to take me climbing on. Then, it had seemed like a really high mountain. But now that I was grown up, nimble, and fit, I could scramble to the top in about a minute.

The places that had just been names that I had heard my parents refer to now became real places. My inner Englishman emerged. England was never "foreign", because even if I did not remember that much about it, my parents were English.

I had brought one of those Polaroid cameras that takes instamatic photos with me, an SX-70, and I brought it with me most places that I went. I also bought plenty of postcards and souvenirs.

Driving is done on the left in Britain and there is more traffic circles (roundabouts) but fewer traffic lights than in North America. When someone was just learning to drive, they had to post an "L" for "learner" on the car. There were some three-wheel cars that could be driven on a motorbike license. The street lights were orange because it helps to cut through fog.

All around were patchwork fields, stone walls and stone houses. All over the forest area were cows and horses and, sheep. Walking in Britain on a cloudy day gives one the feeling that they are in a sandwich between the green ground below and the gray cloud above.

The scent of wet plants and of burning wood would always remind me of the Forest of Dean as well as a car with a standard transmission shifting gears. There was extensive bus service and cars were a luxury, rather than a necessity, for most people.

The scent of diesel exhaust would always remind me of riding all around on buses. One had to tell the bus driver the destination upon boarding the bus so that the fare could be determined. The first time I rode a bus in the forest, I was still getting used to British money and I got the feeling that I put in more money than I needed to.

School in Britain was done by two levels, O Levels and A Levels. O means ordinary and A means advanced. You might hear someone say "I just finished my O Levels". A Levels are roughly equivalent to regents in the U.S.

There was a carnival at Cinderford in August, as there was every year. There were rides, a demonstration by the Red Arrows, the RAF aerobatic team and, an exhibition of local amateur boxers. There was a demonstration of a military helicopter landing at the carnival.

All around were booths with the military hoping that there would be guys who were impressed enough with the demonstrations to enlist and other booths with people passing out religious literature. I was not yet a Christian, but I took two tracts that I still have today.

Gloucester is the nearest city to the Forest of Dean. It is a very old city dating back to Roman times. It is based on a grid pattern and the central streets are Northgate, Southgate, Eastgate and, Westgate Streets.

The large store that my parents referred to as the Bon Marche was now called Debenham's. It was next to King's Square, in the middle of Gloucester. Leading to King's Square was King's Walk, a covered walk with shops along it, most important to me were a record store and Smith's Books. There was also the Eastgate Mall with a market alongside it, not far away.

I would often ride the bus into Gloucester and sometimes from there to Cheltenham, beyond Gloucester.

The most important and impressive building in Gloucester is the cathedral. Gloucester Cathedral did bring back childhood memories. It got me thinking, at least subconsciously, about religion. Think how important God must have been to people to lead them to build a magnificent structure such as this. The cathedral was originally begun in the Thirteenth Century.

The very definition of a city in Britain is that it has a cathedral. Cheltenham, not far away, has roughly the same population as Gloucester. But it is considered as a town, rather than a city, because Cheltenham does not have a cathedral.

By the way, the origin of many English cities is revealed by the name. Those ending in -cester, -chester or, -caster are of Roman origin. Those ending in -by are of Danish origin and those ending in -ham or -ton are of Anglo-Saxon origin.

As I first noticed in my childhood, Gloucester was so different from the villages of the Forest of Dean in the hills to the west. People in Gloucester did not talk with the forest dialect. There were numerous people from other countries in Gloucester. At that time, the vast majority of immigrants in Britain were from India, Pakistan or, Jamaica.

There were a few panhandlers on the streets in Gloucester. The Labour Party of James Callaghan was in power and the opposition Tories (Conservatives) had billboards in Gloucester showing a long line of people outside the dole (unemployment office) with the line "LABOUR ISN'T WORKING".

1968, when we landed in the U.S., was not exactly the best year for America. In the same way, 1978, when I first went back to England, was not exactly it's best year. This was mostly due to economic factors and the winter of 1978-79 would become known as Britain's "Winter of Discontent".

But neither had mattered much to me. 1968 in America was when I landed in a new country and discovered the wonders of reading about science, particularly outer space. 1978 was my carefree prime of youth in which I became reacquainted with my native land. I thought one day about how fortunate I was. Had I been ten years older, the U.S. Government would have treated me to a journey to the tropics of Vietnam as a high school graduation present.

I have always had a disconnect with reality concerning Britain in three different ways.

First of all, is the immigrants. There are those in Britain, as in all European countries, who would like to either limit the number of immigrants or keep them out altogether. As for me, I really only got to know Britain beginning in 1978. The immigrants are part of the landscape, I don't know Britain any other way. The Pakistani newsagent selling newspapers is just as British as the Queen, from my point of view. Perhaps they are even more British because they chose to be British, instead of being born there. Nothing is more of a compliment to a country than to have people that were not born there want to live there.

What is more English than a cup of tea? Yet, tea cannot possibly grow in Britain. It is a foreign crop from distant lands that has been incorporated into Britain. If we can incorporate tea, then why not curry and chapati too?

England was originally a melting pot. The people were a mix of Romans, Vikings, Danes, Anglo-Saxons and Normans. I have always viewed the immigrants of today as just another part of the mix.

My second disconnect concerns the Second World War. I knew factually that this is Europe and this is where that war, that I had read so much about, was fought. But it just didn't seem like that could be true. The only Europe that I have known is the European Union. Britain joined in 1973, five years before I first returned there. Germany is a place where one might go to Hamburg or Berlin on business or to Bavaria on holiday. That war seemed like it must have taken place in another Europe on another planet somewhere.

The third disconnect concerns religion. So much of what I know about Britain has come to me not by being there but by reading about it. I have studied all about the heroics of John Wycliffe and later, William Tyndale in defying the church authorities and getting the Bible translated into the English language so than anyone could read it. I have read all about how enthusiastically England joined the Reformation and the care with which the King James Version of the Bible was produced. A prominent part of the landscape is the old churches and cathedrals everywhere.

The truth is, of course, that the Britain of today is quite secular. I was really shocked to learn that William Tyndale was actually born in Gloucestershire. He had done so much not only to get the Bible translated into English, but to shape the modern English language as a result and, it cost him his life. Yet when I was in Gloucestershire, I do not recall hearing anything about a national hero such as this.

I went all around the area where I had been born. To Monmouth, on the border with Wales. To two local castles, Chepstow and Goodrich and to see horse racing at Chepstow. To see Soudley and Cannop Ponds. To St. Briavels and Newland in the forest. Hereford is another old city with a cathedral that may be as impressive as the one at Gloucester.

My parents had lived at Ross-on-Wye before I was born and I saw why they liked the park along the river at Chippawa so much. It was similar to the park here along the Wye River.

Further away, I went to the famous mansion at Longleat, down in Wiltshire. I found may way through the maze there made of hedges. To a couple of football (soccer) games, one at Hereford and one at West Bromwich, near Birmingham. I spent a week out on the coast of Wales, at the resort of Amroth.

There was a massive birthday party that I was taken to, at a place called The Woodlands. Two guys, both named Steve, were turning eighteen at about the same time so they combined their parties.

There was another party, at the Cinderford Rugby Club. It was memorable because it was where I first heard the song "Double Vision" by Foreigner.

There was the smaller Drybrook Rugby Club close by. One evening, there was a party going on there. The DJ (disc jockey in the days of turntables) was playing records and I noticed a number of people giving him drinks.

Suddenly, the music stopped. The DJ had passed out from drinking too much, too fast and had collapsed onto the turntable.

One day, someone told me that Niagara Falls had been on the news. I thought it was probably some feature about the falls. It wasn't. An entire section of Niagara Falls had to be evacuated because of contamination from chemicals that had been buried there before the houses had been built. It would become known as Love Canal.

Another wonderful thing about England is the food. Genuine fish and chips, done the way it is supposed to be done without trying too much to make it into fast food, is absolutely delicious. There is a treat in England known as Malt Loaf. Whenever I went back to England in the future, that would be one of the first things I would look for. Another good English meal is steak and kidney pie.

Loose tea is more difficult to handle than tea bags, but it does have a better taste. Shandy is a drink which is a mixture of lemonade and beer and was sold in vending machines at the time. There was a candy bar, Turkish Delight, which was a westernized version of the original Turkish Delight and packed in an exotic-looking purple wrapper. If it wasn't truly a delight, I wouldn't take the trouble to write about it here.

Walking around this beautiful countryside or around Gloucester, I trimmed some weight until I was genuinely thin. One day, I noticed that the class ring that my parents had bought me had slipped off my finger and been lost.

In the news, the pope had died another one had been chosen. There was the August 1978 attack on London in which members of the PFLP (Popular Front For Liberation of Palestine) had waited outside the hotel which crew members of El Al, Israel's national airline, used. When a bus of Israelis pulled up in front of the hotel, they had opened fire.

I noticed that Britain's murder rate is low enough so that when there is a murder, it is news in the whole country. In America, a murder is usually just local news.

I did a lot of exercise, usually in the morning. Lots of press-ups (push-ups are called press-ups in Britain) and other exercises. I had not yet become really religious or devoted to academics. I thought that the main purpose of life was to exercise as much as possible and be in the best physical shape possible.

To this day if there is ever a time when I don't feel like working out, all I have to do is crank up you tube or in some other way look at imagery of the Forest of Dean and it brings back the absolutely boundless enthusiasm which I had for physical fitness at this time.

I wanted to stay in Britain and looked into going to an agricultural college or joining the police force.

There was sports on television in Britain all the time. There was only three channels at the time (BBC1, BBC2 and ITV, Independent Television). I watched the movies Roots and Holocaust while I was in Britain. I couldn't resist doing some reading, I bought a world atlas and a book about ancient history.

I was taken to see London for a day. I walked and took photos all around Big Ben and the Parliament building after walking across Westminster Bridge. I walked across Tower Bridge also, but there were just too many people in line at the Tower of London for us to go in. St. Paul's Cathedral was magnificent as was Buckingham Palace and Picadilly Circus.

I watched the changing of the guard that I had seen so many times on television. We went by the tallest structure in Britain, the Post Office Tower (now the British Telecom Tower), but it was closed to visitors. I looked at Windsor Castle from the outside on the way back.

There were people in London from everywhere in the world, both residents and tourists. The only thing that was a shock about London was some of the prices, but the same is true of any big city.

I had my eighteenth birthday party in a really nice place called Starden's Country Club in Newent. It has since been destroyed by fire.

Now, let's get around to the music, some of these songs never made it to North America.

A popular radio station of the time was Radio Luxembourg. This radio station was a story in itself. It broadcast from the European country of Luxembourg and was basically to circumvent BBC regulations and often to play songs that the British Government had banned from the radio. You can read about it yourself online if you wish, such as on wikipedia. There was also the weekly British TV show Top Of The Pops.

There was "Hong Kong Garden" by Siouxsie And The Banshees

"5.7.0.5." by City Boy

"Who Are You" by The Who

"Boogie Oogie, Oogie" by A Taste Of Honey

"Talking In Your Sleep" by Crystal Gayle

"Kiss You All Over" by Exile

"Dreadlock Holiday" by 10cc

"Rat Trap" by the Irish band The Boomtown Rats

"Three Times A Lady" by The Commodores

"Forget About You" by The Motors

"Teenage Kicks" by a band from Northern Ireland called The Undertones

"Sweet Talking Woman" by the Electric Light Orchestra

"Hopelessly Devoted To You" by Olivia Newton John.

No songs remind me of this time in Britain like the Parallel Lines album by Blondie. The band was American, named after it's blond lead singer, Deborah Harry, but was successful in Europe and Australia before it was in America. Three songs, "Picture This", "One Way Or Another" and, "Hanging On The Telephone" were always on the radio.

This time in Britain was really an introduction to the new wave sound in music. It would always remind me of Britain. People here usually used the term "punk rock", rather than new wave, but my understanding is that punk rock is actually a subset of new wave.

I really got a double dose of the soundtrack from Grease. I heard it in the U.S. before leaving for Britain and then found that it was just starting to get a lot of air play in Britain when I arrived.

One evening I went for a ride to Lydney, a town in the southern part of the Forest of Dean, nearer to the Severn River. The ride was memorable because on the way back, I first heard "Rock Lobster" by the B-52s. It was definitely a new type of sound.

Before heading back to the U.S. at the end of October 1978, I got a look in the house where I had been born and spent my early childhood. The house had been expanded. It now had central heating and the fireplaces had been made into shelves. The larder that I used to be shut in as punishment for misbehaviour was now a closet with a shelf.

Then, the news came. The pope that had been chosen only a short time before had died. A new pope was elected. Britain and the rest of Europe was in shock. For the first time in nearly five hundred years, a pope was chosen who was not Italian. The new pope was Polish and the people in Poland looked to be as much in shock as anyone.

There was a terrible accident in Cinderford not long before I left. If I remember correctly, a mother and her two children were killed when their car crashed directly into an oncoming lorry (A British term for a truck).

These three months back in my native England were a very important time to me. I had reconnected with my roots and now felt like a more complete person. I had no doubt that I belonged to a truly great people. Furthermore, I had the advantage of bridging more than one country and wanted to expand on this to better understand the whole world.

This was a very confident time. I did not know what the future held, I planned to attend college back in the U.S. I had gotten thin and wanted to start some serious weight-lifting. But one thing I felt about the future is that it belonged to me.