Family Travels

My parents traveled extensively before & after I was born, so "home" was a moving target. This probably fed my childhood (& subsequently adult) insecurities, and also helped shape my world view in many ways. I don't remember the country I was born in, as I left it before I was a year old. I never attended the same school for a full three years until I reached university: if we did not move there was another reason to attend a different school. I have lived my adult life away from the country of my parents birth: my parents emigrated to the United States when I was nine. Not too unusual in this day and age, but still not the norm.

University of Aberdeen coat of arms

I don't know how or when my parents first met, but they probably met in Aberdeen, where my mother graduated from University in 1948, and took a job as a journalist. My father was already married, to Scottish born Jessie Grant, when they met. That marriage ended quickly: his first wife returned to her first love, who had been presumed lost during the war (W.W.II), keeping custody of their young daughter Ann.

My parents married in Scotland, on April 15th, 1950. At the time of the wedding my father was employed by the British Colonial Service, as a Schools Broadcasting Coordinator, and they left for Singapore soon afterwards. They stayed mostly overseas until 1959, living in Alexandria, Egypt, Omdurman & Khartoum in the Sudan, and in Awali, Bahrain.

My mother returned to her home town of Kirkcudbright Scotland for the birth of her first child, my sister Jocelyn, in 1951, and again in 1957 for the birth of her third child, my younger brother Harold. However I was born overseas, in Alexandria, Egypt.

My attended her first years of school overseas, but by the time I started school, my mother was tired of overseas living, and she bought a house in her home town of Kirkcudbright, where we lived for only a few years.

My parents Cambridge University linen tea towel

In 1961, the family moved to Cambridge, England, where we lived until August, 1964 at 35 Alpha Road. This is very close to the University of Cambridge, but I don't think we were part of university life. My father may have taught at a technical school nearby, or he may have still been working in broadcasting. Although we lived in the same house while in Cambridge, I attended two primary schools, as my parents felt we would be better off at Newnham Croft School, rather than nearby Milton Road Primary.


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