Share The Sorrow

Each arriving from our own corners of Europe, we gather with Mama around Papa's bedside (See post Share The Moment). From England, there is Sis and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Zara and from Finland there is myself. I have already been in Tenerife four days, Sis has just arrived the previous day after been told that Papa does not have much time left. Zara is now living on the Island with Mama, taking a gap year and immersing herself in her Canarian Island roots. Forty years after Sis and I departed our Island for new lands (see post Share The Moon), Zara has made the journey in the reverse direction. Papa would have been happy. 

It's late October, and outside the hospital room the Autumn sun has already climbed high into a cloudless blue sky, shining gloriously with almost shameless impunity on this saddest of days. Not far away from us, families from their own corners of Europe are sunning themselves on the Island's many beaches, frolicking in the warm Atlantic waters and creating joyful holiday memories. For them the visit to our Island is a moment of carefree existence. For the four women gathered around this hospital bed on a sunny Saturday morning, it is a moment of pain as we Share The Sorrow. Papa is dying.

His breathing is heavy and it pains us to see him in this way. We gather around taking it in turns to hold his hand and whisper in his ear that we are here, that we have returned and that we love him. Gently, Papa awakens and with a flicker of recognition acknowledges our presence, hungrily drinking us in one by one with those mahogany coloured Andalusian eyes that penetrate to the very core of your soul, creating with no spoken words a thousand tender images. His girls have returned to say their last farewell. He is at peace. The nurse asks us to momentarily leave the room whilst she and her colleague carry out their morning duties. We do as we are bid and wait outside in the long corridor until eventually, we return back to Papa's bedside.

Papa is now wearing clean nightclothes and has a calm and serene appearance that we have not seen before. His breathing is no longer laboured, now it is like watching a child peacefully at sleep. He then draws one last shallow breath, closes his eyes and in the flicker of an instant, in the space of an infinitesimal micro-second, is gone. Realisation and along with it immense pain fills us and we clutch one other and begin to weep: It feels incomprehensible that he was here with us just one second ago, but now is gone for eternity. The nurse arrives and tells us that it was a beautiful end. Exactly one hour and twenty minutes have elapsed since our arrival by his bedside. He waited for his loved ones to gather before taking his leave. She sees this so often, and I can see her own eyes welling up as she shares this small comfort with us.

And with Papa's passing I bear witness within the same year to yet another monumental farewell: farewell to a parent, farewell to the end of a twenty-five-year marriage and along with it half a lifetime, and farewell to a family home embedded within its muted walls a million silent memories and a thousand shattered dreams. But the farewell that hurts most is you, Papa. You have gone over to The Other Side, to a better place where old age, illness and pain can no longer ravage your body. But I know that one day we will meet again, and when we do neither of us will feel pain nor sorrow: You will be my young and strong Papa and I will be once more your little girl, sitting on your lap in the caravan at the chicken farm as we recite the new English words of the day in our terrible Spanish accents (see post Watching The English Part I And II). But now is not that time. I am now a Mama myself and still have much to do. Your soul has flown away but your body is still here and we still have one last journey to share together. But before that final journey we have The Wake. 

To be continued.....

Next post 13th January, 2019 : Gathering And Remembering

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.

Share The Moment

It is the present moment, and now a Mama myself, I return to my Island. But one important person is missing. In time, we will revisit the little Spanish girl in new and distant lands, but for now it is today.

The Boeing 737 slowly approaches the runway, sleekly gliding itself onto the tarmac with an almost imperceptible bump. We have reached our destination. The flight from Helsinki to Tenerife has taken almost six hours, and the little Spanish girl who climbed onto a plane back in the 1970's taking her to distant lands with emerald-colored fields has returned home (see post Share The Moon). That distant land was called England and it gave her a new life and a new name (see post A Girl Named Marie), but back on the Island she is once again Mari-Carmen, the same little girl who scoured the skies for storks, eagerly anticipating the delivery of a new baby sister. Over forty years separate that journey from today. Forty years that have discarded along the way eight US Presidents, beginning with Richard Nixon and ending with Barack Obama. Yet it feels like yesterday. But time stops for no one, not even for a little Spanish girl with two names.

Mama meets us at the airport as she often does. Now in her seventies and once again living in Tenerife, she is still as energetic as the young Mama I remembered back in her twenties in the caravan and on the chicken farm (see post Watching The English Part I). Her older brother, Uncle Fernando also in his seventies is with her, and together the four of us embark on the drive to our village on the Southern tip of the island. With me on this journey is my twenty-one-year-old daughter, Sofia. The scenery around us is one of serene beauty and we contemplate our surroundings with gratitude. Gratitude that we are once again in the cradle of our family roots. The sea and sky are both of a magnetic blue and with no clear boundary separating them. Heaven and earth blend together seamlessly in this tiny corner of paradise. After the cold Finnish winter that we have left behind us, the balmy air soothes our skin like warm honey. Mama and I can once again Share The Moon from the same window (see post Share The Moon), and joining us will be the next generation of Sanz women.

We pass by the sprawling Playa de las Américas, 'Beach of the Americas' tourist resort, its origins as a clandestine departure point for undocumented passengers stowing away on furtive boats to South America largely forgotten by locals, and completely unknown to the colossal mass of visitors that populate its hotels year after year. And once again I am that little girl, running up and down an empty swimming pool in this yet-to-be-born resort, revelling in the luxury of untainted childhood innocence (see post Share The Moon).

It feels therapeutic being back on my beach and closing the circle with my own child. The sun shines high in the sky, and the waves crash powerfully onto the black sand just as they did when I was a four-year old enjoying a family picnic with Mama, Papa and my many Sanz cousins (see post Share The Moon). Now I am here with my own daughter. The sands of time have trickled away, and with it have slowly vanished the buds of youth and innocence, but for my beach time has stood still and it feels like I have never been away. I wish I could meet with Papa and Share The Moment with him. I would tell him that I am well, that his grand-daughter, Sofia is with me on the beach on this day and at this moment, that her older brother Hugo is back home in Finland writing his thesis for the final part of his Masters  Degree and planning his forthcoming wedding to Julia, that they are both immensely proud of their Spanish heritage. But I cannot say any of this, because Papa is no longer with us.

That strong man who once comforted me on his lap when I was tormented at school for being different, for coming from my Island (see post B Is For Bullied), is now looking down upon his family from above. His pioneering years were spent living among the English, but the pull of home was too strong to resist and he spent the twilight years back home on Our Island. One complete year separates our final farewell, yet on this beach yesterday, today and tomorrow all fuse together into one timeless entity with neither beginning nor end, and in my mind, I am drawn back to that last goodbye.

To be continued......

Next post 30th December:  Share The Sorrow


Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.

B Is For Bullied

Mrs Jones has just given me a new English name and I am bursting with happiness (see post A Girl Named Marie), but all this excitement is forgotten after the playtime break that soon follows. My class mate, Richard is not at school today and I miss him in the playground; now I don't have anybody to play kiss chase with (see post This Lion Can Talk), and some of the girls and boys from my class notice that I am standing alone. Before I realize what is happening, they have circled me and start to call me names. I do not understand what they are saying but I know it’s not nice. They are laughing at my brown skin, at my long black wavy hair, and at my earrings. I already noticed back on my first day at school that I was the only girl in the class wearing earrings, and now they are taunting me about it. 

I want to tell them that back on my Island (see post Share The Moon), all new-born baby girls have their ears pierced so that when the Mama shows off her new baby to the other Mamas in the village, you only need look at the baby's ears to see if it is a boy or girl. Otherwise, each time a Mama left home she would be saying a thousand times a day, 'It's a girl!' or 'It's a boy!' to every single person she met, and she would be exhausted before she even got to the end of the lane! When everyone knows that a baby girl has earrings and a baby boy doesn't, the Mama can save her energy to talk with the other Mamas about more important things, such as what they will be cooking for la cena, supper that evening. Mama proudly tells me that my ears were pierced when I was just three days old: Grandma Filomena, Abuela, passes a threaded, sterilised needle through each of my tiny, soft ear lobes as I obliviously nurse at Mama's breast. She then creates two small thread hoops on each of my ears which become my first set of earrings. After a while when my ears have healed, the cotton hoops are replaced by golden studs. From the tender age of three days I have never been without earrings. Just as my long black hair, they form an inseparable part of my identity and who I am.

I know that even if I could form the words to share all this with the boys and girls surrounding me, they would not be interested because they are not from my Island and would not understand. Now they start to laugh at the short sleeves on the jumper that I have already started to outgrow and I do not know why they do this. If I knew a girl who had clothes that did not fit her, I would ask Mama if she could give her some of my clothes to wear just as Jane’s Papa did for me (see post Watching The English Part III). I am suddenly ashamed of my brown skin, of my long and dark wavy hair, of my earrings and of my clothes that no longer fit. I want to look like everyone else in my school but I know that I cannot because I am from my Island and they are from here. Once again I jump onto my magic carpet and fly away, and the taunts of the girls and boys do not hurt me because my body is here but my soul is elsewhere (see post Watching The English Part III). After playtime, I walk back to class, take off my earrings and put them away in my pocket. Many years will pass before I wear them again.

After school when we are back in the caravan the happiness of my new name is forgotten and I share with Mama and Papa what happened at playtime. The tears begin to flow in abundance, and amidst my sobs Papa scoops me up with his giant hands and sits me on his lap. He lifts my chin with his hand so that I am looking straight into his big brown eyes and resolutely tells me, ‘Don’t ever let anyone think that they are better than you. Never, ever be ashamed of your roots. Spanish blood flows in your veins, be proud of who you are.’ And I think to myself, it’s easy for Papa to say these things when he’s not circled by abusive chickens on ‘The Tea Break’ (see post Watching The English Part I And II),  all taunting him because his skin is too dark, or because the sleeves of his overalls are too short, or because he cannot pronounce the words, 'wom-aaan', 'vehiii-cle’or 'pe-ooople' correctly. What do chickens know about being Spanish or English? Nothing at all! All they care about is their next feed. ‘Lucky Papa,’ I think to myself. I look at his big brown eyes and realise that I have the same brown eyes and I am ashamed of many things but I will never be ashamed of my eyes because they are from Papa. After a while my sadness subsides and Papa’s wise words make me feel better. 

We are on the chicken farm for what seems like an eternity but in reality a little over one year has elapsed since our arrival in this new land, and on an ordinary day like any other Papa tells us we will all soon be leaving Banbury and the chicken farm. We will be moving to a new town near a big city called London and there Papa will work on pig farm. 'How can I have such a clever Papa?’ I think to myself, ‘From chickens to pigs! What will it come to next, horses?’  One day in late 1971 we pack all our belongings and move onto the next stage of our life in England. We move to a town called Brentwood and Richard, the English boy with the cobalt-blue eyes with whom I shared that magical first playground kiss (see postThis Lion Can Talk), disappears from my life and we never meet again.


To be continued...


Next post 16th December : Share The Moment


Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.

A Girl Named Marie

In the mornings before we begin our lessons, Mrs Jones reads out the names of all the children in class in alphabetical order. It's called Taking The Register and I am captivated listening to a whole line of wondrous new English names, Peter, Andrew, Michael, Paul, Jane, Sarah, Helen, Amanda. If this were a school back on my Island (see post Share The Moon),  it would be packed with Marias: Maria Dolores, Maria de los Angeles, Maria del Rosario, Maria Agustina, Maria del Sol, Maria de las Mercedes, Maria Elena, Maria José. In my class today there is just one Maria, she is called Maria del Carmen, and that is me. 

Mrs Jones calls out my name, Maria. I want to put my hand up to tell her that I have two names that are one and that Maria is not my name. But I don’t have the words inside me in this strange new language that they call English, so I just put up my hand and say in a small voice, Mari-Carmen. I want to tell Mrs Jones that Mama, Papa and everyone else back on my Island call me Mari-Carmen and that they say, Maria del Carmen only when I have been very naughty or when Mama is calling me in from the playing outside in the street. But I cannot say that either so put my hand down after I have said my name in Spanish and she carries onto the next name on The Register.

Mrs Jones does not realise how lucky she is that she is Taking The Register here in England and not on my Island back in Spain. If she were to call out Maria there, at least half of the girls in the class would all shout out in unison, 'Presente Señorita!', Here, Miss!' and it would cause utter pandemonium. How could she then tell which Maria is which? This is why we all sensibly have two names that are one! The following day at register when Mrs Jones gets to my name, she calls out Mary. 'I am not Mary!'  I think with indignation. Mrs Jones clearly still does not understand that I have two names that are one. If she won’t call me by my two names, then at least she can call by the first part of it and I reply Mari. Once again, Mrs Jones carries onto the next name on The Register. 

Back home I tell Mama about Mrs Jones and the names she has tried to give me that I don't like. Mama says that she originally planned to call me Gladys but the village priest would not allow it as it was not a Catholic name so her and Papa had no option but to think of another name and fast. They hurriedly settled on Maria del Carmen as it was Mama's second name and not dissimilar to the name of my other Grandma, Abuela Maria Dolores. She is Papa's Mama and lives on the Spanish mainland in a place we call La Peninsula. La Peninsula is a strange and unknown place for me and so far away from my Island that it may as well be in another world. I call it The Other Planet. Mama tells me the story of how I got my name with a hint of irritation in her voice. She wanted to call me Gladys but the priest got his Catholic way and here I am as Maria del Carmen. Most of the first-born daughters in the village are called Maria-something-or-other, Mama tells me. 'That priest has a lot to answer for', she mutters under her breath. 


We have a new school day, and when Mrs Jones gets to my name on The Register she calls me Marie. Now I like this! It’s closer to my Spanish name than anything else Mrs Jones has used, and I love the way it rolls effortlessly off my Spanish tongue, Mari-ee! I am bursting with happiness, now I have a new English name to join Jane, Sarah, Helen and Amanda, and as soon as I get back home to the caravan I will tell Mama and Sis all about it. Then they too will want their own English names. But all this excitement is forgotten after the playtime break that soon follows.      


To be continued....


Next post 2nd December : B Is For Bullied

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.

This Lion Can Talk

I am now a seven-year-old schoolgirl in England and share my first kiss with Richard, but this happy event is soon eclipsed by tears.  


It's school time and for some of the lessons we are separated into small groups painting, cutting and decorating pieces of large cardboard and paper. I have now learnt enough English (see post B Is For Bun) to understand Mrs Jones telling us that we will all be making our own costume masks for a school play called ‘Noah’s Ark'. I have no idea who Noah is, or for that matter what is a play, but all the children in the class seem to know and are dead excited and their enthusiasm is infectious, so I am carried along with them on a collective wave of eager anticipation.

Mrs Jones divides us up into groups of two and tells me that I am going to be a lion along with my class mate, Richard. I am happy about this because I like Richard and Richard likes me. During playtime we sometimes kiss. It's part of a game called 'kiss chase'. I never knew that such a game existed and this is how it goes: a boy that likes you chases you around the playground, and once you have been caught he kisses you. You must pretend that you really don't want to be kissed, whereas of course you really do. I always make sure that I run slowly enough for Richard to catch me. He can chase any girl he wants but I have counted that he saves most of his kisses for me. Richard’s eyes are cobalt-blue and of a colour that I have never seen before. Everyone back on my Island has brown eyes just like me and the eyes of this English boy remind me of two big blue skies (see post Share The Moon). Living in this new land called England clearly comes with certain benefits such as being kissed by boys with blue eyes! During these lessons, Richard and I sit side by side and decorate big brown paper bags that will fit over our heads so that we will both look like lions.

Week after week we work hard on our project turning an ordinary looking brown paper bag into a lion’s mask. We cut out a space for the eyes, paint on ears, a nose, a mouth and then finally we carefully glue on individual pieces of straw around the edge of the bag to represent a flowing golden mane. I work next to Richard and we both excitedly look forward to the moment when we can put on our lion masks and take our place on the stage. Two lions side by side, one with blue eyes and one with brown. The other children are all equally excitedly as they work on their own creations. There will be pairs of everything walking on the stage together, Mrs Jones tells us; two lions, two giraffes, two elephants, two tigers, two bears, two monkeys, to which Richard interjects, ‘Miss, how do they all fit inside one boat?' Actually, that's just what I am also thinking, but I cannot find the words in English to express myself so am happy that Richard asks also on my behalf. Mrs Jones addresses him firmly and says, ‘Richard, please do not interrupt me when I am talking.' I take this to mean that she also does not know how they will all fit into one boat, because this is exactly what Grandma Filomena, Mama's  Mama would to say to me back on my Island when I would ask her a question that she could not answer (see post Share The Moon).

The day of the play finally arrives and Mrs Jones tells us that after lunch we will put on our masks for the play. We all excitedly walk to the classroom to fetch our precious creations and prepare to put them on. Richard’s mask is on the table where he left it before lunch but mine is no longer there. It is nowhere to be seen us. I scour the room with great care and finally spot my mask on another girl whose name I do not know. I don't understand what is happening. It's my mask, yet she has taken it without asking! Why didn't Mrs Jones stop her? And there she now goes walking on stage holding hands with Richard in his own mask. Tears of indignation well up inside me and my little seven-year-old body trembles with emotion. Mrs Jones clearly thinks that I do not understand English well enough to follow instructions so has given my mask and part to somebody else! The play is a blur as I try to fight an overwhelming wall of tears. Parents in the audience happily look out for their children and try to spot them behind their masks. Mama and Papa are not there. It's not their fault, they do not know that even though it's school time parents can come to the school and see their children up on the stage in this way. I never heard of something such as this at school back on my Island.

After the performance is over, the school day is finished and Papa comes to collect me as he usually does. Together we walk back to the farm and to the caravan, and with me is my precious mask which I will proudly show to Mama and Sis, but I am still too sad to tell Papa what happened so don't say very much. I still like Mrs Jones, but if I could say something to her it would be that, I may not speak but I am not stupid and This Lion Can Talk.

To be continued.....

Next post 18th November : A Girl Named Marie


Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.

B is For Bun

It's a sunny morning in early September and in the caravan Mama is helping me to get ready for my first day at school. After I have got dressed she brushes my long black hair until it shines and then gathers it into two tidy pony tails. I put on my small coat and then take Papa's hand in mine and together we step out of the door and embark on my new journey. Once again, my school is at the end of a lane, only this time the walk is longer and Papa has obtained permission from the farm owner to walk with me there and back every day. This is the second time in my life that I start school. Last time it was in a language that I knew and understood. This time around it will be different (see post Share The Moon).

After a walk where neither of us say very much we finally arrive at the school building. Papa and I wait in the hallway until a nice lady comes up to us and introduces herself as my new teacher. Her name is Mrs Jones and she wears glasses and has a kind face. I don't understand a word of what she says to Papa but she smiles warmly at me and I like her instantly. We follow her into an empty room and Mrs Jones shows me where my desk will be. Papa bids me good-bye and promises to return in the afternoon to walk me back home to the security of Mama and Sis in the caravan. And there I am, seated at my desk with my little feet nervously fidgeting under the table wondering what this new day had in store for me. The only person who understands my language has just disappeared and suddenly I feel very alone. The other children soon arrive and all look at me. It's always hard being the new girl but even harder when you cannot say anything to anyone. Luckily when you are not quite seven it's not so bad, you just smile and talk with your eyes.

Each day for an hour Mrs Jone's assistant, Mrs Watts, takes me away from the other children to a separate corner of the classroom where I can learn this new language called English that everybody else already seems to know so well. 'How clever they all are!' I think to myself. During our private daily lessons, we cover a new letter of the alphabet. Today we look at the letter B. We have B for Bun and B for Bus. There is a small toy bus on the table as well as a bun filled soft, juicy raisins poking out of it. We soon pass the letter B and every day there is a new set of words for me to learn but that bun still remains on the table. I have never seen such a thing in my life, and on some days I feel an enormous temptation to take a bite out of it, but of course I never do.

Soon we are up to G for Girl and G for Gate. By now the bun is a hard rock and the fresh raisins have become black shrivelled dots and, on all but on the hungriest of days, my temptation to take a bite of it has disappeared. I gradually learn to read English from simple books called 'Janet and John'. This new world of literature captivates me. I never knew that such a thing as books existed and hungrily devour Janet and John’s adventures one after the other and along with it this new language. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that children could do such marvellous things such as bake a cake, or go on a trip to a place called a zoo to look at animals in cages. Each morning, after my hour of special classes is over I re-join the other children for their regular lessons. Every day I understand more and more of the conversations around me and, one day ,I tell myself, I will talk.

To be continued....

Next post 4th November : This Lion Can Talk         



Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.

Watching The English Part III

It’s raining and wet outside the caravan so I play indoors with Sis. Playing with a Sis who is not quite two when you yourself are already six is rather boring but there is nothing else to do. Mama tells me it's Summer but it feels way colder than any winter I can remember back on my island. I am getting tired of all these continuous changes and want to go back to my old familiar life but gradually I realize that this old life has gone for ever. I look at Sis playing innocently with her dolls in the middle of the caravan floor and I see that she does not have within her the beach, the sun nor the mountains as I do. It must be nice being not quite two and having this moment as your oldest memory. She does not have inside her the wave of sadness that washes over me as I yearn for the life that I had before this one (see post Share The Moon)

At night-time, unbeknown to Mama and Papa, I escape on my magic carpet and return home. I fly back over the patchwork of emerald coloured fields that stretched out before me on my arrival in this strange land, I turn down towards the warm waters of the Atlantic, skirting the coast of Africa, over the mountains and back to my beautiful Island. And there I am once again on my beach, listening to the roar of the waves as they crash on the shoreline, feeling the hot black sand on the soles of my bare feet, and the power of the scorching sun on my little six-year old face. I look up and see the majestic Teide volcano in the distance, silently watching over me as it did on the day of my birth and it’s a safe and warm feeling.‘ Mari Carmen ! We’ve missed you, where have you been?’ the mountains, the sun and the beach all ask me in unison. But I am too busy to answer for I have already jumped into the warm Atlantic waters, and after I have had my fill I lay on the black sand and dry off in the hot sun. After a while I fall asleep, and when I wake up I am once again in the land of chickens. 

One day Papa brings me a bag full of girls' clothes. One of his English co-workers has kindly given Papa the clothes his daughter has grown out of so that I have warm clothing for the coming winter. Papa tells Mama that this man is one of the Supervisors or 'Foremen' as they call him in English and this entitles him to certain privileges such as the first cup of tea and biscuit on 'The Tea Break' (see post Watching The English Part I And II). Jumpers, trousers and jackets are exotic things for me and I love trying everything on. I tell Mama it's a fashion show and she and Sis clap and laugh and I try out one outfit after another, swaggering up and down the caravan with my little girl hands on my little girl hips pretending to be a model. After the sadness, it feels good to laugh again.

The following week the same man brings his daughter to the farm so that I have a companion to play with. Her name is Jane and she is eight. We don’t have a language in common but when you are six and eight it’s not so not essential. We become friends and whenever her father brings her to the farm, we spend the day roaming and exploring our farm world. So long as we do not get in the way of the grown-ups, we can go where ever we want. And we do. We peek into the area where the adorable baby chicks are hatched, then onto the coops and cages where they are fed and fattened, and finally we silently pass the area where they are slaughtered and plucked clean for packaging and selling. We both understand the terrible fate that awaits the innocent baby chickens we were playing with earlier in the day. They are happily ignorant of their destiny and it’s better that way. For the first of many times in my life, I realize that it’s often better not to know what the future holds. Knowledge can bring with it terrible pain. The chicken farm also has horses and fields, and on sunny days when we are fed up with chickens we buy an ice cream from the farm shop with some of the wonky money I have saved. We then sit on a haystack and watch the horses prancing in the fields as we lick our melting ice creams. Jane and I have no language in common but we both understand the value of ice-cream on a hot day. I look up at the sun shining high in the sky above the two of us and realize that this same sun is shining at this very moment high in the sky above my Island and over my beach. Suddenly my old home does not feel so far away (see post Share The Moon).

The very next day a nicely dressed lady knocks on the door of the caravan and asks to speak with Mama and Papa. We don’t understand everything she says in detail so she goes away and soon returns with the owner of the farm. He explains to Papa in simple English who then explains to Mama and me in Spanish that starting next month I must go to school. We arrived in England back in early May and it's already the end of August. I must go to school, and it will be in English, a language that I hardly know. I am soon turning seven and am not sure how to take this. 

To be continued......

 Next post 21st October, 2018 : B Is For Bun

 Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.

Watching The English Part I And II

The year is 1970 and the month is May. In that faraway place called America Richard Nixon has been 37th President of The United States for just over one year and the Vietnam War is at its peak. But this detail does not touch us in any way, for our energies are concentrated on adapting to a new life on this strange new island called England, and on this chicken farm that we now call Home. All four of us are now living near to a big town called Banbury and behind us we have left the only life we have ever known, life on our Island (see post Share The Moon). Our new Home is now a mobile caravan in the middle of an enormous farm in the village of Bloxham. Papa works with chickens and Mama looks after us. I am used to running around outdoors with the sun warming my skin and the beach on my doorstep, but somehow here it all feels so different. The mobile home is rudimentary with only a small electric stove in the main room for heating and after the warmth of Tenerife even the British summer feels cold. 

On this chicken farm, we are surrounded by chickens day in and day out. Papa works with them, we play with them, we eat them.  After a while we are all sick and tired of chicken, we need some bread. Luckily the farm has its own shop so Mama decides it’s time to pay a visit. Mama does not know the word in English for bread, or for anything else for that matter, so she cannot ask anyone for assistance. She will just have to find the bread herself. Easier said than done: Mama steps inside the store and resolutely starts looking around for bread but cannot for the life of her find anything remotely resembling a French stick. All she can see in one corner are mountains of milk-coloured square sponge cakes which have all been neatly sliced and packaged into rectangular plastic bags. Out of curiosity Mama squeezes one of these packed sponges and sniffs the bag trying to see what flavour it is.  This is of no help and she shrugs her shoulders thinking to herself, ‘Strange sponge cake, doesn't smell of anything!’ This is Mama's first encounter with English sliced bread. She brings a loaf home and we are puzzled. We have never seen such a thing in all our life but that's all we have and soon we have forgotten all about the delicious crusty French sticks we used to get from the baker's van back in our village in Tenerife.

In the evenings after work we gather as a family in our new caravan home, and Papa studies this new language that none of us really understand. He has a dictionary, a work book and some tape cassettes that he puts into a square machine called a cassette player. Every evening he listens to a set of new words pronounced by a man with a lovely voice and then repeats them after him as best he can in his thick Spanish accent. Today he learns the words ‘wom-aaan’, ‘vehiii-cle’and 'peooo-ple'. I sit with Papa and follow his example and they are also the first words I ever learn in this strange new language. Later I overhear Papa telling Mama about this thing called ‘The Tea Break’: 

Every day Papa and his English co-workers must stop everything they are doing and go into the little kitchen off the meat packaging area and prepare a hot drink called tea. They do it for exactly twenty minutes twice a day, once in the morning and once again in the afternoon. They all gather round an electric machine called a kettle that boils hot water very fast and wait for their beloved drink to appear. After the tea has been prepared, they pass around biscuits to go with it and then talk happily with one another until 'The Tea Break' finishes and all return back to work. After the strong coffee from Spain Papa finds the taste of tea hard to get used to and tells Mama it looks and tastes a bit like dishwater. He tells Mama they huddle around the kettle and look forward to ‘The Tea Break’ like little children, even more than lunch time and he can’t really understand why. If they were to take away the tea break, it would cause a mutiny. ‘Never mess with an Englishman and his tea break,' he solemnly tells Mama. 

On a Saturday afternoon when Papa is not working, we all venture into the big nearby town of Banbury to see how the English live outside of chicken farms. We are shocked to see weddings where the bride and groom are old. There they stand outside the church happily posing for the photographer with their guests as if old people getting married is the most natural thing in the world. 'Don’t they feel embarrassed?' we think to ourselves. Mama tells Papa they each look at least forty and that the only weddings she ever saw in the Spain were those where the bride and groom were both young. Mama is twenty-six and Papa thirty-one and that for me is already old. I cannot understand for the life of me why these ancient people are bothering to get married because soon they will both be dead. If I could speak English I would go up to the guests and tell them they can wipe those smiles off their faces, because soon they will all be returning for two funerals!

Even the money is strange in this country. Some of the coins have corners on them and I am perplexed by this. I am used to coins being round. Within the year of our arrival in this strange land they will change all their money over to a new system called 'Decimalisation'. But they will still not get rid of the wonky coins. The English and their lifestyle are indeed strange, I conclude as we return to the chicken farm from one of our weekend jaunts into town: they get married old, feed each other sliced sponge cakes that taste of nothing, wash it down with dishwater and then pay for it all with wonky money. I will never understand these English, I think to myself.  

To be continued......

 Next post 7th October: Watching The English Part III

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.