Continued from Part 1

Boarding the ship with our meager possessions was not hard at all. We already had tickets and our trunk and other luggage had already been checked in. So had Melody, our dog who would not be allowed to stay with us but would be kenneled in a special place on the main deck. BTW, the US does not have any quarantine laws so we would all be reunited upon arrival. We made our long slow walk up the gangplank waving to the crowds there to see others off. It mattered not that they didn’t know us or us them as they seemed to understand the finality of what those boarding were about to undertake. Stiff upper lip and all of that. I stopped to think of the thousands of others who had made this one way trip before us and marveled at the way of the world and humanity in general. We really are an adaptable race.

Our cabin was one of the cheapies and below decks inside and without a porthole. It really didn’t matter as we didn’t plan on spending too much time in it. We had sleeping arrangements for the six of us and not much else except a bathroom, of course. We boarded on March 6th, 1967 for a voyage that was planned to take six days. Immediately we were aboard, we visited Melody in the Kennel deck to make sure she was OK before joining those at the guardrail waving to the people still on the dock with some still boarding. In a remarkably short time, they hauled in the gangplank and the ship was underway. We learned later that the staff and crew outnumbered the passengers as the heyday of trips across the ocean in a big ship were coming to a end. We remained on deck to watch as the tug boats busily pushed and hauled the big old ship out into the harbor for the trip out into the sea and we stayed there as the coast of England gradually slipped out of sight with no one, not even Lesley, the youngest, saying a word. It was as though everyone knew that it was goodbye for the very last time.

We spent what remained of the daylight exploring the huge ship. There were some areas that were off limits to us below deck passengers as the class distinction was alive and well but on the whole we could walk and visit most everywhere. We took full advantage of that exercising as much as we could and keeping Melody company. The cabins were set up as sleeping quarters with a bathroom and room to sit and relax. With six of us, it was pretty crowded which is why we spent so much time exploring the ship. It had a swimming pool and other forms of entertainment like shuttle board and croquet. The meals were out of this world with a huge selection of just about everything and we as a family made the most of them. Some of the food was truly exotic and we got our first taste of the American addiction to drinking coffee. Tea was available if you wanted it along with many other beverages. If you wanted liquor, you had to pay for it. The night time entertainment was fabulous and kept us all amused.

 We even had one of those “ships that pass in the night” things when we met another ship going in the opposite direction. The Captain announced it so that the passengers could crowd the rails and wave to the other passengers. It was kind of weird watching that ship disappear into the night and then we were left alone on that big ocean. I have always had a fear of water and the unknown things that lurk under the surface so being at sea for me was not the most comfortable thing in the world. Shades of Titanic.

We befriended a couple who were heading back to Connecticut for the second time after having been over once before. For them, they got homesick for the old country and did in reverse what we were doing, selling all of their stuff and headed back to England. but for whatever reasons, England didn’t work out for them so here they were, making the trip for the second time returning to what they had previously left. They could not put into words exactly why they reversed themselves and headed back except that they enjoyed the American way of life more.

That was until around the fourth day out when the weather changed to rain with a stronger wind and the ship began to lurch and sway along with it. You would be walking the stairs in either direction and the stair treads would either come up to meet your foot on your next step or would drop away causing a loss of balance. It was impossible to walk in a straight line as the ship swayed and lurched. I should mention that in one of the many outfitting’s done to this grand old lady, stabilizers were added to help compensate. I would hate to think what it was like before the addition as they certainly didn’t help much or maybe they did and we couldn’t notice the difference. When in the dining room at meal times, as the ship lurched, plates and food would slide off the tables or pile up in an ungodly mess keeping the wait staff very busy. It was quite funny to watch people trying to grab as much as they could. The food of course was free and the kids took full advantage of it that is until the weather got progressively worse. We soon discovered that my step son William and myself were only ones who could keep our food down and it wasn’t long before the women of the family retired to the cabin never to re emerge until we were pulling into New York Harbor. William and I would bring them back food but invariably it ended up in the toilet.

Because of the stormy weather, we were blown off course and landed a day later than we were supposed to. I have a picture of the family standing on the deck, except I can’t find it, watching as the Statue of Liberty came into view and we slowly cruised by. The expression on all of their faces including my wife was of total shock and disbelief as they realized exactly just what was going on. We were no longer in England but in the United States of America and there was no turning back Up until now, it had been a great adventure until the reality of the moment sank in.

We were ushered into the famous Pier 13 by the ever present and busy tugboats and passengers began to line up on deck waiting for the gangplank to be lowered. We opted to wait a bit before making that move until the rush had subsided. We retrieved Melody and walked down the gangplank for the very last time, glad to be on terra firma and made our way to the check out area to find our luggage. It took a while and all the time we could see the lines of people as friends and relatives waited for those they came to meet. I spotted my Mother in the crowd mainly because she was waving so furiously. She was with a stranger who I did not recognize.

We finally were allowed through and we greeted each other with open arms. After all, it had been a long time and I was only 11 years old the last time I saw her and now I was 32 years old and all grown up. She, on the other hand was a woman that I recognized by a photograph. I could barely remembers what she looked like back then but had seen plenty of pictures in the time since so the women hugging me was no real stranger. I introduced her to Valerie and one by one, the kids. They all gave her a hug and called her Grandma which I could tell pleased her to no end. Finally, the other gentleman stepped forward and introduced himself as Harold Warner, a friend of the family that my Mother had hired to make the 200 mile drive from Fort Plain to the City. One reason was that he had a bigger car than Herman, my stepfather and my Mothers Husband. Herman was the GI from the Second World War that had stolen her heart enough for her to leave for a whole new life in the USA. Harold’s car was big, the biggest I had ever seen. It was a Ford Station Wagon which could easily seat all of us and Melody and all of our luggage, some of which was strapped on the roof including the by now, famous trunk. The 200 mile drive which was at night was uneventful except for the Tractor Trailers that came roaring by at 80 mph. I had never seen anything that big as many were hauling doubles and all lit up like Christmas trees.

Hermie and my Mother lived in an old farmhouse that Hermie was born and brought up in along with his brother Clark who lived in a separate house about 100 yards away. Clark was a confirmed bachelor with his love of his livestock greater than for any woman. My Mother had the upstairs remodeled to make it livable with a big old wood stove for heat and that would be our home for the next few months while we were getting established. That night, March 13, 1967, it snowed 13 inches of wet snow to welcome us to this great country. Oh the irony of it all, emigrate here to get away from the rain only to run into a lot of snow all at one time. The next day, I was out shoveling the bloody stuff to clear the driveway as the kids and Melody played in it. At least, they were not fazed by it. My Mother already had a job lined up for me on the Maintenance Staff at a cloth factory in a little town named Fonda. I stayed with it using my many construction talents including welding steam pipelines until I joined the Bricklayers Union and started earning real money. I forgot to mention that I served as an apprentice Bricklayer back in the old country and I could lay a lot of brick in a short space of time. Much to my dismay, the Union frowned on speed and I had to make a lot of adjustment working to the slowest man on the line. In the end, the Foreman partnered me with an older and slower bricklayer and together we would work on a project. I usually outpaced him around at least 5 -1, sometimes more which benefitted both the older bricklayer and the Foreman. It was on that job that I first ran into discrimination when one of the other workers started picking on me for being an immigrant. A few words were said and the Foreman instantly fired the other guy for which I was very grateful. Not that the guy lost his job but for the fact that the Foreman stood up for me and would not tolerate any form of discrimination. I stayed at that job for a few months but it was a long drive everyday so I found work closer to home. I advertised in the local paper for work I could do on weekends and it wasn’t long before I decided that I had enough of working for someone else and opened up my own construction company in Fort Plain. We did pretty good for almost 5 years before I ran into trouble with the IRS and closed the business down. I then found a job with a Pipeline Company and had to drive 50 or so miles to Albany everyday which soon got old so I rented an apartment and stayed the week coming home on weekends. It came as no surprise that my marriage was failing but I was too bloody stupid to recognize it. Finally, it fell apart and I moved out permanently after 10 years of living in Fort Plain and eventually ended up in Texas with Susan, my third and final wife.

My first impression of America was that everything was big and that people talked funny with an accent so different from what I was used to. Over the years, that has not changed that much as everything is still big but I have grown used to the accents and am full of wonder to hear an English accent. Now, 54 years later, I am alone with two little dogs for company. As I mentioned earlier, Valerie, after our divorce made several visits to England finally moving back to live there full time. She had trouble in settling here in the US and was very homesick. She died there in 2018 at the age of 85 back in the land that she loved. She had never adjusted to the American way of life. Her son William, my stepson, has made several trips but none since 2018. Alison, one of my step kids who was a nurse, died in 2014. She was 58 and unfortunately died of Alcoholism. She could never get over her husband divorcing her. Both my Mother and Stepfather are dead, my Mother from natural causes at the age of 95 and my stepfather from cancer. He was in his late 70’s. My Oldest Brother, Norman and his family followed by my Sister Peggy and her family all ended up here living in Fort plain in later years so my Mothers quest to bring over her entire family was a success. Both Norman and Peggy have passed on leaving me as the only surviving original transplant. Harold the driver whom incidentally rented us a house just after we moved to Fort Plain also passed on. Melody lasted 14 years and was my best friend. She accompanied everywhere when I ran my own Construction business.

Catherine, William and Leslie are all alive and well with the girls living in Fort Plain and William, the most successful of all of us is a Doctor, married to a Doctor and with a family living in Houston.

My Thoughts in Retrospect.

I have tried to keep this blog and the preceding one as details and descriptions of the actual journey leading to this point in time. Obviously, what followed in the next 44 years are subject to other blogs both here and on my previous blog site at https://pondblog2011.com/ with many stories of the years within that time frame and a lot left to be written. If you, the reader were to ask me regarding this move, it would go something like this.
Do I regret all that has happened in these past 54 years and of course, there is no yes/no or black/white answer. I would say this, although America has been kind to me in so many ways both financially and memoratively, I still have many regrets for making the move. I miss a lot about the old country that America, for all of its wealth and prosperity can never replace. The fact that I failed at three marriages two of which were exasperated by living in this country really is nothing to be proud of. I missed not watching my two boys grow up into the successful men they are today or getting to know their families. Maybe I wouldn’t like the present day England as my memories are of one I left 54 years ago. As for my time in America, it has been a strange bag with a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. But, here I am and here I will remain until I die which hopefully, is still way down the road. I still have more adventures to follow and write about…Oh yes, I still dislike the cold rain but this being Texas, we can never get enough of it.

Written 03/20/2021

After celebrating my 54th year of arriving in this great country by publishing a blog recounting that trip that can be viewed here, I got to thinking that the trip alone and all of the surrounding events are worth writing about.

As you can imagine, coming to such a life changing decision in the first place was no easy event and required considerable thinking by the family to arrive at. For starters, several factors were in play leading us to even think about such a move and leaving behind the life that we had all grown up with. I had a good job with a pipeline company, William Press and Sons that did occasionally take me away from home but other than that, I had established roots in the small town of Hailsham. We owned a small house that we purchased brand new which was home to myself, my wife Valerie and four kids, three from my wife’s previous marriage. They were Catherine the oldest, Alison and William, the youngest and Leslie who was our daughter. There was also a cocker spaniel dog named Melody who had to be included in our planning. I say owned and what I meant was that we had a mortgage which we had worked hard to attain. So, I had a good job and my wife stayed home and was a housewife in every sense of the word, not a bit unusual back in the day. I was the breadwinner and sole provider.

I drove a Mini Station wagon and my work on the pipeline company took me anywhere up to 40 miles away on a daily basis. Anything further than that required overnight lodgings on a weekly basis as there were no Thruways or high speed roads to talk of. As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time on the road leaving early in the morning and arriving home late at night but generally worked a 5 day week. There would be times when road crossings or gas connections needed to be done at night or even on weekends requiring additional time away from home. I still found time to play for my local football team in the winter and cricket team in the summer. All in all, life was good. In the past and prior to settling down with this marriage, we had endured several run ins with my future wife’s ex husband chasing us around and on a couple of occasions, inflicting bodily harm on the both of us, but that is another story.

You could say that life was good except for one thing. The bloody awful English weather with it constantly raining and I mean constantly. If we ever had more than 30 days without rain, it was considered a drought. Seriously! It would rain for day after day and was very depressing and by the way, it was always a cold rain even in the middle of summer. We were just coming off one such wet period when it had rained for two week straight when I received a letter from my Mother who was in America and had been since 1946 which started off like this, “Well it’s 8:00 am in the morning and the sun is shining and it’s going to be another beautiful sunny day. The forecast is for it to be sunny with a high in the 80’s”. I read this completely forgetting the pictures she had sent us of the snow in the winter time that had drifted to the peak of her two story house in one big snowdrift as all I could think about was sunshine and warm weather. I should mention that my Mother had been trying for years to entice first me as I was growing up and then after my first marriage to Anne and second to Valerie, both families to emigrate to the United States. I kept putting it off as even with the problems we endured, life was still pretty good. It was a huge decision to make but that letter and that one sentence did it.

So we started the process of changing not only the adults lives but also those of the kids, forever. It took 6 months of preparation work involving many different things. We had to make two trips to the American Embassy in London to obtain our entry visas. On the second trip, we followed a famous football player around, Phil Woosnam as he was coming over to run the NASL. Bert, a German friend and workmate lent me his much newer car for both of those trips as my little Morris Mini Wagon had developed a slipping clutch that required some mechanical work. As I was about to sell it, I was not going to put money into it. Bert too had a very interesting story as he was an ex German Prisoner of war who had remained in this country. He was one of the nicest men I have ever known. We methodically went about the business of disposing of all of our furniture and worldly possessions with the exception of the clothes that we chose to bring and all of my work tools that would fit into a large trunk. I remember selling something to my Brother-in-law, Bill Vidler who immediately returned it and we got into a shouting match over it.

All this time of preparation, I continued working for William Press and it was a very sad final day when it was time to leave. In fact, even though I could have driven home at noon time, I stayed to finish out the day. That was a great company . BTW, I loved operating the heavy equipment. Just like playing with full size Tonka Toys.

I too had been previously married which ended after 4 years with her moving in with another one of my previous work mates. We had two wonderful sons by our short marriage which custody had been given to my In-Laws, her parents, as they had been raising them during our troubled marriage. In the divorce, the Judge had decreed that is where they should remain and they did so until they were young adults. We have remained in touch over these years but alas, I have never made it back to visit them as adults. Now they are both in their 60’s and I will never make that trip back across the water. So much missed.

Instead of selling the house, I arranged with yet another friend, Eddie Hicks who was living with my wife’s Sister Barbara, that they should stay in the house until such times as we had decided that America was the place for us and we were going to remain. Then we would decide what to do with it. In lieu of rent, he paid the mortgage. Eventually as it turns out, we sold that place after deciding that America was indeed the place and we were going to remain.

My friends and neighbors rented a local hall and gave us a huge going away party that was attended by lots of friends and associates and members of my football team. Many brought gifts that we had to give away as we had no space for them but the thoughts did not go unnoticed. We made our final rounds and said our last goodbyes knowing full well that we would probably never see any of these people again. Saying goodbye is not easy especially when you know it is final.

And then came the final day. I had arranged with Bert to drive us to Southampton where the Queen Mary was harbored and we loaded all of our worldly possessions in his car with the very large trunk on the roof. On the way, we passed Felix, an Irish crane driver who had been on many of our jobsites and he waved as we went by. We could see the harbor long before we reached it and it was full of very large ships, some passengers like ours and others that carried freight and cargo and were a hive of activity. We unloaded all of our stuff which was ridiculously meager considering the change we were making, said our final goodbyes to Bert and made our way to check in leading our dog, Melody for this amazing adventure.

We could not wait to board this wonderful old ship that would take us on the adventure of a lifetime.

For Part 2, click here.

Written 03/19/2021