Gordon Barlow

No, Patrick. Too many whackos out there. I'm infinitely more comfortable here in this little branch office!

scrubbedexpat142

Fair comment!

Gordon Barlow

I speak for a lot of old codgers when I say that we have forgotten a lot more than we remember. Such a shame, but/and it means that we have to cherish the memories we have managed to retain! Childhood incidents, early jobs and loves, youthful travels, the "turning points" of our lives... Being expats, we have a greater wealth of potential memories than most of our friends and family members: why we emigrated, how we chose our destinations...

I committed some of my personal stories to an online journal between 2010 and 2016. (Then I ran out of puff.) As a sample, that I hope will encourage other similar samples from other BEs, there is a "how I met my wife" report in that journal, still available. BE Rules don't allow me to give a direct link, but if you Google "Zorba the Greek Barlow's Cayman January 2012" you will at least get to the month. Then check on the archive-index on the side and find it there. (On Duckduckgo, it's much easier.) The title will make sense when you read the thing, by the way!

Gordon Barlow

I had a lovely old-codgers' evening last night with a chap who used to share an office with me in Nassau in 1968, and his wife. They are a few years younger than me, but 53 years after, it doesn't matter, does it! We met up again in 1978 when we first came to Cayman and they were already here, and we've always kept in touch. She told me that she had visited us when we lived in Bath (Combe Down) in '77. I'd totally forgotten that, but I'll take her word for it. Especially interesting - and every reader of this thread will know the pleasure of this sort of thing - was talking about the Good Old Days when we emigrated to Nassau... me in '67 after marrying in Canada and he after marrying in Bristol a year later. I spent almost all my capital on buying a new Triumph Spitfire, and he spent his on a new Triumph Herald.

Today they spend half the year in their house up in the US near to their son and his family, and we used to spend a few weeks a year in Norway with our son and his kids. Nice.

Gordon Barlow

Patrick. You must have a half-decent story about how you ended up in Budapest. Married a Hungarian, is my guess - and if that's so you may have a half-decent story about how you met. Right? It's all grist for the mill!

scrubbedexpat142

Funnily enough, my wife is not Hungarian, British but actually half Dutch by virtue of her father, a Dutch merchant seaman, twice torpedoed, who met his wife to be while docked in Liverpool.

So, why Budapest? Came here on short term work assignments back in 2008/2009, my wife came with me, fell in love with the place (& the people). Was offered a very good redundancy / retirement package back in 2013 and took the opportunity to get out of the UK, based upon the briefest of conversations, viz, me, "How about Budapest?", She "why not". Arrived with just one bag each on a wet December evening - and never looked back!

What may interest you more is the experiences of my late father. Spent much of the 1960s "working" behind the iron curtain. Never did find out exactly what he was doing but there has been a lot of speculation in the family ever since (he died back in 1980).

Gordon Barlow

Very interesting. So is this story... an English friend of mine was working for Barclays Bank in West Africa as a young bachelor back in the mid-70s. On "long leave" back in England he was offered a promotion in another country in the region - but the job required a married man. He had a few weeks to sort out his act, which he did. Chatted up a girl from Eastern Europe working at a hotel in London, married her, reported himself married, and got the promotion. And lived happily ever after. Still living happily, in fact, all these years later!

Visitors to this thread who don't know what "long leave" was... People (almost entirely men, in those days) employed in what were called "hardship posts" in "uncivilised" parts of the world, got three weeks' annual "local leave". In the days before aeroplanes, three weeks was far too short a time to go anywhere except within the region. So every two or three years they were compelled to take three months' "home leave" in Blighty - the idea being that they would be refreshed by their exposure to civilisation again, don't you know, and thus be enabled to fend off the temptation to "go native"! The custom still existed in the 1970s, at least in West Africa. In 1967 I had been hired (off the street) by a British/Canadian trust company in Bahamas; and my bride and I were given the temporary use of the home and car of an employee who had just left on "long leave" with his family. Before they returned, we had to find ourselves a place to live and buy a car, which of course we did. I presume the chap knew we had been living in his house, but he (one of my seniors in the Company) never mentioned it to me at all!

scrubbedexpat142

Good one!

Now to expand just a little on my Father.

My parents divorced when I was about three years old, consequently I spent 4/5 weeks a year with my Father in London (in the '60s). On access visits my Father's study doubled as my bedroom. One day, probably age about 9 or 10 I went rummaging in my father's desk (as small boys do). I found, in the top left hand drawer, 3 very small cameras. Now I never saw my Father with a camera, ever, I don't remember photographs in the house (save, maybe, the odd one of my stepmother). 2 of the cameras were of the SLR type, the other the longer, flatter type. They were all surprisingly heavy, especially the SLR types. Anyway, some instinct told me that I probably shouldn't be looking at these, so I put them back and never said a word. Meanwhile my Father carried on his foreign "career", behind the Iron Curtain, then in the middle East, later in the far East. Now at one point, he worked for the EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) and during that assignment he collaborated in an investigation into the British Press, producing a report that was discussed by then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson in the HoC. Interestingly, he appears to have been airbrushed from history - the only reference I can find is his death certificate from 1980. My stepmother, who may or may not still be alive (& who was an actress) has also disappeared - even the Salvation Army has been unable to trace her!

I am sure there is a quote from Hamlet that applies here - but can't think of it!

Gordon Barlow

Patrick. The only thing I can suggest is the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It's just conceivable that they have something about your father. A cousin of mine in the 1930s and '40s was in the diplomatic service (wink, wink) in Persia and Sinkiang - and he had given the Bodleian all (?) his letters home, which his parents must have been instructed to keep. I was allowed to look at them - but they all seemed to be full of trivial domestic issues, nothing secretive. Stuff about what the Chinese ambassador was wearing, and that kind of thing. Why the Bodleian, I don't know; he had been at Cambridge. Anyway, it might be worth checking them out, next time you get back to England.

I wrote about him and other relations of his and mine in "the business" one way or another, in my online journal a few years ago, which might interest you. Google "cousin harry and the branson girl"; you may or may not have to put the words in inverted commas. And I have to say that you should put something in writing for your younger relatives of your Dad's doings. One or two of them might thank you. None of mine have expressed any interest in their forebears, but you never know your luck. I passed on to my son a silver cup that a great-uncle had won at polo in Quetta (now Pakistan) in 1910; he (my son) uses it as an ashtray! Sic transit gloria, eh?

uk_grenada

In the UK all records of import are kept in the natonal archive which is in Kew funnily enough just over the river from my house there. If you have anything of interest they will preserve and index it forever. They have a great museum, and anyone can use the archive for research.

Prominent things - Hitlers UK passport [yes he had one] and the original american declaration of independance lol. When it was created, several copies were made, there is no 'original' but 3 copies were all signed at the same time. The one in Kew comes as a slight surprise to the murican visitors. There is also the magna carta, a contemporary copy of the mapa mundi and heaps of caribbean audits / census docs - all searchable.

scrubbedexpat142

Thanks! Read the blog, fascinating, I shall read on!

Hmmm, thanks for that also! Totally unable to find my Father's birth certificate. According to my (less than helpful) Mother he was born either in Dublin or Berlin. It appears his Father was a surgeon of Irish descent. Had a genealogist in Eire hunting about, no joy for either party.

scrubbedexpat142

Talking of passports. I remember my Father showing me his alternate British passports for Israel and the rest of the ME. Think that is fairly commonplace however.

Gordon Barlow

Ugh. Where were you when I was doing all my family research, Grenada! I don't think I've ever known of the National Archive. I know that sounds pathetically ignorant, but it's true. Damn and blast! Yes, I expect it houses just about every official government document that ever existed. Any idea what the starting date is - of the archives, that is?

uk_grenada

Well time immemorial is actually a date - about 1050ad, and they have lots of stuff older than that. Ancient documents owned by the government are all sent there, like Caribbean censuses [done every 10 years] and plantation records as most of those were sent to the uk, and if an organisation is dissolved, it will tend to acquire their records so old churches still functioning will have ancient records of marriages and deaths, but churches that ceased - records will probably end up in kew, its all there, apart from books which might go to the british library also in London.

Photos and film goes to the BFI - british film institute - also in London - where you will find huge amounts of film and video of everywhere

uk_grenada

Grenada is fascinating - the british ran the entire island as a rum factory. Now there are 130k inhabitants, in 1760 there were 250k, of which less than 100k were slaves, lots of other types of worker? But the place exported 70k barrels of rum a year to the uk. This means more than 1 vessel a week left here full of rum - mainly for the british navy. GROG was burned on the barrels, which made them crown property which mean stealing them was going to get you hanged. GROG has 2 meanings and nobody seems sure which - grand rum of grenada or

Eighteenth-century English admiral Edward Vernon reputedly earned the nickname "Old Grog" because he often wore a cloak made from grogram (a coarse, loosely woven fabric made of silk or silk blended with mohair or wool). In Old Grog's day, sailors in the Royal Navy were customarily given a daily ration of rum, but in 1740 the admiral, concerned about the health of his men, ordered that the rum should be diluted with water. The decision wasn't very popular with the sailors, who supposedly dubbed the mixture "grog" after Vernon. Today, "grog" can be used as a general term for any liquor, even undiluted, and someone who acts drunk or shaky can be called "groggy."

Problem with the second is that there are known rums older than him, with grog on the label, and why would they call the original spirit grog?