Gordon Barlow

The title "Life's Turning Points" invites BE members to identify their TPs and by implication how their lives were changed by them. It also invites them - by implication - to speculate on what might have happened if the TP had not occurred.

If I hadn't given up waiting for an interview at the US consulate in London in 1965, and nipped around the corner to the Canadian consulate (as reported in my post #1 of this thread), my life from that time would have been entirely different. In Canada I met up with Linda again, worked in Toronto and been sent to the Bahamas on an audit assignment, and so on... In the US I would have worked for the US correspondent of Touche Ross (CPAs) and sent on audit assignments to Butt-F-WORD, Idaho, for all I know. Ended up with an American wife and kids. No Norwegian grandchildren, and no retirement on a British island in the Caribbean.

I'm not going to classify all the possibilities. I'm just saying... Anybody else want to weigh in?

Gordon Barlow

And if we hadn't had a baby in the Kombi distracting me in Malaga way back in the day, I wouldn't have run the red light (well, the pale-pink fifteen-watt light that passed for red in Spain in the 1970s; I hope to God they've brightened the lights up since then!) and nearly killed us all. Linda and I would probably have made it safely to the caves of Crete and lived with the Western hippy community there, which is where we were headed. I wonder how long we'd have lasted there, living out of the Kombi. We might well have been scorned as "rich folk pretending to be poor", and found ourselves isolated and unwelcome. In another universe, that's what happened, I expect.

Gordon Barlow

It's a week since I posted that last little item, and since then forty people a day (on average) have visited the thread. So there is plenty of interest in the topic of Life's Turning Points! Every single BE member has a turning point, right? Every one is living in a different place from where he or she was born. Their children and grandchildren will grow up in their new homes, and might never go back to their ancestral homes except on vacations.

So I invite members to tell their families why they left, on this thread. Even a paragraph or two would be enough. Otherwise, future generations will just have to guess. And - as I can say from experience - it's the devil's own job to understand fully, why it happened.

BristolUK

Don't take it personally but I can't be the only person "visiting" and then saying "God he hasn't posted again, has he?"
Not to mention bots.
I think most of us have already done exactly that and will do so again but with so many people visiting BE for advice about where to go, why did others move, is this a good reason for moving, what are the pitfalls, what about family/friends left behind and so on, I think there are more appropriate threads.

Granted there is room for both but if fewer people are posting than you would like, perhaps this is the reason.

bats

I know I visit to see if this vanity thread is still running and I wonder why.

Gordon Barlow

BristolUK has posted 46,534 items over the past 15 years, assuming the post-numbers are correct. Bats has posted 9,937 in the same time (11 years) as I've posted less than half of that number. I would not call either of them "vanity" posters...

I have had quite a few "Life's Turning Points" in my 84 years, and I had hoped by reporting them on a BE thread to encourage others to report theirs. And what could be a more appropriate thread to report life's turning points, than one actually called Life's Turning Points? I mean, surely!

I suppose some BE members have had only one turning point, but I think if they put their minds to it they might find a few more.

BristolUK

Yes but you just emphasised about people no longer living in the country of their birth and the fact that something happened to take them somewhere else will already have been mentioned by them several times in threads where people want to know why and how things happened about that for their own potential similar moves.

So it's reasonable for people to not to want to do that again unless it's fairly specific and signposted for someone for whom it may prove useful.

Perhaps, more importantly, if someone is looking for the sort of information useful in moving to another country, a life's turning points, or sliding doors moment is probably the last place they will look.

bats

They might, but the majority probably aren't relevant to life in Canada.

As for vanity, a third of the posts on this thread are by you, about you. How many if any relate to Canada?

Jingsamichty

I think it's a little unfair to have a go at GB, he's simply using this site to reminisce about a long and interesting life and encouraging others to do the same. Most people, it would seem, aren't too interested in doing so, and that's fine too. What he shouldn't do is 'nag' people into contributing, that will simply get people's backs up.

There's room for all in a site that is far quieter than it used to be, perhaps GB is unfortunately 10 years too late for the level of engagement he hopes for.

Gordon Barlow

It's true there's not all that much about Canada, but the topic is Turning Points, not Canada. So best not waste your time reading the whole of this post, bats!

I was based in Toronto ("the big T O", it was called back in the mid '60s) for less that two years, and hung around there for most of the time. Audit assignments took me to Windsor, Ontario, and one illegal crossing into Detroit (border controls were pretty casual, back then), and to Saint John, New Brunswick. Linda worked in Barrie. One Easter, she and I drove over to PEI and Nova Scotia, and we spent one weekend in Montreal. 20 years later, Ross and I visited friends in Penticton, BC, on our way to Australia from Cayman. I always had in mind to take a train journey across the country, but never made it.

The major event during my life as a Canadian immigrant - besides getting married there - was embarking on a solo vacation to the West Indies. Ever afterwards, I was attracted to that region as a place to settle for a while. We (Linda and I) were on our way back home to Australia, when I lined up a job in Jamaica. And if we hadn't headed in that direction, our lives would have been entirely different. So okay, there's another TP to tick off!

Gordon Barlow

You're quite right, Jingsa. I do tend to nag, expecting others to be keen about the same things I'm keen about. Point taken - and no offense taken, I assure you.

That said, I feel free to reminisce about my family's Turning Points. I've shifted around a bit in life, and so have they, so it's predictable that there will be more than one TP to acknowledge. My son gave up a promising career as a professional model in Mexico City to join a hippie cult - Ascension something or other - and became attracted to a Norwegian girl with a toddler. Their first domestic arrangement - living in a treehouse in Guatemala for several months - was the toddler's Turning Point. The arrangement didn't last forever, regrettably, but she (now 23) and her unofficial father are wonderfully close, and I've put it in my Will that she is to be regarded as my granddaughter and equal to her step-sister. Sigh. What can you do?

Gordon Barlow

At boarding school in the 1950s, we had to write letters home every Sunday morning. I read a few of mine years afterwards, and was bored witless! I could scarcely believe how bad they were.

Yet for twenty years or so later in life, my well-written and highly controversial newspaper columns were the talk of the town here in Cayman, and feared by the local politicians and bureaucrats. I had learned a lot about writing, in the intervening years. Selected for summary deportation, I hung on by my fingertips. Local supporters weighed in, and Britain's own bureaucrats reminded the local bullies of Cayman's colonial status. The hint of "Direct Rule" (firing the local politicians and ruling the Islands from London) was the FCO's ace in the hole.

Mine was a Pyrrhic victory, and it was a major Turning Point of my life: I have been virtually unemployable ever since. Nobody wanted to offend the local pols by hiring me. (Fortunately for the family finances, Linda was employable!) It's an interesting story, because Cayman was and is one of the world's most respected offshore tax-havens, and does not tax personal incomes. If my battle against a proposal to introduce such a tax had failed, it might not be now.

Jingsamichty

I rather enjoy your reminiscences, but I bristle at the thought of tax havens, never mind what you describe as "respected" tax havens. They are all havens for criminality and abrogation of responsibility in the name of personal greed.

Finknottle

Were yours censored? Our were.

BristolUK

Are you sure that wasn't prison?