Re: Back in the Day
 

Also, music... I'm in my 9th decade now, and have been trying to identify my favourite music from each one. A bit difficult for Decade #1 - ages 0-10 - call it the 1940s, but I remember a song that I used to be required to sing when I was little. My Mum played the piano and showed me off whenever she could. I ducked out of the embarrassment as often as possible, as any kid would do; but the song has stuck with me ever since. It was a Scottish ballad "The Road to the Isles", which Wikipedia has a short entry for; it was a First World War favourite, apparently.

These days the music I like best comes from the street bands in New Orleans. There's one called "Tuba Skinny", which is well worth a listen, on YouTube. Twenty years ago I stopped off in the city for a day for the express purpose of encountering one of the genre. It was long before Tuba Skinny, but it was a memorable experience.

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The Xmas/New Year celebrations gave us a reminder of how lovely it was that we're in touch again with old friends. I got emails and texts from two fellows from my boarding-school days seventy years ago! Cripes. We lost touch for many of those intervening years, but that was just an interval. And two women from 1961 are still in my life, though distant: one the "comp girl" in my office, the other the widow of an old mate of mine.

This BE thread is surely the place to report such contacts.

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I have to go on a work trip this week, and I fly through Amsterdam- I am having lunch there will a classmate who I just realized I have not seen for 56 years, though I didn't know him so well. Ironically we almost came to blows last time we saw each other.

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Man! 56 is a long time! I've just sent an email off to a chap I used to share a bed-sit with in London back then, but that's not the same as actually sitting down with him! He was a New Zealander,and I asked him to be my Best Man when I married in Canada a few years later, but we agreed that was too far to fly back for. I hope your lunch goes well.

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I hope so to, will be interesting as last time I saw him I almost punched him in the face.

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While we're waiting to hear how Morpeth got on with his old enemy... here's a snippet from my deep memory-hole: my family's use of some old catch-phrases from the Stan Freberg satirical songs of yesteryear. Sadly, only those of a certain age will remember them, I expect. My wife and I adopted some of them for use around the house. For instance... a sudden unexpected appearance would be announced as "I come tru de window", from Stan's rendition of Belafonte's "Day-O"; and every spider in our house was "a highly deadly black tarantula!" Of course our son was pretty much forced to follow the pattern. He and I still use extracts from Stan's versions of "The Rock Island Line" ("it makes a difference to the sheep!") and "The Great Pretender" ("Don't stop me now, man; I've got to where I like it!")

I really hope there are others out there of a certain vintage who remember Freberg's mastery of satire.

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Here's an idea for all newcomers to multiple-islands groups... swap houses for a long weekend, with residents of some other island. My wife and I did this in the Bahamas soon after we arrived in Nassau many years ago. We did the same thing in Cayman, twenty years later. Houses, cars, bikes, even food-in-fridges. On both occasions, Linda was employed as a teacher, and the swaps were arranged through the teachers' informal network. But we knew people who had done the same sort of thing, who weren't teachers.

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Works elsewhere too ! I have some friends who live in south of France who in turn have friends in London. They routinely each year swap houses for two week holiday- both save money and make their annual trips ore affordable.

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Here's another piece of good advice for intending emigrants with young children - based on my personal experience of long ago, but still valid today. They can and will survive all kinds of turmoil; indeed, they will flourish in it. Pretty much every challenge they meet, they will overcome. Parents should never fret that little Johnny or Janey will miss their little friends, as long as new ones are available. This applies to babies too.

My wife and I went travelling around the camping grounds of England in a converted Kombi van with our six-week-old baby. With the wind in our sails, we moved on to rented flats in Spain and Italy, then a camping ground in Corfu. Then my wife took him to Australia to meet his grandmother. Then we rented a house in England (Bath) for a year, where he celebrated his second birthday with a bunch of other kids, older and younger. Moving to a Caribbean island (Cayman), we thought it best to put him in a kindergarten. At the initial interview, he shook off his mother's hand and joined the already occupied class. The exposures of his earlier life had given him the self-confidence to survive in a new place, with new prospective friends. It really does work!

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Then and now... At the age of seven, I used to pedal a bike three miles to school and three miles home afterwards, and a couple of miles more if I stopped off at a friend's place some distance off the road. No gears then, of course. The next year, when he had turned five, I was joined in the rides by my brother. If the bikes blew a tyre, we had to walk it for the rest of the journey. This afternoon, my (adult) son rode his wife's electric bicycle into town and back. The road was washed out in places from the recent rain, and he cursed at having to carry the machine across the flooded bits. And fair enough, of course... but the contrast made me smile! Does anybody else find it amusing?

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While each child might be different, my experience and that of my children generally the same- moving to a new country children will find a way to adjust, and that process itself breeds confidence/experience. The age matters though , before 12 or 13 easier.I lived in 6 countries by the time I was 18.

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Good point, Morpeth. But I still think that early travel has an influence on children's adult lives. You lived in six countries before the age of 18... And wouldn't you say that you yourself have travelled more than most people? Don't you think well-travelled young kids are more likely to feel comfortable in foreign lands than stay-at-homes, thus feeling an easier relationship with foreigners?

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Yes I think younger children it is easier.

Of course much has to do with personality- I had no issue as child or adult living in different countries, my sister found as a child more issues. Also depends on culture of family and circumstances , In Indonesia Americans at school generally hung around other Americans, and didn't mix with locals or even other foreigners, or go out as much around town- whereas Brits and Europeans mixed with each other more likely to learn the local language more. On the other hand those who grow up in one country may be more grounded and stable in some ways. Also with all the addiction to social media and influencers it might be easier for teenagers now as they might share more interests than before, though in someways may lack some social skills.

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Morpeth, what were your six countries before age 18, by the way? And where have your children lived?

My son (only child) grew up in a very cosmopolitan community (Cayman), although the standard natives-versus-foreigners division was generally rampant. Whether that cosmopolitan childhood influenced his tendency to move around when he grew up, is hard to say. Not directly, but maybe it gave him the confidence of knowing that he could cope in different cultures. What do you reckon?

And visitors to this thread are welcome to add their opinions. It's a fascinating topic, I think!