Adopting the Land of Hope and Glory

In July of 1970 I arrived in Great Britain.  I was five months pregnant, had been married for nine months to an Englishman that I had only known for a short time and I once visited the new country I arrived in for a week. For the first month or so I lived as a guest in the house of my new in-laws who were religious and far more observant than I had ever experienced. I felt like I was walking on eggshells for those first weeks and I hardly dared speak in more than a whisper.

What did I expect?  I can't really remember, but I was under the misapprehension that New York and London, two cosmopolitan cities, would be very similar.  Sure the English spoke in a more refined way, but I thought that was where the differences ended.  I was completely wrong.  The country I arrived in could not have been more different than if I had travelled from New York to Timbuktu. Culture shock did not begin to express my feelings at the time.

I arrived here, I see now, with the arrogance of an American on holiday. 'What do you mean there's no central heating?'  'Why can't I have bigger portions?' 'Where are the all-night supermarkets, the discount clothing stores, the Italian/French/Chinese restaurants?'  I had little understanding or patience with any of the differences with which I was confronted.
Being an outsider, I was able to see a lot of differences more clearly than those who lived here, but I had no frame of reference for them.  All I did was compare and find London sadly lacking. For at least two years I was unhappy with my newly adopted land.

The London I had moved to was small and narrow in its thinking.  There was little that was cosmopolitan about London in the 1970's.  Most English people were content to be an island race completely separate from their European neighbours.  The English Channel may have only been 22 miles wide, but it was a universe away from the opposite coast. Politicians were busy trying to convince this insular island race to stay away from their corrupting European cousins and stay out of the Common Market. The Brits seemed much happier relating to their Commonwealth past. Rule Britannia was the order of the day.

I also needed to re-learn some of the history of the Second World War and how much it had affected Britain.  Bombings, rationing, shortages and the wartime mentality were not even twenty years past.  Rationing had not really ended until 1954. I had no awareness of this and thought the scarcity mentality I encountered in 1970 was simply a meanness of spirit, rather than a delayed shock reaction.  The Britain I arrived in was still a country living in a state of fear. Fear of strangers, fear of war, fear of shortages and just a sense that everything they had was terribly fragile and needed doling out in very small portions.

How ignorant I was of the history of other parts of the world.  I never really thought about this until this very moment and now I wish I had been educated and informed before I arrived, but I was young, in love and assumed that this country would be just like home from my first moments here.  Instead I felt awkward, loud and even more of an outsider than ever.  I kept trying to keep the heat on in our tiny flat for the whole day (super expensive) and I kept looking for the supermarkets and shops I was accustomed to (not for years yet).  I wish I had been prepared, but then maybe I would not have come here so willingly. Maybe in my case ignorance was bliss.

Now I can't imagine living anywhere else. After 40 years here I finally feel like I can understand the English sensibility.  I can relax in this strangely uptight society and relax even more in the diversity of London and how much that diversity is celebrated.  There are few segregated neighbourhoods and much economic mixing of classes.  This is still not a land of plenty and no one would fool themselves into thinking that in London the streets are paved with gold, but it's turned out to be a pretty civilised place to live.

Again I come back to the fact that it was meeting people and making friends that created my sense of home.  After my daughter was born, late in 1970, I was even more isolated and relied on Ralph to bring me into his world.  Eventually I met people I could begin to form friendships of my own with, some English, some Australian and even some Americans.  I got to like fish and chips, roast dinners and appreciate Sunday closing of shops and the quietness of the day.  I began to see the benefits of living in a country that was so close to so many fantastic European cities and started to travel across the Channel to many different countries whenever I could.  I started cooking English food and discovered that there is such a thing as English cuisine! In short, I began to assimilate into this new culture.

Of course, I will never be fully assimilated.  I don't really want to be.  My 'Noo Yawk' accent is still almost as strong and I still hunger for the 'heimlich' quality of the city of my birth, but I am home here and I guess I might stay for a while longer. I see now that being an outsider has given me a lot of permission to be different while at the same time I have developed more insight into the English consciousness.  There are fewer differences now than there were 40 years ago, but the whole world is much smaller now that travel is easier.  The English have become a nation of coffee drinkers and I, for one, am delighted. While I wasn't paying attention, I started to think of this chilly, damp, grey country as my home.