2. Saying Goodbye, Though Not Forever

This is story #2 in the series “Where Exactly is Home?”. The author recommends you read them in order.

Introduction:

“Where Exactly is Home?” follows the story of my parents, my two younger brothers and me, Susan, who emigrated from war-battered Britain, in the mid-late 1950’s, to Southern Rhodesia, Africa.

The effects of this move on our family were huge, as we struggled to adapt to such a different way of life. Only after further upheaval, and more long-distance travelling, did our family eventually settle in the city of Salisbury, Rhodesia.

However, we did not know then that we would not remain there for the rest of our lives, either.

When the family first went to Africa, I, Susan, was 9 years old. My two brothers, John and Peter, were almost 7 and 4, respectively.

Nowadays, as seniors, John and Peter live in England. I live in Canada. Throughout our lives, we have both benefitted from, and suffered because of, our somewhat unusual childhood.

I, for one, still sometimes ask myself which country represents home to me.

This is a series of stories under the title “Where Exactly is Home?” – I recommend you read them in order, starting with story #1.

2. Saying Goodbye, Though Not Forever

I can’t remember saying a final goodbye to my father, Sidney, on Boxing Day, 1956, though I know it was a pivotal moment in my life, probably causing an anxiety disorder that I have had ever since. I think that I understood, in a way, that he was leaving England, and going to Africa, and that my mother, Kathleen, would follow several months later, with their three children, Susan (me), John and Peter. I was nine years old, my brother, John, seven, and Peter four years, almost to the day, younger than John, at three. My mother was thirty-one years old, with three children under the age of nine. We were living in a two-storey house in Wanstead, east London.

What I do remember is that my father, and his friend/colleague, Herbert Scott, were due to fly just before Christmas, to Rhodesia. There, in the capital city, Salisbury, they would both start working, almost immediately, under contract for two years, as clerks for Rhodesia Railways, which had offered both the men and their families assisted passages to Africa. The men had worked in similar positions for British Railways. A new life beyond all the scarcities of a recently war-torn Britain, beckoned. Their wives and family would follow by boat, when the menfolk had settled in, and had found suitable housing.

However, the weather that Christmas must have been atrocious (London was often covered thickly in smog, caused by coal-burning fires and factories), because their B.O.A.C. (British Overseas Airways Corporation) airplane, a small Viscount, couldn’t leave, so both men returned to our house, presumably because we lived in London, nearer to the airport.

So, the next day, we must have said goodbye again… but this I don’t remember. The men returned a second time, I believe, to spend yet another night with us.

Off they set for the airport on the third day, but by then we were all expecting them to come back home once more; only this time, they didn’t! It must have been somewhat of a surprise to us all, that they had really gone this time, and that we wouldn’t see our father for months to come.

What did this separation from my beloved father mean to me? I was a real Daddy’s girl, according to my mother. I certainly looked like him, with my thick, brown, curly hair and huge blue eyes. I don’t really know, but I recall that I became so ill soon after his departure, that I was hospitalized for a while, suffering from an undiagnosed complaint. Had I brought this on myself? Maybe. We will never know.