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Where to start! Thats a tough one, but I think I must go back twenty seven years to the point in time when I found myself left with three children, 12, 3 and 2yrs old, a mortgage and loads of debt! I began by telling the children that Daddy was working away, Daddy loved them, Daddy missed them, it was hard for us all and without the love and support of my mum and dad I would have gone under....he never sent money or remembered their birthdays, but not once did I bad mouth him as the children grew up. I knew they would make their own minds up in time....and they did, but more of that later.
After a few months they stopped asking for him and I just got on with things...It wasnt my choice that he played no part in his childrens lives, in fact I took them to Wales to see him when I found out he was there. He moved on to London after that, and I took the kids to see him there too. But he disappeared yet again and never got in touch from then on, it took a private detective to find him twenty two years later!
My Dad was my hero, he worked overseas for months at a time and I used to miss him terribly but it didnt impact on our relationship, it just made me appreciate him more. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for me he was a Dad in a million. Whilst I was growing I travelled to see him in such far away places as Russia and Africa, Turkey and Canada....I experienced Norwegian winters where the snow lay so thick on the ground that it covered everything, and summers in Kuwait, when at the height of the day you could fry an egg on the patio floor! I've been on safari and seen a lioness catch an eagle, and was sat in the landrover watching in awe as an elephant threatened to charge! I have been blessed with some awesome life experiences that have educated and enriched my life and taught me tolerance of others and the ability to adapt to whatever life throws at me!
So by the time I was in my early thirties I had experienced both the best and the worst of what a Dad can be! 😉
...to be continued.
...From Russia with love.
As I touched on briefly, i have travelled far and wide and I still have such vivid memories of all of the countries I visited... and my first overseas adventure was Russia! I was thirteen and my brother was eleven and we were going to travel as unaccompanied children on the flight to Moscow, where mum and dad would be meeting us. I remember feeling so grown up and in charge!
.... In those early days before mass tourism and the package holiday, they didn't weigh your cases and all the drinks were free, the food however was terrible, some things never change! We were taken on board first and deposited in first class...the plane had a strange plasticky smell and rattled and creaked for the whole journey. During the flight we were taken to the cockpit to meet the pilot and sit at the controls, my brother was thrilled of course!
After a few hours we landed in Moscow, customs was non existent. at least for us, we were taken straight through anyway, and into the arms of our parents. Our cases were bought to us and we were whisked off to the hotel....I'll never forget the name, it was called Hotel Ustankinov, a huge almost gothic building that I found rather intimidating and as the name suggested, rather smelly...a musty damp smell. The name and the smelliness was a source of amusement to us all!
This was in 1968 and the iron curtain was very much in existence then and I soon got a taste of what that meant! On every floor of the hotel, right next to the lift was a desk that was manned 24/7 by a uniformed person, and each time we got into the lift to go down to the lobby they would write our names in the book, each time we got out of the lift to go to our room they again logged us in. Their demeanour was very stern and they looked at us with something akin to suspicion, or so my fertile imagination had me believe.....maybe they were Russian secret service, KGB!
I can remember the restaurant in the hotel, it was so grand with chandeliers and silver cutlery, which was in complete contrast to the food that was served! There was no extensive menu here, I remember a watery soup with dumplings, gross... but the beef stroganoff wasn't too bad, and my mum was ecstatic because they had bananas! There was a band of musicians playing that evening and as we were sitting there a tall immaculately dressed Russian man came over to the table, he approached my dad, bowed ever so slightly and clicked his heels together, just like in the movies, and asked if he could invite my mum to dance! It was bizarre but my mum loved dancing and was an accomplished ballroom dancer so of course she accepted....she was the centre of attention and everyone's eyes were upon her, but then she was a beautiful woman!
The next day it was time to catch our connecting flight to Mogilev, one of the hairiest plane journeys I have ever taken! The plane was a propeller and the expats called it the "Fokker Friendly"...typical British humour, it was far from friendly! Thankfully it wasn't a long flight, Mogilev didn't have an airport however, we had to land in a field!...I shall never forget it, it shook so violently I thought it was going to fall apart as it bumped and rattled its way to a stop! There were no airport buildings, just a small wooden shack with an old man sitting outside watching the goings on with disinterest, which surprised me as I think we had landed in his back garden! The minibus was parked just feet away from where the plane had come to a stop and within minutes we had our baggage and were on our way to the living quarters just a short drive away.
The ex pats accommodation was a small compound of flats about three stories high with a big fence all the way around it. Again, there were uniformed staff, although they referred to themselves as our interpreters, but some of them could speak hardly any English! My mum told me that one evening she and my dad had been sitting in the lounge and the light bulb went, they didn't have a spare but low and behold within minutes there was a knock at the door and one of the "interpreters" was standing there with a light bulb! How did you know we needed a bulb my mum asked....they just shrugged their shoulders! She was convinced that the apartment was bugged after that... and the other women had similar stories to tell! Intrigue abounded but after all we were in Russia at the height of the cold war...
We had a lovely summer though, there were other English children there and we would all pile into the minibus and get off down to the river and spend our days swimming and having picnics. The weather was glorious, not something I associated with Russia! The ordinary people were so friendly, they didn't have much and their way of life was alien to us, but they were such generous people and so interested in our lives back home, it wasnt uncommon to be asked if we had met the Queen, and they absolutely loved Tom Jones and the Beatles!....
We soon settled into this new way of life, my parents were gregarious people and were always throwing parties. In the compound There was a "pub", a shop selling English basics like gravy powder and biscuits, and a Rec room, we could be found there most evenings playing ping pong or just sitting round chatting...The telephone was there too and I'lll never forget this big, bluff Scotsman called Joe...everynight he would be on that phone calling his wife and in his broad Scottish accent he could be heard...."June, June can you hear me June." It became one of the communities private jokes and it still brings a smile to my face just thinking about it!
My mum had a Russian teacher that used to come to the apartment every week and give her lessons. His name was Victor and he was a lovely man. Once he took my brother and I out for the day, we went to the park and he showed us the sights, and then took us back to his home to meet his family. He had two children about the same age as me and my brother, and they lived in a tiny one bedroom flat...I remember there were jars and jars of pickled vegetables lining the shelves, he tried to get me to eat some pickled mushrooms but that was a step too far!
I'm still in touch with the daughter, her name is Luda and she is a University Lecturer....her husband was in the Guiness book of Records many years ago, he did the domino thing, a huge big display that spelt out the word CCCP which is Russian for USSR, but of course it's not called that any more is it...everything changes....except aeroplane food! I would like to go back there, I know I would be treated like visiting royalty and it would be lovely to see old friends! Sadly like my mum and dad, Victor and his wife are no longer with us, and no doubt Mogilev will have changed beyond all recognition, but maybe one of these days I just might book that flight!
Wow Jane its so interesting .... next chapter please
I can definitely see a book of memoires coming on here... don't forget to keep a copy of this thread somewhere, Jane, and get a printed version for your family to keep 🙂
http://www.lulu.com/ is the website I have heard of for short print runs but there may be other places out there (don't get ripped off by so-called "vanity publishers" 🙂 )
yeah, I've heard of lulu as well.
In fact, you can take the risk out of it by using www.kickstarter.com as well, that way you effectively have to raise a fixed amount of money before any commitment is made - if you raise the amount you need, everyone pays up front, if you don't then no-one pays - it's a good system, and it's now in the UK as well.
...For anyone that's interested, I was going through some old photos belonging to my parents and I came across some of Russia, and in particular a photo of the plane that we used, and also one of the old man whos back garden was the airfield! Ive attached them to the bottom of the Russian story!
Love those photos - were your ancestors Russian? All of my grandparents or great grandparents came from Russia.
No! The photos relate to my post about my adventure in Russia, in the story I talk about the plane we took to Mogilev, " the fokker friendly"and the old man who's back garden we landed in!
Doh!!
And I read that when you posted it - just went out of my head completely ;;)
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