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Abstract

hello” or some form of it, in Welsh.</p><p id="099d">Mum and Dad never explained that although we were only moving three hundred miles away from the home counties in England, there was a country that I knew nothing about which had another language. Mum was worried about coal mines and all I could think about was, ‘Were there shops there, and more importantly for a teenager, proper shoe shops?’</p><h2 id="3c57">Learn a new language or be left out</h2><p id="8a82">Most of the kids could speak English but because my bus picked up the passengers from the outlying areas in the countryside, we were the “ham bones” or, which I later learned, the country bumpkins, who all seemed to speak Welsh and I couldn’t understand a word of it. I was confused, lonely, and felt so isolated.</p><p id="79dd">In my class, a kind girl called Meinir befriended me and insisted that her friends spoke in English when I was in their company. Otherwise, they chattered away feverishly in Welsh, leaving me feeling that the new girl wasn’t ever going to be included in the group.</p><p id="7bf5">After a few weeks of hearing “shoo-my” and asking around, I learned that this was actually “sut mae” which means, “Hi/hello”.</p><p id="7cce">I was determined to learn the language as quickly as possible so I studied hard, listened attentively, and after one year, passed my school exam in the Welsh language, gaining a top grade.</p><h2 id="7ac1">Lonely and sad</h2><p id="d2fb">When I got home at the end of each school day and walked the long, lonely dirt track to our farm (on my own now because my big brother had left home and was working in a local haulage contractor), I played the Donny Osmond and David Cassidy albums over and over, each time, remembering my friends’ faces as they waved me off as the bus drew away, leaving them and my happy life, behind. I had never been so sad.</p><p id="b704">Suzy and I spent hours together, trekking the beautiful Welsh hillsides and Glenda from the neighbouring farm and I soon became good pals because she had a pony and we would go off riding together as often as we could. Life in Wales was becoming bearable, although I never did feel that it was home.</p><h1 id="2b1b">Freedom</h1><p id="3ccd">I left school as soon as I could and went to the local college to do a one-year secretarial course. It was a way of learning a career and getting out into the workplace as quickly as I could.</p><p id="5b63">I loved the course and being a naturally organised and neat person, the whole syllabus suited me perfectly. I had taken typing lessons in my previous school in Surrey so had a head-start on the others in the class. Back then, it was all girls and I made some good friends.</p><p id="6262">I was offered a job in a local solicitor’s office in the nearby market town and was excited to be working in a proper office and the folks there couldn’t have been nicer. But my happiness was to be short-lived.</p><h2 id="4213">A day I will never forget as long as I live</h2><p id="7af5">I had been there for about a year when my Mum and Dad visited me one day in August 1977. My big brother had been killed in a road accident. Our whole world fell apart and we were pole-axed. I will never forget that day for as long as I live.</p><p id="410

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7">Our Welsh neighbours and friends were very kind to us, bringing food and helping out on the farm. I don’t know how we would have managed without them.</p><p id="e9f1">Gradually, we kick-started ourselves back into living again and I met a local lad, fell in love, and got married a few years later. Six years after that, we had a beautiful daughter and we had a long and happy marriage. Sadly, it ended in divorce 29 years later.</p><h2 id="ca79">My inner strength helped me survive</h2><p id="f040">Today, I am happily married for a second time and have three step-children as well as my beautiful daughter, who is now 32.</p><p id="851d">When I think back to those early school days in Wales, when I was first outcast but then included after I made an effort to learn the language, I learned so much. It was tough, but it was character building and it made me strong. I also learned that if you be yourself, others will like you for who you are.</p><h2 id="51f7">Home is where the heart is</h2><p id="845a">We go through life building relationships, some of which last longer than others. Although some of my most recently made friendships are the strongest, I still have some very close friends from my time in Wales.</p><p id="f7a9">After years of living in the Middle East and travelling the world, I now live in the heart of the English countryside and finally, feel as though I have come home.</p><p id="d80c"><i>I was inspired to write this story by <a href="https://davidmajister.medium.com/">David Majiste</a>r with his <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-pixar-30-day-storytelling-challenge-d3cc35678509">Pixar 30-Day Storytelling Challenge</a>. Thank you, David.</i></p><div id="9a9f" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/double-trouble-d58f2cbfacc1"> <div> <div> <h2>Double Trouble</h2> <div><h3>A Short Story</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*WJPBluaSG1Ox-SxImEql0g.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="4bcd" class="link-block"> <a href="https://psiloveyou.xyz/the-golden-egg-edbed674769b"> <div> <div> <h2>The Golden Egg</h2> <div><h3>Short Story</h3></div> <div><p>psiloveyou.xyz</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*f5FxVSa8euIu9MOQ)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="3590" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/watching-over-us-a46f4f195841"> <div> <div> <h2>Watching Over Us</h2> <div><h3>Short Story</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*pOOt4N2iR9TYODF9gOM3og.png)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Coming Home

How a life-changing situation made me a stronger person

Home sweet home

My family home was a beautiful house in large grounds in Surrey, a few miles outside London.

Dad bought the two fields surrounding the house and garden, and the twenty-acre smallholding was where I rode my pony, helped Mum in the industrial-sized greenhouse, and looked after the goats, chickens, and rabbits that filled the many outbuildings. I was fourteen years old.

My older brother and I built camps together, went horse riding, and were keen bird watchers. We played with our younger brother and sister when we had time, which wasn’t very often.

Mum was strict and our allocated jobs for the day had to be completed before we were allowed to do our own thing. It was such a happy time.

Dad dropped a bombshell

One day, when I came home from school, (my older brother and I used to catch a bus over a mile away which took us across two fields), Dad announced that we were moving house.

There had been talk about buying a farm in Portugal, moving to an island in Scotland, or farming in Wales. Portugal was written off by Mum because back in the early seventies, they still had mandatory conscription for all able-bodied men and she worried that my older brother would be forced to join up.

Scotland was binned because of the remote island location. Wales won. I wanted to stay where we were, but nobody asked me.

The next few weeks were spent helping to pack up our family home. In an uncharacteristic act of defiance, I insisted that my pony was coming with me; I wasn’t going to be uprooted from all my friends and my pony. Suzy was moving to Wales.

When the horrible day of my last day at school arrived, my pals, Stella, Julie, Carol, and Sandra waved me off, my crumpled face wretched and streaming with tears as I sat at the window seat of the school bus. I was clutching the Donny Osmond and David Cassidy LPs they had clubbed together and bought for me as a leaving present.

Life in a strange country

The hill farm in Wales was isolated, cold, and lonely. I hated it.

Gradually, I settled in and I never told Mum and Dad about school; I hated that even more. The kids were cruel to me, calling me a ham bone (which I had no idea the meaning of) and a “Sais”. This term, too, was alien to me but I knew that it wasn’t very nice.

Each morning, as the bus drew up at the school gates on the outskirts of the nearby market town, we decanted one-by-one and the schoolchildren would greet each other with a friendly “shoo-my” so I figured this meant, “hello” or some form of it, in Welsh.

Mum and Dad never explained that although we were only moving three hundred miles away from the home counties in England, there was a country that I knew nothing about which had another language. Mum was worried about coal mines and all I could think about was, ‘Were there shops there, and more importantly for a teenager, proper shoe shops?’

Learn a new language or be left out

Most of the kids could speak English but because my bus picked up the passengers from the outlying areas in the countryside, we were the “ham bones” or, which I later learned, the country bumpkins, who all seemed to speak Welsh and I couldn’t understand a word of it. I was confused, lonely, and felt so isolated.

In my class, a kind girl called Meinir befriended me and insisted that her friends spoke in English when I was in their company. Otherwise, they chattered away feverishly in Welsh, leaving me feeling that the new girl wasn’t ever going to be included in the group.

After a few weeks of hearing “shoo-my” and asking around, I learned that this was actually “sut mae” which means, “Hi/hello”.

I was determined to learn the language as quickly as possible so I studied hard, listened attentively, and after one year, passed my school exam in the Welsh language, gaining a top grade.

Lonely and sad

When I got home at the end of each school day and walked the long, lonely dirt track to our farm (on my own now because my big brother had left home and was working in a local haulage contractor), I played the Donny Osmond and David Cassidy albums over and over, each time, remembering my friends’ faces as they waved me off as the bus drew away, leaving them and my happy life, behind. I had never been so sad.

Suzy and I spent hours together, trekking the beautiful Welsh hillsides and Glenda from the neighbouring farm and I soon became good pals because she had a pony and we would go off riding together as often as we could. Life in Wales was becoming bearable, although I never did feel that it was home.

Freedom

I left school as soon as I could and went to the local college to do a one-year secretarial course. It was a way of learning a career and getting out into the workplace as quickly as I could.

I loved the course and being a naturally organised and neat person, the whole syllabus suited me perfectly. I had taken typing lessons in my previous school in Surrey so had a head-start on the others in the class. Back then, it was all girls and I made some good friends.

I was offered a job in a local solicitor’s office in the nearby market town and was excited to be working in a proper office and the folks there couldn’t have been nicer. But my happiness was to be short-lived.

A day I will never forget as long as I live

I had been there for about a year when my Mum and Dad visited me one day in August 1977. My big brother had been killed in a road accident. Our whole world fell apart and we were pole-axed. I will never forget that day for as long as I live.

Our Welsh neighbours and friends were very kind to us, bringing food and helping out on the farm. I don’t know how we would have managed without them.

Gradually, we kick-started ourselves back into living again and I met a local lad, fell in love, and got married a few years later. Six years after that, we had a beautiful daughter and we had a long and happy marriage. Sadly, it ended in divorce 29 years later.

My inner strength helped me survive

Today, I am happily married for a second time and have three step-children as well as my beautiful daughter, who is now 32.

When I think back to those early school days in Wales, when I was first outcast but then included after I made an effort to learn the language, I learned so much. It was tough, but it was character building and it made me strong. I also learned that if you be yourself, others will like you for who you are.

Home is where the heart is

We go through life building relationships, some of which last longer than others. Although some of my most recently made friendships are the strongest, I still have some very close friends from my time in Wales.

After years of living in the Middle East and travelling the world, I now live in the heart of the English countryside and finally, feel as though I have come home.

I was inspired to write this story by David Majister with his Pixar 30-Day Storytelling Challenge. Thank you, David.