A Trip to England (Part I)

When I was fourteen, I was sent to visit part of my family in London, England. It was in the summer of 1988 and I do not know why I was sent at that particular time. We had just moved into a new house (this would be our last move after years of changing apartments and houses around the same city). Perhaps my mother felt that I would be used to another change in my location and had enough experience travelling to take such a trip. I had already seen parts of the Caribbean on different plane trips with my family and we had taken part in a long trip by car from our home to a friend’s place in California. The trip to England would be another stamp on my passport.

It was my mother’s decision, but she was not the only one who wanted a member of the family to travel and make contact with relatives that were known only from letters and phone calls. One of her close friends from work would be sending along her daughter, a girl only one year older than me. I had known her for about a year and was told that she would be staying with a different family once we arrived. So, she would not be keeping watch over me. Perhaps it was just practical for our mothers to be freed from us for that one summer. There must have been some sort of plan that they did not want to share with us until school let us out for a few months.

We travelled by ourselves. This is significant. I had never been on a plane without a member of my family and the trauma must have been quite pronounced in me. But what I remember most is what I wore on the flight. My mother had decided that I would have to look presentable before landing in England, so I wore grey pants, a pink dress shirt, and a pink and grey tie with paisley patterns on it. The colours matched but refused to please the eye. Any fear I had about being alone with the daughter of a family friend, or with an unknown relative in England was soon replaced by my annoyance at having to wear such clothing. I was overweight and itchy in that unflattering outfit. And the summer heat also played a predictable role in my discomfort. It seems more important now to think about how I was presented to people who were called family and had never met me before than to worry about the fear of being alone. My look set up a false impression that I could not match. I was happier in t-shirts and jeans. And I never wore that outfit again once during my stay.

I don’t remember much about the flight. The plane left from my hometown, Hamilton, Ontario. This seemed very strange to me; the airport on the city’s escarpment was known for air shows and its museum commemorating aircraft from the Second World War. It was not known for flights to other countries, and it was striking that there was no changeover in Toronto or New York. This saved time and money, not something that was on my mind. I only thought about how small my part of the world was and how happy I felt to be travelling. It would be six weeks – from early July to mid-August – and there would be no talk of summer school or day camp (they both seemed to be some sort of punishment). I would be living in London, the centre of the literature that I loved and the culture I knew from imports like Coronation Street, Doctor Who, numerous rock groups, and the general knowledge of a language that we mimic well in Canada, right down to the quirks of spelling and pronunciation. I thought I was well-prepared.

We landed at Heathrow Airport and I was quickly separated from my travelling companion by a group of women (we did not meet again during my stay). I met G. and her two identical brothers, K. and D., and D’s wife. We then made our way to the car as they asked questions about my flight. And then came the speeches. As we drove from the airport, and survived several near-accidents with the traffic and other obstacles (i.e. pedestrians), they began to tell me about their lives in London.

I should preface this next section by mentioning my and their West Indian backgrounds. England gave my ancestors a very difficult history, from slavery to certain political parties to bills in Parliament meant to strip them of the few rights they still had left. From the airport to the first stop – to drop off K., D. and D’s wife, I was told about how difficult it was to be black in that country. I will always remember one particular story about a friend who worked as a driver and ended up working in one of the many large offices we drove past. In case I thought that this was simply due to perseverance and hard work, they explained that this man only made it because the person he chauffeured liked his face.

I would be staying in G.’s apartment. She asked me if I wanted something to eat and we stopped at a small store to buy some food. I told her that I would like to make a submarine sandwich. I ended up with hard French bread (a baguette) and coleslaw. We then went to her place. This all took place in the east end of London in an area called Plaistow. She lived in a tall apartment complex near the area’s London Underground station. Her floor was dimly lit in the outer hallway and her apartment was needlessly cramped. There was her main bedroom, which I never entered; a bathroom; a very small wedge of balcony, the front room (where I would sleep on a fold-out couch); and a narrow kitchen. This was where I attempted to put together my sandwich as she looked on with wonder at my construction. It was during this meal that I made the mistake of looking around that kitchen. She had a gas stove, a small fridge and some of the dishes drying on a rack near a large window. The main cupboard was open and when I peered inside, I noticed several half-eaten packages of cookies, biscuits, breads, crackers, and chocolate bars. She apparently ate part of what she bought, forgot about it in that space, and then went out to buy a new package. I felt nauseous but I could not share this with G. She was allowing me to stay in her place for six weeks and I had no other available options.

Later that night, I woke up to G. yelling from her bedroom window at a man and a woman on the street. The couple had just left a pub and was now engaged in a drunken fight on the pavement. G. encouraged the woman to “knee him in the groin, dear” and the man responded by calling G. a bitch.

And that was my first day in England.