As those of you who've looked at my Dual Citizenship page will know, I've acclimatised fairly well to life in England. Before I got here, I believed that the food was awful, the weather was always dull and rainy, and the people were surly. I've found that the food is good (thanks to the European union), the weather is OK for me, at least as far as the temperature goes, and the people were friendly and more outgoing than rumor had it. I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Hampstead for a month or two, then found a wonderful flat in Southwark, at Clennam Street in the Borough.
Most Englishpeople (and especially Londoners) will wonder: Why Southwark? The story is thus: when I told Robert Cromey, my rector at Trinity, that I had to leave San Francisco to go to London, he took it well. He told me that there was a priest from London at mass that week, as he was attending the funeral of a friend who had died. Robert introduced me to the Rev. Angus Galbraith, of St. Matthew's at the Elephant in Southwark. Angus and I talked about London a bit, then I asked him where his church was and when the Sunday service started. Angus said, "Well, you know, you probably won't like the service—it's quite different from Trinity's." I replied that it didn't matter; I knew no one else from London and I wanted to attend a service somewhere friendly. I went to St. Matthew's the first Sunday I was in London, and have stayed there ever since. So, I wanted to live relatively close, and the Borough is very close indeed to the Elephant and Castle.
My flat was actually what the English refer to as a "maisonette"; "duplex" in American parlance. It had two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a large sitting/dining area and kitchen. There was also a storage room. The rent was reasonable, and the landlady was lovely. So I stayed there for four years.
Quantime was in many ways an ideal place to work. The atmosphere was laid back, they operated on a flexitime basis, so I could choose my own hours as long as I worked 37-1/2 hours per week. The work was fairly simple, but in the beginning more oriented toward being the personal assistant to one of the directors. Eventually the testing part became the sole part of my work.
Personally, I began to explore the London gay scene. It's quite a bit more lively than the US scene, in ways, but is very oriented towards the young, of which I was no longer one. I had some very transient affairs, and then, decided to take a long trip to the US, partially to get my stuff shipped back to the UK and partially to reestablish contacts with my family and friends.
So, in April/May 1995, I set off for Marblehead. Everything was much the same as it had been 5 years earlier. My dad was older and a bit feebler, but still working (for my brother). I took some pictures, and set off for New York, where I saw many of my friends, Chicago (where I saw Ken Allen for the last time before his death), and then for San Francisco, where I was to get my stuff shipped off to London, and meet an e-friend from Singapore who happened to be passing through that week.
Tom was a lawyer in Singapore, fairly well off (in contradistinction to my earlier boyfriends), and articulate. He was attracted to large bearded men (referred to as "bears" in gay parlance), and I certainly fit that bill. We met in a coffee shop off Castro St., and ended up taking a room in the motel around the corner for the night. We hit it off right away. He was tender and gentle, and funny and handsome. We decided to take a cheaper hotel room further down Market Street for the rest of our stay in San Francisco.
I did my business, cleaned out the storage room, and Tom and I pledged to stay in contact as I took off for London. He arrived in London a few months later for a visit, and we decided that I would come to Singapore in the fall.
Tom and I began a long-distance relationship in 1995. I visited Singapore three times, and he visited London probably about 6 or 7 times. We traveled together to Malaysia (on my first trip, after a painful bout of stomach trouble), Hong Kong, and Thailand. I enjoyed Asia and Asians. It was new to me, and the farthest I'd ever traveled away from home (either home). Our relationship was open, however, which was the seed of trouble and division later on.
At work I learned a lot, at home I had some flatmates and lots of parties, seeing as I had so much room. However, the maisonette was creaking in the infrastructure by the summer of 1995. The sump pit at the back (where the sewage collected before being pumped out to the sewer) seriously overflowed, in the hottest summer since 1976. The freeholder (not my landlady) said that as she had no sense of smell, she didn't see what the problem was. We had to threaten legal action before she had the pumps replaced. The sump pit had to be pumped out 5 times (with a hose through my bedroom) before the pumps were finally installed.
Then, the storage room became flooded. We couldn't figure out where it was coming from. This lasted for 6 months and removed one of my two bathrooms from service. Finally the water company determined that the water was coming from the water main, and it transpired that the cable TV installers who had dug up the street 6 months before to lay the conduits for the cable TV had broken a water main and just closed up the hole, leaving the water main to leak water into the basement. Once this was fixed, the storage room dried out. But, it took a while for this to happen. I got a paint job and a new tiled floor on the bathroom out of it.
Tom and I began to have little differences. At first, it was over the flat. He wanted me to buy somewhere, but I didn't feel that I wanted to just yet. He went ahead and bought a flat in a rehab development right at the Elephant and Castle, but the flat was too small for any of my current furniture to fit. We see-sawed back and forth over this. Our original harmony was broken.
Finally Tom and I agreed that he'd come to London to live and attend business school here. He's become tired of being a lawyer, and he had to care for his ill father and wanted to be anywhere but Singapore. So, in September 1997 he arrived, on the day of Princess Diana's funeral.
We got along OK, but after three weeks I discovered that he had another close friend in Singapore. The eventual plan was for Tom to stay in London for a year, get his MBA degree, then leave me and return to this guy in Singapore. We quarrelled, and I told him that it might be best for him to leave. However, I wasn't emotionally prepared for a split, and when he took steps to leave, I broke down fairly completely. While I was able to continue working, I felt quite bereft and alone.
I went through the rest of 1997 and 1998 in a daze. I did decide to become a permanent resident in 1997, and filed my papers in December 1997. They were returned within a week approved, and I was now free to take another job and eventually to file for British citizenship. I had acquired another roommate, oddly enough a Singaporean. Alex was a lovely guy, a gymnast, who had come to the UK to take an undergraduate degree at the University of London. I became somewhat of a surrogate parent, in a way, and ensured that he had a place to stay. He was a good cook and an interesting companion, though he wasn't a boyfriend. I was still lonely.
In March 1998 my landlady agreed to sell the flat to the freeholder. This would have meant a large rise in rent and an uncertain future. I decided to move, and found a flat at Waterloo. Cooper Close was nice, and convenient for work. However, it was only a 1-bedroom apartment, and difficulties ensued right away. My new landlady promised me a washing machine, but it never materialised. The shower didn't work (low water pressure) and she promised to fix it, but didn't. She promised me a storage space, but it never happened. I was squeezed in my own flat.
In September 1998 I decided to make a move from Quantime. The company had been sold to SPSS, Inc. This company is one of the largest statistical software firms in the world. It had no adequate market research software and wanted to expand into that market. Those who had Quantime shares did well out of the deal. Those of us who were just employees were not so lucky. SPSS brought sharp American management practices, and sharp American managers. My manager and I weren't on the best of terms, and I decided that I should start looking. I found a job in August 1998 with a test consultancy, ImagoQA. My SPSS manager took pleasure in telling me that they had been planning to hire someone else for my job, have me train him or her, then fire me. I was glad to go.
In addition, a couple with whom I had been friends split up, and the person who didn't have a flat asked me if he could stay with me. Alex was about to move out to be closer to his school and gymnastics practice gym, so Bom moved in. He is a 6'2" Thai man, a lovely cook, and a PhD candidate at a university here in London. We got along quite well, and he has accompanied me to my new flat. In August, 2001 Bom finished his studies, and received his PhD degree in October. He has moved back to Thailand and is now a professor in a Bangkok university. We miss him.
In February 1999 the tied flat to St. Matthew's became vacant as the curate and her husband moved to another parish. After some dithering, I was given the lease of the flat, and moved in at the end of March, 1999. This is where I still live. We have 4 bedrooms, 1-1/2 bathrooms, sitting room and kitchen, plus a backyard (=UK garden). I had to begin mowing the lawn for the first time in 30 years.
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