oggbashan
Dying Truth seeker
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2002
- Posts
- 56,017
Thank you for that story Og! Curiously, there are no staricons here so I give it 5 hearts.
And I'm very impressed that your father could speak American.
He needed to. Many Americans in WW2 didn't understand that British English had different words for things and different expressions.
Many years later when he was a senior Civil Servant he was sent around the World to visit British Embassies and advise on the number of support staff needed. His language skills were useful in Stockholm, Paris, Rome, Moscow and Washington.
But he could get caught out. He came to Hawaii from Hong Kong, went to the beach and fell asleep. He was severely sunburnt but the next day he was in Ottawa - in February. The doctor in Ottawa was startled to be dealing with sunburn when the snow was deep outside.
On another winter trip he was supposed to go from Moscow to Washington. Of course he had his winter weight suits. But his superiors asked that while he was out of the country could he please divert via Singapore and Canberra. On arrival in Singapore he ordered some lightweight tropical suits from the local tailors while he stayed in his air-conditioned hotel. Five hours later he had a tropical suit so that he was comfortable in Singapore's heat. When he flew out to Canberra the next evening he had two more tropical suits, one formal for evening wear, and had sent his winter weight suits by air freight to Washington.
He was comfortable in Canberra and boarded his plane to Washington. But his winter weight suits didn't arrive in time. He did have his normal weight formal evening suit for attending an Embassy reception - that had been sent from London to Washington and had arrived on time. But he couldn't wear that during the working day. He froze in Washington for a day while a secretary tried to find where the winter weight suits had gone. They were recovered by the second day.
He sent his tropical suits back to London while he remained in Washington. My mother was used to packing his clothes and going to the Post Office to Air Mail them around the world. She used to get his dirty washing delivered and sent his clean underwear back. His shirts were usually washed and ironed by Embassy staff.
Several times items of clothing were lost or delayed in transit. The Singapore tailor would happily make my father's shirts to measure from the details held in Singapore and mail them anywhere in the world. The air mail often cost more than the shirt.
When my father stopped globe-trotting he sat down with my mother and reviewed his stock of clothing. He had twice as many shirts as he needed, far too many suits, and dozens of unused underpants bought 'just in case' the washing didn't arrive in the right city at the right time.
I acquired a dozen of his shirts and a couple of suits, one of which I still have. My wife objects whenever I wear it. It was made when my father went 'shooting' on a grouse moor in Scotland. My mother described it as the 'bookmaker' suit because it is a loud brown check. It is very heavyweight and thornproof. Although my father wore it on the grouse moor he didn't shoot anything because he knew his aim wasn't good enough and he didn't want to embarrass his hosts. He watched, sustained by great local Whisky, while other guests made fools of themselves.