Reunited in England

With Gill at Cranham suffering badly from hay fever my parents drove up to Heathrow to meet me when I arrived in early July, but soon after the family was reunited at Little Heath after Gill managed to drive across to Hastings with the two girls.

My temporary teaching appointment had been confirmed in late June so Gill had been able to make most of the arrangements for our move to Essex. Teachers were in such short supply in the area that they were placed at the top of the Council housing list so she had filled the necessary application forms. She had also managed, while in Gloucestershire, to collect together some basic furniture as well as clothing for the girls, though....

....with the fine weather continuing, they didn't need much.

I travelled to Essex to visit my new school and had an interview with the headmaster. Because it was a temporary post the County had refused to allow me a Scale 2 salary and there was some dispute over the extent to which my overseas teaching experience could count towards pay increments but we were relieved both to have a job and be offered a house into which we could settle.

Not that we were determined to stay in England. For some time we continued to give serious consideration to working abroad again. We discussed Australia, and we had an open invitation to return to Rhodesia. The latter was very tempting but the guerrilla war was becoming ever more dangerous - our friend Leslie Davis, who had taken over as headmaster at Bernard Mizeki and was doing at excellent job of putting the school back on its feet, was advised by the police to leave and move somewhere safer, which, very reluctantly, he did. So, gradually we talked less about escaping from England and seemed to accept that our immediate future lay in Essex.