Decide in Haste...

There it was then. Leaving a trail of devastation behind us, we were destined for Cyprus after all. We had to be brave and bold now. We had to learn from recent experience and plan properly, although the future was far from certain.

The decision to go behind us, we entered an exciting period of opportunity and possibility, one where we could alter parts of our lives that were previously unalterable. For example, I asked Allie if we could change our surname to my mother’s maiden name. This was something that I’d wanted to do for many years, to ensure that my absent father’s family name didn’t pass to the next generation down my line. The right time had never arisen before, but this was definitely the right time now.

Only a few close friends had the audacity to ask us why we were changing our surname at the same time as moving abroad! Most understood my reasons for the name change. All of them had much more difficulty however understanding why we were leaving the country given all the facts. From their detached standpoints, they could see the myriad possibilities other than emigration that were hidden by narrow-mindedness. Once again, I shut out our friends’ advice and guidance. Again, it had come too late, for our minds were already set.

Friends’ suggestions that we should stay and seek work in England instead hadn't come too late of course. There were still three weeks before my departure, and three months before Allie and the children followed. I don’t think now that the chairman would have minded too much if I’d rejected his job offer after all. The truth was that I didn’t make the time to consider other options, perhaps to conserve and salvage some of my pride and credibility. Having vacillated for months, I wanted to seem sure footed now. If I had made time, I’d have seen the precariousness of our emotional and financial wellbeing. The folly of our intended course of action.

Instead, I in particular concentrated too much on what appeared to be our pre-destined path, the only way ahead, with the consequence that social ties tightened by thirty years of shared experience became loose and, in some cases, broken. Having disrupted our colleagues’ lives through resigning our jobs, we were about to cause havoc in the lives of our families and friends; lives that we held particularly near and dear.

We were like steeple chase horses, whipped on by sadistic jockeys, hurtling forward with blinkers strapped firmly in place. Tiring, yet knowing the race wasn’t over yet, we focussed on running and jumping the hurdles immediately ahead. We couldn’t see, or didn’t choose to see, the many opportunities there were to simply run off the course or just stop running. Not once did we evaluate completely whether the race was worth winning.

A subtle betrayal of our deep seated certainty, in the last quarter of 1993 and first half of 1994, was our new found addiction to horoscopes. As our emotions swayed up and down, this way and that, we sought desperately any insight into how our plans would work out. To us, horoscope writers seemed reasonable gurus. They didn’t know our circumstances and were impartial therefore, and they had at least as good an idea of our future as us.

Their early predictions during this period indicated consistently that we should meet the overseas challenge head on and with relish. Many seemed uncannily well informed and confident. Frustratingly however, from the time of my reconnaissance on, the astrological messages became much more confused and uncertain. At the very time we needed clear advice and guidance most, the horoscope writers deserted us. The fortunes of Sagittarius, Virgo and Taurus no longer seemed to apply to our family’s situation.

If you recall, one of our biggest concerns about the move south was by how much our expenditure would exceed our income once we were abroad. I didn’t need a horoscope to tell me that money was going to be in short supply come September. A simple cash flow forecast on the back of an envelope would have revealed that. By early autumn, apart from our day-to-day living expenses, we’d have to own a car in Cyprus and be ready to pay our first instalment of school fees to SCEA. If our house in England didn’t have paying tenants by this time … well, the financial consequences were just too awful to contemplate. With two houses to pay for, we would face ruin in weeks.

Fortunately, a few days after accepting my job offer, someone that I’d met during my reconnaissance faxed me a job advertisement that she’d seen in The Lion, the weekly newspaper of the British Forces in Cyprus. In the fax, she teased me about how wonderful the weather was in Limassol that day compared to England’s. Her comment offered me a crumb of comfort that we were, after all, doing the right thing.

The job offer was for a ‘Locally Employed’ Reception Teacher at Episkopi Primary, the very place that I thought Anne might go to school! Allie and I couldn’t believe our good luck. The job seemed perfect, since Allie had taught ‘new recruits’ to the English education system for many years. Being conversant with the latest policies and procedures in England, and confident of a good reference from her current school, we thought Allie had more than a fair chance of securing the post and (with it) our financial viability in the autumn.

Consequently, Allie sent a letter of application to the head teacher on Friday 13 May. Putting aside any superstitious worries about the date, she indicated to him that she could attend a meeting in the Whitsun school break, during the first week of my new employment in fact. We knew that Allie’s trip would be at our expense, but the investment seemed worthwhile, indeed almost essential. So many of our assets were at risk now anyway, that a further moderate gamble wasn’t difficult to justify.

At least my new employer would be refunding my ‘economy … bus travel', if not Allie’s. This small print in my job offer caused a wry smile when I read it. I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d caught a bus. Having seen some of the public ones in Cyprus, I knew that Allie and I wouldn’t be catching one from Larnaca Airport to Limassol. We’d be taking a taxi instead and standing the additional cost ourselves.

Vindication of simplistic views like, ‘Moving to Cyprus must be right, otherwise this teaching vacancy wouldn’t have arisen now,’ and, ‘If living in Cyprus really is our destiny, then Allie’s bound to get the job’, came when the head teacher replied positively. In his letter, the head said that he’d welcome a meeting with Allie during the week that she’d suggested. In saying this, it seemed as if he refuelled us with some much needed, high-octane optimism, and we quickly made plans for Rob and Anne to stay with their aunt and uncle, whilst Allie and I flew to the Med’.

Many people were envious of our apparent good fortune at this time. We’d recovered from the oh-so bad days of resignations and explanations. Now, everything seemed to be working in our favour again and ‘fortune really did seem to favour the brave’.

Before our trip, Allie and I had to sort out twenty odd years of belongings. In what little spare time remained in the breathless month of May, we allocated most of our treasured possessions and worthless junk to five broad categories: take, store, give-away, sell and tip. Categorising our bits and pieces wasn’t difficult. We’d never been collectors of fine art, flashy jewellery or expensive ornaments. We were the kind of people who liked the things around us to be functional or emotive, and nothing else. Objects without a purpose or sentimental value generally left our house, usually at the time of my three yearly purges.

In fact, the chairman’s intransigence over paying for the shipment of our bigger personal effects made our decision-making simpler still. All he would fund was a sixty-kilogram Excess Baggage Allowance for my entire family. That weight was not generous, as some trial packs of our suitcases had proved.

Allie and I knew that leaving so many of our personal effects behind would make our year-long sojourn seem more like a major vacation than an emigration. It might also jeopardise our ability to settle down on a long term basis. Consequently, I researched how much it would cost us to export our Volvo 240 fully laden with possessions. Not only, would these possessions make our accommodation more homely, but retaining our Volvo would also prevent some of our precious pennies falling into the coffers of a Limassol car dealer. After all, cars drove on the left hand side of the road in Britain and its former colony, Cyprus. The Volvo was also well serviced and fully equipped to cope with minor potholes, if not the tank traps.

The shipping companies that I spoke to all recommended exporting my car in a container, for security reasons. However, the container costs were prohibitive taking into account the associated insurance premiums and bureaucratic delays. The other option was to use a roll-on, roll-off (RO-RO) ferry. This would have been cheaper but, apparently, the ships’ crews had a bad reputation for pilfering. Hence, there seemed little point in investing in RO-RO, if our belongings were likely to go missing. Then there’d be the hassle of police reports and insurance claims in a foreign country. In the end, Allie and I decided that paying for our own possession shipment didn’t make sense, especially if my contract ended after a year.

I recall being angered at the time that a car so well maintained, so reliable and so perfectly suited to Cyprus’ roads would have to remain in England. Our Volvo’s cavernous boot would have held all sorts of items, items capable of making our new life more comfortable whilst reminding us of home. There was no point being angry though. This was just another irksome consequence of our madness. I had to content myself therefore with the knowledge that at least Allie would have our workhorse to dispose of our remaining possessions. Until, that is, the time came for its sale.

The size of my new employer’s Excess Baggage Allowance, and the costs of shipping luxuries from England by sea, meant that we’d only be able to take bare essentials with us to Cyprus. Recalling that locally-produced clothing and footwear were of poor quality and imports were expensive, the purchase of lightweight garments and shoes now became a high priority. During the winter, we would just have to wear several light layers to keep warm. Objects like compact disc players and saucepans would have to be moved to Cyprus piecemeal, either when we returned to England for holidays, or when family and friends came to stay.

I remember that sorting out Rob and Anne’s toys caused Allie and I a good deal of heartache one Saturday morning. We regretted so much having to give or throw away so many of them. It was like disposing of, almost denying, our children’s history; like diluting, almost eradicating, their childhoods. Discussions about what to do with train sets, favoured dolls and garden swings sparked many memories, some disputes and a few heated discussions. In its own way you see, each toy held some special attachment to Rob and Anne’s short lives. Thankfully, my brother agreed to store some of the more precious toys like teddy bears, as well as more recent treasures like roller blades, in his attic.

In tandem with a review of our photo albums after lunch, Allie and I shed some tears on the day we sorted out our children’s toys.

We offered most items in the ‘give-away’ category to our brothers first (Allie and I have no sisters). Where there were no takers, we made similar free offers to our friends. We felt strongly that, if we had to forfeit so many of our belongings, then we might as well give them to people that we cared for, rather than to complete strangers. That way we could keep some of our accumulated wealth in, or close to, our immediate social circle.

The net result was that we lent many of our moderately priced possessions to people we knew and trusted, on a semi-permanent basis. In doing so, we were aware however that, as time passed, it would be increasingly difficult to ask for them back. Charity shops and the municipal tip took most of the lower value items, and we either sold or hoarded the expensive ones. Selling was by far the best option of course, because we needed to liquefy as many redundant assets as possible, to raise much needed cash.

As we found to our cost though, it was one thing to mentally sort our belongings into categories and make provisional arrangements for their disposal, it was quite another to physically implement those plans. For example, like the Volvo, we realised that Allie would need certain pieces of furniture – such as our beds, three-piece suite and dining table – until the week before her departure. It would be almost intolerable to do without them, even on a medium-term basis. More importantly, she’d need the washing machine, fridge freezer and cooker until the day of her departure, so we decided to store as many of these items as possible in my mother’s garage, at the last possible moment. I’d arrange for their disposal at some later date, on a visit home.

The necessity to delay the disposal of more items than we’d originally anticipated meant that Allie would have to complete most of the wealth-redistribution process after my departure. Most of the late-disposal possessions were either bulky or heavy too; some were both.

Worse still, these items would have to go to their new homes during Allie’s last few hectic days in England. Since Allie planned to fly out with Rob and Anne as soon as their schools broke up for the summer recess, concurrent tasks in these days would include teaching, reassuring two anxious offspring and preparing our house for a long-term let. All these tasks and more Allie would have to perform without my help, but hopefully with stout support from our families and friends. Several years on, we still owe huge debts of gratitude to the many people who rallied around Allie and our cause at this time. I can’t think how we will ever repay them all.

My middle brother deserves a special mention here. He and I competed, rather than co-operated, for the first thirty odd years of our lives. Thankfully, in the Spring of 1994, we called a truce and a new phase in our relationship began. He and his wife were wonderful sources of help, inspiration and support. Despite leading their own busy lives, they looked after Rob and Anne when Allie needed independence, and they also helped in the final frantic movement of possessions. At this time, my brother and I built the kind of firm friendship that we should have enjoyed many years earlier.