Heritage ( Archived) (31)

I think I go more by culture, traditions, mannerisms and funny ways.

I like my mixed heritage a lot.

There's some good stories, as well.

I tell these stories to my daughter and granndaughter aurally, as my mother did.

My mum and dad met when my dad did his National Service over in Germany. He kept going into the shop where my mum worked and buying birthday cards. All he'd say was, "Für meine Schwester." and grin inanely at her.

My mother was the youngest of nine, but even she was a little taken aback by how many sisters he had.

(He only has three sisters, btw.)

Anyway, they began courting which involved some incidents where my dad hid behind a bush because her boyfriend went past and she hid under the soldiers legs in the back of the truck to illicitly sneak into the off-camp cinema. I was shocked when I heard about those shenanigans, I can tell you. Most unseemly things for parents to do.

When my dad finished his posting, she went over to England for a three week holiday, but the only way they could stay together was by getting married.

As they didn't speak the same language, they requested the wedding mass was said in Latin. It had just gone out of vogue to make mass more accessible to the general English speaking population, so the priest refused. You might find an irony in there somewhere, but I suspect the refusal had more to do with prejudice than anything else. It was 12 years after the end of the war, my mum is German and they had her marked down as a Jew from day one. They didn't like the likes of her infiltrating their Catholic church, even though her father was Polish Catholic and she had been raised Catholic.

Anyway, as my mum didn't understand any of the mass, my dad had to elbow her in the ribs when it was time for her to say, "I do!"

They've been married for nearly 60 years now, so the moral of this tale is...internet dating (they used an ink pen in those days) and travelling overseas for love has been going on for a while now, quite happily.