I have often jokingly said that I could write about my life based around the many different places in which I’ve lived. There is nothing wildly glamorous or adventuress about my life, such as travelling the world, jet-setting, living in the wilds, spending time navel-gazing in a monastery on top of a mountain. Well, that is if you don’t count running away from home at 17, working in a night club, marrying and divorcing an eccentric writer by the age of 23; becoming an opera singer, touring in the US and in Europe. Then there are the ordinary things of life that are never actually ordinary. Having children is life-changing, as is divorce and career changes and all the inner shifts we undergo that are hard to pin down – bound as we are by the limitations of language to do justice to expressing the densely-populated world of feelings each of us has. It’s more about how my many moves informed my life; the reasons for moving and the shifts in what I did and how I became who I am and who I may still become. Life is never over until the last breath is drawn and in between birth and death life itself is always on the move!
Me and my brother Chris circa 1952
It started young. My parents weren’t in the army or anything like that.. They simply moved a lot. Then there were the 4 years at Boarding School. I worked out recently that for each year I was there I only spent 16 weeks at home. I was an opera singer, famous in my small world for a short while, I have taught singing, co-run an arts company, been married twice, written, have a son, but most significantly I’ve moved and moved, to the point that it’s become the one certain thing in my life.
To be continued…