My Exotic Youth

Book excerpt: Having a British accent, people ask me where I am from and they expect me to say Oh! Im from England, so that they can follow up with I thought so!. Sometimes they say I thought perhaps that the accent is Canadian or Australian. I was raised by British parents in Mauritius, a British colony with French schools, and in Jersey, an island in the English Channel with a long French background but part of the United Kingdom for well over 200 years. My name comes from my Jersey heritage: my family had lived there for many hundreds of years, This book covers the Mauritius period of my life to about 13 years of age, and the Jersey period to about 16. At first it was about filling in the family record for my children and grandchildren, but family stories of hooliganism required me to refute these! Mauritius is a subtropical island where coconut palms grow down to golden beaches with warm blue water, where sugar-cane fields cover the countryside, where small monkeys scuttle along the river valleys, and where bananas, peaches and mangoes grow fresh for the picking a paradise to grow up in. Jersey is a small island quite similar to England in its ways, its flora, and its fauna no bananas or monkeys - but with French names for places and people, and French laws and habits. Being south of England, the climate is milder. Farming of market crops flowers, vegetables, and cattle flourish. Jersey bulls and cows draw huge prices. The adventures I had with my brother and several friends were mostly boyhood fun, but some came close to breaking our necks or breaking the law! While around 10 to 12 years old, we set off on a 10 mile hike through unknown river valleys hoping to reach our favorite beach, and only got home after midnight by the grace of God and a friendly trucker. Later, we clambered among 200 foot cliffs over the ocean to collect birds eggs. We set fire to cliff-top grass and gorse. We drove the car to a beach picnic when none of us was yet 13. Brian became an aeronautical engineer through study for a BSc degree at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, England, supported by a Ministry of Supply 5-year sholarship, then by winning a King George VI Memorial Fellowship to study in the USA for a MAe degree at The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, NY, USA. He later worked for a PhD degree at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, USA. His career in the aeronautical industry began as a Lecturer at the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield, near Bletchley, England, and then covered 7 years at the Lockheed Research Laboratories in Palo Alto, CA, and 26 years at Boeing Aerospace Co. in Seattle, WA. He has written many technical papers and, since retiring in 1995, a book on Ultrasound and Eastic Waves. He married Shirley Cawood of Brooklyn, New York and they now live in Seattle and Whidbey Island, WA. They have a son and daughter and three grand children. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].