Travel

 

 

Intrepid traveller

 

 

“Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.” – Mae C. Jemison

 

The first intrepid female traveller that I knew, was my mum

She travelled by ship to England when she was about 20. Solo. 70 years ago.

My mum always talks of sailing down the Suez Canal, and how safe she felt, being able to see both banks. She showed me photos of herself in Trafalgar Square and also in Ireland, kissing the Blarney Stone. Some guy is holding my mum in her 40s frock. Tiny waist, big spirit. She has an incredible lust for life.

She travelled all over. Fearless. All this around 1948. Pre mobiles, pre apps, pre everything that makes solo female travel easier to stay connected with others these days. She did it all alone.

My mum trained as a nurse, then a midwife. She often jokes about her party days in London, and how she slept in a bath at a party. I’ve done that too! Funny, she now calls me a gallavanter, but I wonder where I got that from?!

My mum tells me that she knew my dad when she was very young. But she went travelling and spent some time in Europe. Years later she met my darling dad again and then they built a life together.

She took expat posts in various countries, moving with my Dad’s jobs in the RAF. Together they travelled and saw so much of the world with their work. After so many international moves, I can appreciate now how hard that must have been for them, the packing up and unpacking of your life.

They finally ‘settled’ in London when Mum was in her forties. This all sounds very familiar to me now. So many parallels.

My mum and dad often shared their tales from life in Bahrain, Bangalore and Muscat. It all sounded so exotic and exciting to me. I had only known one place as a child, London.

My dad had a fantastic, ornamental house, about the same height as 5 year old me. It was wooden, comprising three tiers. Each one was full of coins, mostly from their time in the Middle East. As a child I would frequently tip all the coins out all over the floor, staring at the different heads and animals embossed on each shiny piece. I was fascinated by all the coins from other lands, sowing seeds of wanderlust.

Years later, I was now the one living in different places. My parents were our first visitors in Cape Town. We did a road trip all over the Western Cape, mostly living out of the boot of our rental car. My mum walked up Cape Point like a mountain goat. She paused just once. She was 73 at the time.

And some years later she visited us while we were working in the UAE. On her second trip, our 50th wedding anniversary gift to them, my mum and I went riding on a camel together at sunset. She was 81. Incredible!

I don’t think my parents have ever fully realised the impact that they have had on how I see the world; my wandering spirit, my wanderlust, my quest to experience more all comes from them. They too worked together to build a better life in different countries. We have done the same, many times over.

They showed me that life doesn’t need to be lived in one place. And that we don’t have to stay where we are born. We just have to be prepared to go.

Who has inspired you to live in other countries or travel?

 

 

 

 

 

©Maggie M/Mother City Time