From tropical green, across the vast blue to brutal industrial grey. He was an incomer to a town of incomers, an outsider amongst many, from within the British Isles and without, he came to earn, to live and to leave.
He had been taught that ‘to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive’.
He had travelled hopeful of the opportunity to work hard, to earn enough money to return home in glory, to enhance his standing in life. Now he was upon dry land, where the sun stayed hidden and the cold chilled his bones.
He had arrived.
BackgroundMy father, Max LeBlanc, arrived in Southampton Docks on the south coast of England on Sunday 13th May, 1956. His plan was initially to travel to London and from there to travel northwards to the small industrial town of Scunthorpe. He was to work in the booming steel industry, which, as the Ministry of Labour stated at the time, had a shortfall in skilled and unskilled personnel. The protagonist in this book is named Tio Mourillon [pronounced mo-ree-on in French or mu-rill-on in Dominican English]. Tio was his pet name as a child. Mourillon was his mother, Elmie Mourillon's maiden name. Before we get to the point of his arrival, in the first chapter, we skip back a few months to why he left his home in Dominica and what he sought to accomplish by travelling to the UK. The story starts slowly, then gathers pace when he arrives at his destination. |