The 1966 au pair in USA

I woke this morning feeling much better - no sneezing but cough has gone to the chest - but I’m am fading now - so tired - so thought I’d blip before I fall asleep.

Yesterday Hazel blipped about her stint as an au pair in France so that inspired me (seriously short of any coherent thoughts at the moment ) to post this very grainy old photo of me with 18 month old Bronwen Williams who I looked after with her 5 year old brother.

In 1966 I went on a uni charter flight to Toronto for the summer, expecting I’d find an office job there. My skills were lacking so I ended up taking a job looking after Marc and his baby sister at their grandparents’ beach summer house on the Canadian side of Lake Erie. I had no previous experience of looking after children or babies but it went well. (Their dad had gone on sailing trials for the US Olympic team and their mum went too. )

My original plan had been to work for the first 2 months there to earn enough to travel for the last month. However this job was for the last 6 weeks only. I decided to use my 99 days for $99 greyhound bus pass despite the lack of funds by using the buses to sleep on and getting out in the day to look around. Also I had a friend of my mum’s to visit in Calgary and second cousins in Vancouver who were very kind and gave me a bed for a few nights and showed me around. I also had a pen pal (young blippers won’t maybe know about them!) in Corpus Christi so I really made use of my bus pass. I went west from Toronto to Vancouver then San Fransisco and east and south for 5 days before reaching as far as you can go in Texas, Corpus Christie. I went back via New Orleans, Memphis and New York, spending the last of my money there before heading to Buffalo and the job. I had a great time, met lots of interesting people, and made lasting friendships.

The grandparents kept in touch and came to Scotland to visit me at uni and they went to see my parents too. I barely met the children’s parents but they kept in touch and visited us in Suffolk. We found we had so much in common politically and got on really well. They are in their 80s now. We went to see them about 6 years ago and met Marc again. We went sailing on Lake Minnetonka and to their cabin in Boundary Waters Canoe wilderness area where we canoed. (Sadly Bronwen, my jolly baby, is estranged from her dad so I have not seen her since 1966 - she’ll be 60 now!)