My wife is mixed race, half Cornish, half Devonian and came to Birmingham to teach, met her at a Saturday night Jazz Club at The Golden Cross, and married her later that year, 1959, she taught at Upper Thomas Street, I worked at Cannings and had a Dad who dreamt of a country cottage in Devon with roses round the door. Unable to buy a house within the Birmingham boundary, the only choice was Dawley (later Telford) which was three hours by train from Birmingham at that time. Then Cannings had a rationalisation, no overtime, so time for us to move on and live my Dad's dream, I moved August 1962 to Plymouth (living the other side of the Tamar with my inlaws), jobs hard to find and much lower paid (I dropped £7.00 per week), eventually my wife got a teaching job and joined me, bought a house, had children, moved around Devon, my Dad died at 53 shortly after we moved and in a way we lost touch with my mother, except for quite unpleasant short visits, us to her or her to us, my sister had moved to Bristol and we lost touch with our friends, because at that time Devon was a long way from Birmingham and it once took us from 9am until 6.30 pm to motor the A38, no motorways, just traffic jams, Exeter, Taunton, Bristol & Gloucester. Twice during this time we looked at the Antipodes and Canada, but for one reason or another were not brave enough to chance it. I missed Birmingham, because I was a City boy, but began to enjoy the rural life, I've seen my children grow up and succeed, one son the director of a local large building company, the other son a director at Apple with a remit that allows him to cover Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
I still love to visit Birmingham and am glad that it is now so easy to do, either by road or train. One thing I do find sad, is the friends we have whose children have moved to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US of A, who have never seen their grandchildren and blame travel costs. Being a constant traveller myself, I know there are bargains available if you put yourself out to fly at strange unsociable times and by odd routes and I am sure if any of my family was abroad, I would be there twice a year at least as a consequence I wonder if there is a jealousy that the youngsters have done something that the parents were prevented (remember what our parents were like in the 50s/60s) from doing by family ties. At 83 I am doing the best job I have ever had, still on the road regularly, wheeling and dealing but also with qualifications now. However I have to admit that after I took off from Manchester on a 21 day holiday in Australia and Dubai, my 98year old mother passed away and I could not get back to the UK for the funeral..
Bob