Yorkshire Living
Thelma Rowell, UC Berkeley

I am not an American living abroad, but an Englishwoman who went home. Possibly not so peculiar, since one of the exciting things about Berkeley is its international character.

Much though I enjoyed my 25 years in Berkeley I never felt myself American, so it seemed natural to return to England, and most of my extended family or more particularly to Yorkshire, when I retired.

From the sale of a small Macgregor house in West Berkeley I was able to buy an old house with a little land in the Yorkshire Dales and I have become a smallholder, keeping goats, sheep, and poultry and growing fruit and vegetables.

My day begins with milking and continues until the hens go to bed -- after 9 p.m. at this time of year. I am not short of vigorous exercise! It is idyllic living here in summer, and something of an endurance test in the dark winter months.

Since it is a ten mile round trip to the nearest village and shops, I take a pride in being largely self sufficient; its a long way to any town, so the attraction has to be pretty strong to get me out of here, but I have managed to get back to Berkeley each year to see my Californian grandchildren.

I said I returned "home,” but in fact I hadn't lived in Yorkshire since I went to Cambridge as a student, and hadn't lived in Britain since 1962 and a lot has happened here since then. I quite often feel like Rip van Winkle, knowing nothing of happenings and television programs which riveted everyone else while I wasn't here.

My advice to anyone coming to California is to beware -- we only intended to come for a couple of years to see what it was like, and suddenly that stretched to most of my working life!

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