Bill Sykes' Newsletter from America.
(February 2003)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
Answer to questions posed by several readers.
I’ve been asked on several occasions by readers
of this news letter "Why did you and your family
emigrate to the United States of America?", so I
decided to see what kind of an answer I could come up
with.
We as a family were reasonably well off in England, I
had a good job as a Senior Design Engineer with the Rolls
Royce Bristol Engine Division, we had a nice new semi
detached house in the village of Winterbourne on the outskirts
of Bristol, had a small Ford car and spent a month holidaying
on the Continent each year. What more could we want?
At that time, (summer of 1965/66), American Aerospace
Companies were flocking to England and Europe recruiting
engineers for their aerospace programs, and as I was currently
working upon high speed flight applications my experience
was in great demand.
Prior to this period of the somewhat frenzied American
aerospace recruiting invasion, I had been sponsored by
Rolls Royce to attend a course on Aerospace Propulsion
Systems at Cranfield College of Aeronautics. Approaching
the end of the course, a leading Economist, (Ms Mary Goldring),
visited Cranfield as a guest lecturer.
Ms. Goldring gave a presentation describing the health
of the British Aerospace community and indicated a glowing
future. When it came to question time I asked Ms. Goldring,
"Whilst acknowledging that the British Aerospace
community is in general way ahead of the field technically,
how come so many British engineers are leaving to go to
America?"
Her answer, "“That is totally untrue. Maybe
a few are being enticed by the large American aerospace
companies but they are not leaving in droves".
At this point Professor Le Febre, who was acting as chairman
and moderator, quickly passed a note across to Ms. Goldring.
She read the note and said "It would appear that
I was incorrect in my assumptions, as Professor Le Febre
has just informed me that three of his senior colleagues
have left in the past month to join American aerospace
universities and American aerospace companies".
I then figured that if they, (the distinguished members
of the society of higher education), knew something that
I didn’t, then it was time for me to head west and
join them in their quest to participate in the opportunities
that apparently existed in America - you know the old
saying - "go west young man" - well I was a
relatively young forty year old and didn’t see much
future in British aerospace at that time so I took a day
trip to London and interviewed with several leading American
companies, and by the end of that very day had five different
job offers.
Convincing myself and my family.
It was a very difficult task convincing myself,
and Sheena, that it would be in the family’s best
interests for the future to emigrate to the United States,
so first things first, which job should I accept.
Sheena and I discussed the companies and their location
and to cut a long story short we chose the Boeing Company
in Seattle. Boeing paid all our expenses, including our
airfare to the colonies, and the packaging and shipping
of our goods and chattels from Bristol to Seattle. We
sold our house - big mistake as history was to show -
packed our belongings and set off on the last day of December,
1966, for far away places.
There have been many times since then that I have searched
my soul as to whether I made the right decision and whether
I gave enough consideration to my family in taking them
so far away from their places of birth.
I guess we will never know, as we appear to have been
destined to become nomads traveling in a vacuum of space,
not truly retaining, (but on the other hand not losing
sight of), our British heritage, and in the process have
not been transformed into true Americans, by speech, thought,
or deed.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
|
