Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(February 2004)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
Family matters.
In the previous page I briefly mentioned a long
lost cousin, who I had not seen or heard of for over fifty
years.
Here’s the story:
One Sunday morning in January of 2003, (or somewhere
thereabouts), I received a telephone call out of the blue
from a Mr Peter Hinchliffe, who was a very senior and
experienced reporter associated with the Huddersfield
Examiner.
The call was in response to an article I had sent him
with respect to a get together I had with an old school
friend by the name of Norman White, who later married
my sister and became my brother-in-law. The get together
was really a farewell party with Norman and some of his
friends, or acquaintances, which took place in the Dusty
Miller Pub at Dodlea Longwood in the Autumn of 1966, just
before we as a family emigrated to the United States.
If you want to read a full account of this episode, please
go to the February
2003 Edition of "View from America".
Peter obviously read the article and decided that it
would make a good human interest story for inclusion in
his Ex-Pats column in the Huddersfield Examiner, hence
the telephone call requesting an interview. What I thought
was going to be a fifteen-minute interview turned into
an interview lasting over an hour. Peter is very professional
and very thorough, and in that hour he ferreted out practically
my whole life story. The end product was an article in
the Examiner which came out on one particular Saturday,
and the very next day I had an E-mail from a young lady
in Meltham, the gist of the E-mail being, "Mr Sykes
you don’t know me, but I think that you know my
mother"
Oh dear, surely not the "Sins of their Fathers"
coming back to haunt them.
Anyway my fears were allayed when the young lady said
that she was married with two children and that her mother
had read the article and recognised the description of
me as being that of a long lost cousin.
I immediately wrote back and said yes I remembered Cousin
Joan and her parents very well, as when my sister and
I had been orphaned at an early age we had been separated
had sent to live with relatives.
I went to live with my long lost cousin’s parents,
my Aunt and Uncle, in Thornton Lodge for a period of time.
So - one of the prime objectives of our visit to Huddersfield
was to meet up with Cousin Joan, (and her family), and
we spent a very short but very pleasant Sunday afternoon
having a very good luncheon at a really nice hotel.
So whether you like it or not, you now have the other
half of the story.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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