The Stamp In My Passport

 The stamp in my passport, put there by the indifferent Immigration officer at Heathrow airport, took but a wrist flicking instant.  The next 12 months that followed were some of the happiest and transformative days of my life.  The events that took place would open wide the door to the course my life has taken me ever since. A grand journey which has lasted 50 fulfilling years so far.

 

I had my 20th birthday just a few weeks prior to flying to London and as I recall now I was fearless about facing the daunting reality that I was traveling to a place in which I knew no one.  Furthermore I was depending, in the beginning at least, on the kindness and hospitality of those who I had never met, didn’t know I was coming, and whose names and addresses I had scribbled in a slender notepad.  

Fortunately I was not traveling alone.  Johnny and I were planning on only a brief stop over in London and then head to Oxford to hopefully stay for a short time till I found a house for the band to live and practice in. The group was called the White Stains and Johnny was the drummer and I was……

To look back at it now from the perspective of 50 years on  the journey and its flimsy strategy  didn’t make much sense.  I had dropped out of college the previous Spring after lasting barely 2 years.  My brother claims that I said at the time that I had absorbed everything that school had to offer.  A statement that can be only attributed to a naive and arrogant teenager.  Yet thinking about it now after all these years it doesn’t sound that far off when compared to the events which subsequently shaped and inspired me.

By the Spring of 1972  my scholastic ambitions had withered to nothing.  I was certain that University was not offering me what I felt I really needed.  What that was was not exactly clear but it seemed that if spiritual fulfillment was not coming to me in a classroom then I would have to attempt to somehow seek it out elsewhere.

I was inspired by spiritual books like, Remember Be Here Now and Autobiography of a Yogi.  It was obvious there was still learning to be done but it would have to take place outside the traditional school environment.  It seemed apparent that knowledge of my inner self was what I yearned for. Yet how and where to do that was a mystery. It is an easy enough thing to teach your mind knowledge but how do you expand your heart’s power.

  It seemed to make sense to get some distance between myself and my home in Canada.  Spending time with my friends who wanted to perform and make music seemed to be the best potential option. If I could contribute by finding a home, for all the later to arrive band members all the better.  If things didn’t work out my fall back strategy was to head to India to find enlightenment.  Which was based solely on the convenient fact that I had an Uncle living in New Delhi.

Examining the extraordinary turn of events that took place in the first few days after our arrival still appear to me as nothing less than miraculous.  The journey had started off with the disappointing setback that our Canadian departure was delayed by one day.  What became clear only as time passed was that fate had intervened so that the trajectory of our destiny would nudge us into a fortuitous encounter on the next leg of our journey.

After leaving the airport Johnny and I made our way to Covent Garden to test out our questionable unannounced and unknown visitor strategy. I would like to recall that they were thrilled to take us in.  I am not denying there was likely to have been some impetuous youthful celebration upon our unforeseen arrival.  The outcome of which was a groggy attempt to locate the bus to Oxford the following day.  A bedraggled pair we showed up at the bus station shortly after our planned for bus had departed.

When we got on the next bus there were already 2 passengers on board.  A French girl named Ann who was traveling to Islip a town near Oxford to house sit for an American couple and Jimmy Sunderland who was heading home after vacationing in the Canary islands.  
At the time I had no idea how fortuitous it was for us to meet and how prominent a part they would play, in both in the short interval but also in the many months that sill lay ahead

What we soon learned was Johnny’s remarkable connection to them both.  Ann’s father taught french at the same school that he attended in Halifax and Jimmy announced that he had just spent time while he was on vacation with 2 people from Halifax. Coincidently both of whom Johnny knew very well and who he had in fact worked with at a drug crisis center     

It was coincidently a chance encounter that led to a profound and life altering outcome.  One in retrospect that led me to believe that most, if not all the experiences I had in the following year were guided by hands both seen an unseen.  

By the time the bus finally arrived in Oxford we had all become good friends.  Being so close to Christmas there was concern that Johnny and I had no place to stay.  So the 4 of us trekked to the address I had only to find it was either recorded wrong or no one was home.  Ann promptly offered us accommodation in the large house she was looking after. An offer that Johnny and I and eventually Steve ( who came the first of the year) took full advantage of for nearly a month.  

To describe Jimmy Sunderland’s contribution to the events that took place in the year ahead would be an understatement to call them anything less than monumental. For starters what soon became obvious was the necessity of getting a car. Something that had not been discussed or even thought of.  Jimmy’s mother as it turns out had an old Morris van she wanted to sell which I gladly purchased for the grand total of 40 pounds. It was my first car and I absolutely loved it.(I called it Biffo)  It was to be our ever dependable chariot for the full year.

Eventually many weeks later when the band had at last assembled and were ready to perform Jimmy also opened the door to my Welsh experience by finding a gig for the band to play in Porthcawl at a pub called The Knights Arms.

There was of course a lot of life lived between my December 12th arrival in London and finding the house in Hailey in which all of us lived in till late Spring of 1973.  To say in the end the great Rock and Roll experiment didn’t work out is not entirely accurate.  True an invitation to perform on Top of the Pops never materialized and there was the sobering period when the money ran out and we were obliged to take jobs working construction for 50pence an hour. But through it all we remained close and we each grew wiser in our own way.

By June the White Stains had played their last local pub.  Jimmy Hewitt along with his wife and infant son were heading back to Canada.  Johnny, Steve, and myself however were far from ready yet to say goodbye to the UK.  Particularly when there was still so much time left on our passports.  So we piled into the van and headed west to spend the rest of our time left in the country in Porthcawl.

There was no plan, we just went to Wales with the high hopes I guess that it would somehow all just work out, which of course it did.  In the beginning there were some notable misfires.  For example the plan for the three of us to live in a tent on the beach was a flop right from the moment the van got stuck in the sand.  How matters of personal hygiene were to be addressed I thankfully have not managed to retain any recollection.

This is when our savior came to the rescue in the form of Betty Moir who lived in her mother’s home on the top floor along with her 2 children Frith and Luke.  She was adamant that we stay in her front room and not live rough outdoors.  I will always be grateful to her and her family for the generosity and kindness that she so willingly offered up to us from her very large heart.

Frith and Betty

I also must give credit to Jimmy Sunderland, he of the Oxford bus ride who had introduced us all some months earlier on our first visit to Wales.

Now at this time I was undergoing some dramatic lifestyle changes.  Because of the almost total absence of meat from my diet I had become a vegetarian and was also taking fewer and fewer trips to the pub.  I had also started meditating everyday and  it was working its magic on me. I had at last found a technique that was giving me real inner peace.

At some point about now I was getting more and more familiar with Betty’s mother Phyllis who owned the house and lived downstairs with her husband John. Initially she disproved of all the raucous comings and goings of us rowdy Canadian hippies.

Frith and Phyllis

But something between us changed.  In a way that I can’t fathom as the weeks passed she became like  a second mother to me and allowed me to move into her spare room.  We became very close.  She would introduce me to Spiritualism which along with my practice of mediation would be a significant part of the map of my life during those beautiful summer and fall months living in Porthcawl.

Johnny, who had arrived in the UK along with me in December at some point that summer decided to head back to Halifax and finish his degree.  Steve who had arrived in January would stay there as long as he could. For me though as time moved along it was becoming evident  that soon I would have to decide for myself when was the right time to leave.  

I was going regularly to Spiritualist churches all over southern Wales.  Most often I traveled with Phyllis, but sometimes if she couldn’t make it I would drive alone.  Often seeing the tired miners coming home from working long hours in the pits, with their faces still smudged black from coal dust.

As the time left on my passport was slipping away I eventually decided to leave on my 21st birthday which fell on November 20th.  There were many tears when it came to my leaving, probably most of them mine.  I had connected to this Porthcawl family in a deep and profound way. At the same time it became obvious that now a new chapter was destined to open up for me back home.

Once I got back to Canada my life would take a much different change of direction. My connection to my Welsh friends gradually faded. For a few years there was just an occasional letter and Christmas card.  But I just never seemed to have time or the money to retrace my steps back to Wales.  That is until I ended up out of work in the fall of 1995. Out of the blue I was invited to give mediation classes in Cardiff. This was an opportunity I didn’t want let slip by.

My schedule was to say the least relaxed and as my birthday was coming up, so I thought, why not treat myself to a trip back to Porthcawl.  It was a circuitous and lengthy bus trip.  22 years had passed and my heart was pounding the whole way.  When I at last got off the bus so much time had passed or for some other mental deficiency I couldn’t recognize the house.  I walked up and down the block many times but just could not remember the number 10 Churchplace.

That night when I got back to Cardiff I realized that the smart thing to do would be to search through the phone book.  Sure enough there was a listing for Betty Moir which I promptly called.  It turns out she had moved a short distance away and that her brother in law, who was now living in Phyliss’s home had informed her of a suspicious character he had seen earlier that day prowling around the block. She was very surprised and pleased to hear from me after so many years.

Of course I was able to come back and reconnect once again with the whole family.  My surrogate mother Phyllis was still alive but suffering from severe diabetes.  When I saw her again after so many years I asked her permission so that I could kiss her once.  Her reply, why just once.

After this extraordinary reunion Betty drove me to the train in Bridgend just like she had done on my birthday in November of 1973.  I felt deeply the tug and pull of my love for these people and the twinkling mystery of my inexplicable connection to Wales itself. I like to humor myself by believing that in my last lifetime I was Welsh.

I will never be able to reveal if there is any truth in this just like I will never be able to answer the great what if question.  What if my flight had not been cancelled that one day and my passport had been stamped December 11th instead.  In the end it is just another unsolvable mystery to toss into the tangled clutter in the unlit recesses of  my tired brain.

My heart on the other hand celebrates and treasures all that came to pass after that Heathrow passport stamp back on December 12 1972.  The world opened up to me in ways that I could never have dreamed were possible.  My task now is a simple one.  Offer gratitude for all that has graced my life these past 70 years and be grateful for all that has yet to come.



The longest journey
Is always
The inner journey.
This journey knows no beginning
And no end.
Sri Chinmoy, Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 24, Agni Press, 2002