It matters where you come from, it makes you who you are

Christopher 82. Retired film & documentary maker from Australia. Married. Two children, two grandchildren.

How are you? 

I'm a reasonably happy bloke. Obviously I’ve retired so the day job doesn't come into it anymore. I have time. What I have noticed is my connection back to Australia grows stronger as I get older. I sometimes wonder what's wrong with me. I've been in Britain longer than I was in Australia. My wife's English. So are my children and grandchildren are but I increasingly feel out of place here, there is a hankering for home.

I was born in England. My parents were Irish and Greek immigrants into England then migrants out of England into Australia. I grew up in Australia. Being an immigrant marks you strongly, immigrants bring freshness and diversity. It matters where you come from, it makes you who you are.

Back before mass flights around the world, young people from the Antipodes would come to Europe, there was an exodus, a great number of young, talented, people coming to Europe and Britain to try and make a name for themselves. Back home you couldn’t do that, in those days Australia was a very narrow, prejudice sort of place. When I was 19 I intended to come to Britain for a year. I never went back to live in Australia. I have been here for sixty years. I go back to Australia every year for about six weeks. The bush fires stopped me last year and now the virus! I’ve got a seat book in October but I don’t think it will happen. 

When I do go back I stay with family first then I always take 10 days out. I point a finger on the map and think - I will go that way. I feel overwhelmed and you should do in such a large landscape. I get well away from the coast, the people and the tourists and head out West. There are signs that say, ‘Welcome to the Outback, next petrol is 300 kilometres’. You get these warning signs and for me, that is a wonderful feeling. I don't know where I'm going to sleep that night, but I'll find a few beers and sit out with a book or do some writing. Local people will come over and ask what you’re up to and before you know it, you're deep in conversation. I love that. In every sense, they’re my people. I feel totally at home in that environment, but that's an old man with nostalgia for you. 

How do you see yourself?

I am ineffective in many ways, not terribly important. I’m just simply one of billions of people. I am a bit of a Pollyanna. I never saw worry or danger. I'm pleased by pretty things, simple things, music, a piece of poetry or a good looking woman. The sheer loveliness of everything around us. I can get grumpy too! 

I used to work in a profession that was very iffy. We were only as good as the next contract. It was also a physically dangerous job. There was a time when I’ve had the bank talking to me about reclaiming my business and my home, this used to make me feel very anxious. It was important for me not to inflict these problems on my family. Things were very bad for a while. I had a lot of anxiety and depression came with it. But I knew I couldn't sit around. I had to make things happen to fend off the mortgage repossession. It was a tough time. I’d had to lay people off. But I came through it. You either come out of these situations better or more resilient. I stayed working ‘till I was about 75. I think I’ve had a good run. Life's been kind to me. 

How do you think other people see you?

You get feedback throughout life. I have a circle of friends and I know I am well received. That sounds of self flattery doesn’t it? But you know who you are, don't you? I know what my fallibilities are but I know I’m accepted and liked. 

What do you like about yourself? 

In my advanced age you don't really care what people think about you. I'm going bald and I've got a pot belly. I've lost teeth. (Laughing). I’d have worried about that when I was younger but not now. I can laugh at myself. I am aware of the sense of ridiculousness of what’s around us. I don’t get too exercised about anything like politics, there’s no point. We’re not doing anything about it. We’ve seen it all come and go before. I'm not going to be at the barricades unless it threatens my family. 

I like my ability to see the ridiculousness in things, which includes me. I suspect that's the way that you don't go into depression. I look in the mirror and I say  ‘You really are a silly bugger’ and that makes me laugh. I'll go on doing that. I'm not going to get dragged down into some vortex of despair and doom. 

What do you think about marriage? 

I think it's overrated. That's actually a ridiculous thing to say. I know many married couples for whom life is wonderful and I admire them. I saw a couple on the television the other night and their love for each other was marvellous and absolutely genuine. It was like a beautiful poem so in that sense, what I think about marriage is not terribly important. What is marriage and how does it treat people?  At it's best, it’s a wonderful thing. Is it necessary? Of course it is. I’m very cavalier about life.

What was your mum and dad's marriage like? It was difficult. They were both very different. One was Greek the other Irish. I think marriage as a state is essential. It's the only thing that offers stability to the women and children, less so these days. My mother for example, had to follow my dad around wherever he found worked. Times were hard for everyone. They had a stormy relationship, it wasn’t easy. As an only child I often the referee.

How long have you been married? Since 1963. I know people who are in marriages that are made in heaven and they simply can’t imagine a life without each other. I am always very moved by that. I think that’s wonderful to see. Equally I have mates I’ve known over the years who’ve told me stories which their wives wouldn’t want to hear. What they tell you, you take to the grave. Often, all is not what it's seems. 

Where does all your energy go?

Do I have any energy? I don't know. Increasingly I'm becoming domesticated. It's a necessity.  My wife has a pulmonary disease and consequently has difficulty breathing and walking, as of this week she somtimes needs oxygen. 

I do some voluntary work with the Samaritans which sometimes requires overnight work and I do a lot of writing. I am involved in writing workshops and reading groups. We are all fellow poets and writers. It’s wonderful.

What makes you tick? What makes you get out of bed in the morning?

At its best there are things to be done. You've got to have a motive but I'm not driven anymore. I like to write first thing. Once upon a time I had to get out of  bed, I had no choice.  When I get out of bed I mutter and grumbled to myself but, on the other hand, I can get up, I can swing my legs out of bed. I get breakfast for the two of us. I’m grateful for not being restricted, physically.

What's your most memorable experience?

My memories are all from the kindness and generosity of people. I got involved in engineering during the oil boom. I became a film and documentary maker. I went to countries I would never have gone to otherwise;  Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi and America. I was very lucky. I met some wonderful people. I've had such kindness from people who couldn't afford things.

One time I was helped by an Arab whose only other language was French. Myself and my crewmate literally got stuck in the desert; our car couldn’t move. This guy came along with his son and rescued us. He took us to his home and put us up overnight. I remember sleeping on the floor surrounded by all his children. I remember as I was pulling off my boots seeing this little child, his deep, dark eyes peeping out at me. I winked, he chuckled under his blanket, it was absolutely charming.

The next day the guy got us back to some sort of a civilization. I wanted to say thank you. I wanted to give him some money, which might have seemed crude on my part, and of course he didn't want any money. Eventually in my school boy french I said, ‘it’s for the children’. He looked at me and he took the money. In French replied ‘Nous sommes tous frères’. We are all brothers. I will never forget that. 

Who or what inspires you?

I'm inspired by writers and any form of creativity. Painters, sculptors, musicians, particularly the ones who've gone before us and the legacy they’ve left.

One of my teachers back in Australia, I remember with great affection. Mr Ryan. He’d not long come back from the war when he came to teach us. He’d been in Greece and I remember him telling us that they were on a river bank and the Germans were coming across the water. He said, ‘We machine gunned them. We machine gunned them, and they kept coming’. He didn't do it to horrify us. He was simply sharing.

He came to school one day wearing a long scarf down to his ankles. He told us he’d knitted it. As a returning soldier he’d been getting some treatment, I suppose he had what we now call PTSD. Part of the treatment was knitting and doing things with your hands. Any other teacher, we would have laughed at the. We would have made their lives a misery. Knitting was what women did. But Mr Ryan told us with no fear or worry. We respected him.

What do you think about life?

It's inevitable. There's nothing we can do to stop it. We can’t stop breeding because we're programmed to breed. We can’t help recreating ourselves. We are just animals of course. 

I don't think there is anything holy about life. Religious people might think we are here for  a purpose but I don’t think we’re somehow selected above all other life forms. And of course there are many other lifeforms not unlike us, elsewhere in the universe, who have their own thoughts and we don’t know about them yet. 

I enjoy the fact that we do have a life. The alternative is not having a life and therefore nothing. But we exist and we don't really understand why we exist or if there is a purpose. We’re privileged to be born. If I was a good Christian or Muslim, I would believe in a future and actually, to some extent I do have some belief in that. What keeps us going as a species is love. The desire to give and take love. I think people are good at heart. I think the Christian thing of love is the most valuable word in the lexicon and in our soul. I have a very short poem I wrote, it’s only a half a dozen lines and it says something like ‘nothing ever leaves this earth. We don't evaporate out into space. Nothing ever leaves our earth save our souls’. 

What do you think about death?

My thoughts are, if there is nothing after death, you just stop - then there's nothing to fear. No pain, no distress. It's simply a light going out so don't worry about it. On the other hand, if we do somehow survive, and I prefer to think so because I’m romantic, then I hope it's towards enlightenment, whatever that is. There is nothing to fear either way. I wrote this little poem about death:

‘When time for dying comes, I'd like to die outside where I can see the sun, and  feel it's warmth upon my skin seep in; rekindle me as it has done through all my  years; I'd like to focus on the beauty of a butterfly, the fragrance of a rose, and think of everything and all of those I've loved, and pour myself a glass of wine and savour it for one last time; look up to see the sky, salute the sun and know, my journey onwards is begun’. 

What are your views on faith? 

I believe it's essential to the human condition. Faith is the glue that held societies together through the medieval ages, though people butchering and burning each other. For the peasants, the story of Christ and the promise of eternity gave them as much hope as it did for a King or a Prince. I say to some atheist friends, don’t dismiss faith as mumbo jumbo or superstition, because it’s vital.

How do you best express yourself?

I don't really know. Writing can be a pretension if you're not careful. You can pretend to be another person in your writing. You can reinvent yourself. It's easy to write what you think people will want to read and therefore it can be a deception.

I was clearing out the loft with my sons a few weeks ago. To my amazement I found my old notepad from when I was in my twenties. There were early outlines of stories I’d forgotten about. They jolted my memory. I remember talking to myself, out loud. I’d ask myself - ‘what is it we are trying to achieve here? I’d always used the royal ‘We’. It was interesting to talk to the young Christopher, I realised the old bugger hasn't changed much! 

What have you taken from this?

I think this session between you and I, who had never met before has been very beneficial to me. I think this form of questioning draws the interviewee out gently, which is what you've done. It’s turned me in on myself, often to face things that one would normally try to avoid. It makes you question yourself and, we should always be questioning ourselves.