1960s
In the 1960s, my widowed grandmothers had to uproot for a 2nd time. We had to leave Egypt for security reasons during a time of anti-western and anti-Christian populist pan-Arabism, especially after the 1956 Suez crisis. To complicate matters, my father who had recently converted to a banned small Christian denomination was in grave danger. To the dismay of my Orthodox mother, he risked jail or worse for his newfound religious beliefs. So, my extended family moved to England, Greece, Canada, and Cyprus because it was legal to do so.
As a child I grew up in London and as an adult lived in several countries. I only knew two English words on my first day at school (‘policeman’ and ‘no’) and had to wear a name label in case I wandered off like a puppy.
