... as I'm sure you get along just fine without me!
Occasionally I am being ask, "Don't you want to go back to Germany again?", to which I reply, "But I did!"
That was in 1967 after I had completed my obligatory two-year stint in Australia as an assisted migrant. I arrived in Hamburg in the depth of winter, became a lodger with a family in Kiwittsmoor (which meant an hour's travel on the U1), and started work with the Banco Germanico de la América del Sud on Neuer Jungfernstieg 16.
Left for work in the dark, looked at a grey sky at lunchtime, and returned home in the dark. The weather was bad enough but the "Vaterland" lost me for good when one day I returned to work after another lunchhour spent under a leaden sky. As I climbed the marble stairs to the Bank's main entrance, two of the Bank's directors coming down the stairs recognised me and stopped to tell me that as a member of the staff I was required to use a small side entrance.
Whatever happened to "Liberté, égalité, fraternité"? At that moment even "ou la mort" would have seemed preferable to staying in Germany!
