Jonathan Thomas (00:12) Welcome to the Anglotopia podcast, the weekly podcast where we discuss British travel history and culture. This week, our guest is Mike Harling. Mike is an American expat who has lived in Southern England for over 20 years. Now that name sounds familiar to long-term Anglotopia readers. That's because once upon a time, Mike used to write a column for Anglotopia called dispatches from the South way back in the year of our Lord, 2009. Mike (00:37) Mm-hmm. Jonathan Thomas (00:37) Back when Anglotopia was still a young little publication. During his stint on Anglotopia, Mike shared his amusing insights on life in England as an American married to a British woman. He has also written several fantastic books about life in Britain, the postcards from across the pond series, and still actively blogs about life in Britain. All links for all of this will be in the show notes because you'll want to check it out. Mike and I recently got back in touch and thought it would be fun to catch up about his life in Britain. And he's definitely still living there. Welcome, Mike. Mike (01:07) Well, thank you. Jonathan Thomas (01:08) Now give Anglotopians a little backstory. You mentioned you moved to the UK through no fault of your own to marry someone you hardly knew. Can you tell us that story and what led to such a life change over 20 years ago? Mike (01:20) Yeah, well, I'll give you the short version. You mentioned the two books I wrote, Postcards from Across the Pond and more Postcards from Across the Pond. In 2012, I actually published another one called Postcards from Ireland. And that was actually at the request of a lot of the fans. had a lot of web bog fans back then, and they said, how'd you get there? So I went back and took my diaries and I transcribed them and I beefed them up a bit. and published postcards from Ireland. And that'll tell this whole story. I'll give it to you in the succinct version, but that will tell this whole story in a book form. And it's, to me, it's unique because it's actually a love story written in real time, because it was just my journal that I brought on travels. And as the journal goes on and what I'm doing and where I'm going and who I'm talking to, this relationship develops with this young woman. And here I am. So yeah, but yeah, that's basically what happened. I went to Ireland. And again, the story behind that is way long and twisted, but I wound up in Ireland. And ⁓ I wound up with a hiking group for a week. I was there for two weeks, so went off on my own for a bit, visited Limerick, ⁓ and then caught up with this hiking group at Shannon Airport, and we went hiking for a week. And ⁓ On the Wednesday, I met everybody and I met Shona, who was the gal that I finally married. ⁓ We started talking on Wednesday and we just kept talking. then on the Thursday, we had a free day. We spent it together. Friday, my knee was hurting. I didn't want to go on the hike, so she didn't go on her hike. And we went off, our own thing together. ⁓ And Saturday, she was leaving and going back to England. And I was thinking, okay, well, here I am, I'm single and I'm, you know, had a nice holiday romance. I'm going back to the States. It was lovely. But at the airport, I heard myself asking her, she wanted to be my girlfriend. And she gave me her ring. I gave her mine and we promised to be a couple. And she went off on a plane and I got in my car and banged my head on the steering wheel. Says, you moron, once he just ruined your life. ⁓ And, you know, as it turned out. Jonathan Thomas (03:38) Ha Mike (03:43) I went, you know, six weeks later, I came over and visited her at her parents' house. And, ⁓ you know, the Friday we met after she got out of work, it was like, you know, we haven't seen each other for six weeks. We were together three days, but we picked up where we left off. It was just fine. We spent Saturday together out in Brighton and Sunday morning. We said, we might as get married. I'll move over here. We'll get And that was that. And it was like that. Yeah. So I wrote a blog about it not long ago. ⁓ Because I had written a blog, because I write blogs about everything, and I actually wrote one about swearing, because I swear an awful lot. I hope you got that swear button somewhere. ⁓ But anyway, at the very end of the blog, I wrote that a lot of the people that I hang around with now don't know that I swear, because I'm in polite company, and I know enough not to do that. And then as an afterthought, I said, I imagine my wife didn't really know I swore either, because I only knew her. for five days before we got engaged. And I looked at that and she looked at that and we thought, wow, we were insane to do that. But that's how it went. as I wrote the blog about it, I've been out of here in five days and then a couple of weeks later, I came over and the last day of February I came over. So we met the end of August, last day of February I came over, first day of March I landed here and I've been back. I've been living here ever since. And, you know, my wife is such a cautious woman, but we look back on that time and it was just every once in a while, you know, the universe throws you a curve ball and if you catch it, you know, well done you. And here I am. And it's been absolutely lovely, I have to say. And that's the other thing I thought when I caught back up with you and I looked at your blog and I read some old posts and, you know, look back at your history and all the people who follow. Jonathan Thomas (05:28) When you know you know Mike (05:42) your blog and all the people in America who are Anglophiles and you know who quite rightly look at this place and go wow you know I want to visit or I'd like to go live. I had no intention of ever leaving the States. I wasn't an Anglophile. wasn't. I was happy where I was and I just wound up living here and I have to tell you it's pretty darn nice you know for all you for you Anglophiles out there that want to come over it's really nice. Jonathan Thomas (06:07) ⁓ I can concur. You're an angle file by accident. Mike (06:08) Not to rub it in. Yeah, well, and that's also part of the story. I don't know if that's which one of the books, but I do remember writing about this. I was living in a place in Clifton Park, New York, and I could go out on my balcony and I could see where I went shopping for the week. It was with an easy walking distance, but I couldn't walk there. I had to take the car, go out on a four lane highway and turn at the red light and go down and turn into the car park, the parking lot for the store. And that really annoyed me. again, I hadn't been anywhere. This was months before I left the States. I hadn't been anywhere. I hadn't thought about moving out of... I was living in suburbia and this is how it was, but it annoyed me because it just didn't seem right. ⁓ And so when I did go over to visit Shona in the October, the first thing was that my future father-in-law met me at the... at the train station. And we got on this train and opens up this door with a thing. You get in and he slams the door behind him. And then we're going down to ⁓ her house. It was only one stop, fortunately. And then to get out, he had to lower the window, reach out and open the door and then get out while the train, you could jump out. The train's still moving a little bit. You just jump out, slam the door behind you. And then we walked in the town and it was lovely. And then he turns down this little narrow thing that I know they call it twitten. And I'm like, what's this? And he goes, oh, it's a pedestrian path. It's what you know, so you can walk. And that's where I said, I have to move here. This is a lovely place. Be nice if that girl I met works out. But I got to move here because it's just really nice. So yeah, I fell in love with Britain, fell in love with my wife, and I'm still here. So yeah, it is. It's just, you know, mean, even take today. I got to. The sun's shining. I went into town, walked across the park. That's how I get into town. It's a lovely 15, 20 minute walk across the park, idyllic park. Went to a lovely old pub, had dinner with a friend of mine or lunch with a friend of mine, walked back across the park and now I'm here. It's just an amazing life. I, after 22 years, I still have to pinch myself occasionally to realize I'm here. You know, this is my real life and it's just great. It's really great. Jonathan Thomas (08:40) So are you guys still in Horsham? Mike (08:43) Yes, we moved three times. We got the apartment here just by accident. It was the first apartment we found that we liked. ⁓ But Horsham is a lovely town. It's an old market town. We have a market on Thursdays and Saturdays. And it's got this lovely park and it's got rail links and bus links. It's just a wonderful town. I had the good fortune in my job. Part of my job was going around to different places to install software for our clients. And I went to many places in ⁓ England and Wales and in all different cities. And there's no place I would have rather lived in Horsham. It's got a nice pedestrian center. It's got this medieval ⁓ town center called the Carfax. Only two in the world. One's in Oxford and one's here at Carfax, call it. Nobody knows why. But that's where the market's held and there's tea shops there and that's just, yeah, it's just lovely. It's absolutely wonderful. Jonathan Thomas (09:45) So after 20 years in Horsham, you still feel like an expat or do you feel fully integrated in the British life? it home? Mike (09:50) No, and that was a slow process because, you know, at first I'm like, I'm not giving up the American pronunciations. I'm going to be American, American, American. ⁓ But after, I mean, I feel British, but I still eat the way Americans eat, which people notice. ⁓ I don't say schedule or anything like that. I say schedule. I still talk like an American. But when I go back to the States, it is noticeable that my diction and the words I use are, like I say, car park now without any sense of irony. Jonathan Thomas (09:57) I'm Mike (10:19) we get petrol in the car instead of going to a gas station. ⁓ So I do pick up some of that. But yeah, the more I go back to the States and the further I'm away, and the longer I'm away, it feels like a foreign land to me now, because it is. I go there where my old stompa garage is, nothing's recognizable. They have roundabouts there now in Albany. ⁓ Yeah, so it's really weird. I go back and I visit because you got to. Jonathan Thomas (10:41) We got them everywhere now. Mike (10:48) I see the grandkids and but yeah, this is my home. This is where I belong. ⁓ Jonathan Thomas (10:53) Have you gotten British citizenship or have you... Nice. Mike (10:57) yeah, yeah, as soon as I could. Yeah, I got a British citizenship. I voted in the elections. I have a passport. I just wrote to my MP and I got a lovely letter back from him. ⁓ Yeah, so yeah, I take part in everything. Yeah, I'm a true Brit. Yes, yes. Jonathan Thomas (11:01) wow. Fully, fully paid up, right? So going back to your Anglotopia columns, forgive me if you don't remember, ⁓ but you wrote about things like British eggshells being too hard to crack and struggling with military time. What seemingly simple British things still kind of trip you up after all these years? Mike (11:24) Yep. Yep. Still the eggs in the military time. I still can't get my head around. I looked at this, 1400, what's that? It be six o'clock. No, it's two o'clock. Okay, I answered. It's just the odd. And the eggs, still I make a lot of scrambled eggs because you hit the egg and it doesn't work and you hit it again and it got, and then, yeah. So they pick an egg shells out. Still, I mean, 20 years you think I get used to it, but I still haven't. But other than that, no, everything, you know. Jonathan Thomas (11:34) Ha ha ha. Mike (12:00) It's all natural to me now. I look the right way when I cross the street. I know how to do everything. So there's no surprises for me much every now and again, but not too often these days. Jonathan Thomas (12:13) ⁓ You've written about the peculiar British habit of not rinsing the dishes after washing them. Well, have you adopted that habit and what other British domestic practices still baffle you? Mike (12:24) I do the dishes and that's not because of the rinsing. For some reason in every relationship I've been in, it's always fallen to me to do the dishes and I do it well and I like it and I rinse them by golly and that's what's gonna happen. ⁓ When Shona actually does some on her own, for some reason she's done baking and she's got a lot of dishes she'll rinse them. She doesn't rinse them and when she's not looking, I take them out and rinse them off. But other than that, mean, a Hoover's a Hoover, except you call it a vacuum cleaner. ⁓ There's nothing other really odd about Britain domestically. This isn't a domestic thing, but it is something that people do remark on, and I found quite remarkable. I'm sitting here in my office, it's a hot summer day. My window's open, there's no screen in it. You can just open windows here, there's no bugs. I'm not getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. ⁓ Jonathan Thomas (13:18) That must be nice. I'm covered in mosquito bites. Mike (13:19) It is very, very nice. You could sit out in the summertime at, know, and in the evening with a drink and, you know, a book and you're not going to get eaten alive. Um, so yeah, it's nice. And it's also nice. Now I got a nice cool breeze here blowing through because it's quite hot. Jonathan Thomas (13:34) Yeah, I know, know Britain's had a heat wave the last week. then there's the whole on social media, the whole air conditioning versus non air conditioning debate is raging on social media. And all I can think is, well, I'm going to enjoy sitting in my air conditioning. Mike (13:37) Yeah. Mm. Well, we have an air-conditioned car now, and that is nice. And yeah, when I did work in my office, we did have air conditioning in the office. Some stores have air conditioning. It's becoming more common because, you know, the hot days are becoming more common. When I first moved here, for the first five years, I did not own a short sleeve shirt. And then we had an unusually hot couple of days and I had to out and buy two. And then I didn't wear them again for a couple of years, but... Jonathan Thomas (13:52) Nice. just go sit in the car, right? Mike (14:19) Now all I wear are short sleeve shirts. I got a whole dresser full of short sleeve shirts. That's all I wear. Even in the winter, put a short sleeve shirt and a jumper on. But in the summer and the spring and the fall. But this is unusual. I we don't always have it this hot. And it's been an unusually long time without rain. And we're a little bit worried about that. as I keep telling people, it's Britain. It will rain. Don't worry. Jonathan Thomas (14:47) Yeah, I'm planning to do the Hadrian's Wall Walk next summer. And finally, after many years of talking about it. ⁓ I've been watching, and it's going to be this time next year. So I've been watching the weather and I'm like, I hope it's not this hot when I go next year. So I've been looking at the weather for Northern England and it's like, well it's in the seventies and it's going to rain every day. So like, I have that to look forward to. Mike (15:10) Hmm. Yeah. Yes, yeah. Well, it haven't been hot the last two years. It's the next year we're due to, yeah, it'll be cold and rainy when you're walking there, but that's good. I'll give you atmosphere. Yeah, yeah, it's atmospheric. When I saw Hadrian's Wall, it was tipping down with rain and it was cold and it was summertime. But atmosphere, you know, that's how it is. Jonathan Thomas (15:20) I'll bring the cold weather with me, right? The coldest I've ever been in Britain was in July. went to an outdoor concert in the rain. was like 40 degrees and I didn't have a proper coat because it was July and I practically got hypothermia in July. It was a fun experience. Mike (15:35) Yeah, yeah Yeah. Yeah, we famously talk about the first day of summer, Sean and I went to an outdoor concert. Well, actually it in a tent, but it wasn't heated. And we were sitting there in winter jackets. So it does get quite cold here. And even in the summer, normal summer will be in the low to mid 70s. If it gets to the high 70s, people start to complain. And if it hits 80, they just go nuts. And of course, it got up to 90 the other week. So you can imagine really what mental here. Jonathan Thomas (16:15) Well, I think it's today, it's going to be 100 here in Indiana. I mean, it's the humidity that it gets you, right? Mike (16:18) Yeah, and I just sit here and go, let's hop, but it's not that bad. Well, just a quick thing. We were in Cyprus last year at this time and my son and his wife and their kids came over and it was 98 degrees in Cyprus. And that to them is a heat wave. I mean, I know it's hot there, but that was very hot and the locals were not happy about it. And they said, you know, this is really unusual. It's really hot here. My son and his wife came over, got there and go, well, it's hotter where we came from. It was 104 degrees when they left. They show up, it's 98 degrees going, oh, this is cool. I better get a jacket on, you know. And even when I live there, I mean, gets hot a lot more, I think, than it used to. every couple of years, we'd have a week or two of 100-plus degrees there. mean, you just get used to it. That was before we had air conditioning. It was back when was a kid. You just kind of get used to it. But here, everybody goes mental when it gets hot. It's funny to watch. Jonathan Thomas (16:58) That's cool breeze, right? ⁓ Mike (17:22) I suppose that's what being an American over a day just look at him go. Yeah, that's Jonathan Thomas (17:27) So at the risk of not getting too political here, having lived through both Brexit and COVID as an American in Britain, how did those events affect your life and sense of belonging while you've been there? Mike (17:34) Yeah! Well, in one way, if you just turn the news off and don't talk about Brexit, you don't really have to pay attention to it. I do. I'm politically aware. I'm not a real moron about it, but I read the papers and I check things and I do have concerns about this and that. Brexit, of course, I voted to stay. Very marginal, now we're leaving. But you just throw that aside. It was very, very good to me because all my money... because I worked for New York State and my social security. so my retirement comes from America. And when the American and when the British pound crashed, I was making a lot more money. So, you know, that's how it went. But, you know, Brexit, yeah, you know, things got a little tight and it's still but now it comes and goes. Me and well, actually, suppose you. Jonathan Thomas (18:20) You Mike (18:35) I you could say both my wife and I lost our jobs because of it. Because everything got so tight and the budgets wound up. I retired, I say, when I was 57. I didn't really retire. I was made redundant and I couldn't be arsed to look for a job. And that's how it went. And a couple of years later, Shona was getting, know, they were cutting the budgets and cutting the budgets and she was managing one day center and then they had her managing two and then three and she was going crazy. And I said, Jonathan Thomas (18:50) Ha Mike (19:04) just quit. And so she did it. And now, know, so I've been retired since, well, I've been retired about 12 years now and she's been retired about eight. So, so yeah, it's been nice. Jonathan Thomas (19:17) So you're happily pensioners, as the British say. Mike (19:20) Yeah, as I like to say, I haven't retired so long. I don't remember what it's like to have a job, but I can only imagine it must be awful. Jonathan Thomas (19:25) Well, having run Anglotopia for so long on my own, I'm a terrible employee, as my wife can attest, because I work for her now. So, Mike (19:35) Yeah, well that's me being a self-employed writer as I say I got I got a terrible boss and a terrible employee, you know, so Yeah, and the pay really sucks ⁓ Jonathan Thomas (19:41) And the pay sucks, right? So, ⁓ speaking of which, looking back on your series of books, have you had any new experiences that you've been dying to write about or that you could share with us instead? Mike (19:58) not really, excuse me, and as I say, looking back at the Anglosopoeia column, ⁓ and at the same time I was writing a blog with Toni about the differences between, because she was living in the States at the time, so she's a Brit in the States and I'm an American here, and so I had a really great time with the books and Jonathan Thomas (20:12) Right. It was called, it was called pond parlay's. I'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah. Mike (20:24) Yeah, pond parley is, yeah, I mean, that's been gone for a long time. We, I stopped, we've stopped writing that in 2011, the same time that I stopped the Anglotopia column. And I think it was because they started running out of things to do. Uh, plus I stopped working in 2012 and then my life got not boring, but predictable because I, mean, most of more post-graduate from across the pond is it's about me traveling for work. Cause every time I went on a work. Jonathan Thomas (20:44) Ha Mike (20:54) detail to go somewhere. I always a comedy of errors. So I filled that book up without any problem. But you know, I don't travel for work anymore. I'm here. Like I say, we get up in the morning, you know, some days we go down, we walk down to the leisure center, not the leisure center, the leisure center. And we swim and we come back, we go into town, we have tea, we, you know, it's all, you know, and like today, my wife's volunteering at Age UK. Tomorrow I volunteer at the local wildlife center. ⁓ up the road and it's all we walk everywhere we go. We use the car maybe twice a week, know, if lucky, wants to go shopping and wants to go to choir, which I belong to two choirs. And the one that I go to, I got to bring a bunch of equipment. So I have to drive down. Otherwise we would walk. But yeah, it's, you know, there's just not really any more things that I can look at and go, well, that's very, very different from America, you know. ⁓ You know, and I think that's why I really I really haven't You know done anything with the books that I don't plan on it as I wrote to you when we were just emailing back and forth I gave up being a professional expat, you know, let's say I don't I don't really see anything different here anymore that that would be of entertainment or even of any use Yeah, basically gone native I'm just living here and enjoying my life Jonathan Thomas (22:12) You've gone native. Well, that's the best anybody can hope for, ⁓ Mike (22:21) Yeah, yeah, the blog though, I say it's still going on, it just about things. Like I said, I wrote one a while ago about swearing, which led into one about me meeting my wife and only no wonder for a couple of days before that. I just write about anything that comes up if I can. And it's very sporadic, as you know, I mean, I don't publish, you know, every Thursday morning at nine o'clock. It's like, whenever, whenever I write something, I might not write something for two months. Jonathan Thomas (22:45) Well... Mike (22:48) And then all of sudden they'll put three up in a week, you know, it depends. Jonathan Thomas (22:51) You're being very English about this. You're selling the blog short. It's one of the oldest blogs on the internet. ⁓ So we'll put a link in the show notes. People can explore the archive and whatnot. Mike (22:57) Yes, Hmm. Yeah. Well, I found that out by accident because I was, I just undertook this project because I had nothing but time on my hands. And I put an archive in it because the archive widget that WordPress gave me was really awful. So I just said, I'm to write my own archive. So I back and I collected all my blogs. Now, Postcards from Across the Pond is what I named my blog when I knew I was coming over here. Before that, it was an Irish dance blog because I was an Irish step dancer. And before that, it was just basically a running commentary of that. was called Postcards from Suburbia or something like that, or Cracks of Time. So I had a couple little names for it. And before that, it was a hiking blog because I did a lot of hiking. So it was 1997 it started, but it was always the same, you know, the blog, it was always me and it continued, it just changed direction and it changed names. ⁓ You know, when I saw that, I thought, that's pretty old. And I started actually doing research and I found there's only one guy, Justin Hall, who started blogging earlier than I had it is still at it. And I cannot find anybody else besides Justin who's been blogging a bit longer than me and myself who have been blogging this long. And it's, you know, a personal... you know, continually updated personal blog because you got corporate blogs that go back to the eighties and stuff. mean, you they got, but, ⁓ personal blogs like Justin does and myself, ⁓ you'd think we'd have found better users for our time by now, but, yeah. Jonathan Thomas (24:41) But sometimes I say the same thing, but it's never going to end. ⁓ So shifting gears a little bit, ⁓ so since the postcard series, you've actually written a series of fiction books called The Talisman Series, which you originally wrote them for your grandsons to introduce them to British history. So tell us about that and that series of books and how that's gone and what the grandsons actually like them. Mike (24:44) Yeah, yes. Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, okay, that's a, I guess I told you when it started, you could just say Talisman Series Go. I'll try to be succinct about it. I had the idea as soon as my first grandson was born in 2010. And I thought, well, you know, I'd like to write a book, you let them know where his granddad's at and what's here. And so I was thinking like history, how are we going to do this? And I, you know, was kind of casted about, I had an idea what to do, but I didn't know how to transport him. back, you know, I knew he had to come here, but he also needed to go back in time. So it was kind of, you know, how are going to do this? and my wife and I were out, ⁓ at a charity shop one day, she saw these blue velvet curtains and she said, I'll make a cloak out of it. can use that. thought, now I got to do a cloak thing. I, you what am I going to do with this? But I thought about it and you know, the magic cloak series, you know, came up and she made a wonderful cloak out of it. And I wrote the story, which was just ⁓ a very short book. It was a little tiny. ⁓ I got it here. Hang on a second. It was a little book like this called The Magic Cloak and it was just very small. The point was I was trying to work on a regular novel and that didn't come, I just couldn't get it. So I took a month off and I wrote that, but I had been thinking about it for a while. And by this time Charlie was born. So now it's 2013 and Charlie's born. And now I got to write two of them. So I redid the thing to include them both. Wrote a story about him helping St. Leonard kill the dragon in St. Leonard forest, which is right next door to us. ⁓ And that was supposed to be that. I went back to working on the outline for the book, ⁓ but it just wouldn't come together. So I don't know when I made the decision or how it came about, but I just said, okay, I'm going to write this series. And in looking back over my notes, I see by July of that year, by July of 2013, I had the whole eight book arc written out and pretty much solid in my head. And I just started writing the books and just kept at it. I did one a year for them and gave it to them each for Christmas. I'd write the book and I would have it either published by Lulu or I'd do something. I took a course on how to make books. And the one about Shakespeare, actually did sew together leather books for them. it's good in that. The time that I wrote about the Battle of Hastings, I made a bare tapestry for them out of this long roll of paper. And I put the books on those, little panels of cartoons, because they were quite young at that time. It wasn't until probably about the Crystal Palace, I think. the fourth book in the series that they were old enough, they were quite voracious readers at an early age. So I was able to just make an actual book, publish it, you know, through Lulu and then just, you know, ship them a copy or two. But as it went on, I realized I want to get this into a real thing, you know, not just the kids' books. ⁓ And so what I was doing was writing a full novel. It took me a year to write each one. And then I would go... No, it took me a full year to do all that. A couple of months writing the book and it was a full book. I would then go through and kind of distill a children's book out of it and get that to them. And then I would just put the pile of words aside and say, I'll get back to that later. And I did that until 2020. That's when I finished. 2020, I finished The Talisman. And the all eight books were done and they had them all. And I said, you know, that's it. You're not getting any more. They did like them, because when I had the Crystal Palace, I had a lot of trouble with it. I didn't get it done for Christmas. And I told my son, you know, they're not getting a book this year. I'd done four of them so far. I hadn't heard a word from any of them about, thanks for the book. we're looking forward to it. I read the book. So I said, yeah, they're not getting a book this year. No big deal. he wrote back and said, my God, they look forward to these books. They're going to be so disappointed. it would have been nice to have heard something like, know, so, so he, ⁓ so anyway, so I continued on 2020 rules around a finish. And then I spent another like two years rewriting all of them. And, ⁓ then I self published them because I couldn't find a publisher to take them on. You got that, but that's. I didn't think I would, but I made the tip because I thought they deserved it. But if you go to a children's or young adult or young adult, they're not children. mean, a lot of, lot of gory stuff goes on in these books. If you go to a children's section now, young adult and young teen, they have their many marvelous series, just absolutely astounding. know, so mine can't compete with that. The publishers knew it and I knew it. So I just published it myself. And yeah, they're out there. Anyone can buy them if they want. Jonathan Thomas (30:26) Which historical era was the most challenging to research and write about? Mike (30:30) The White Feather was the book that gave me the most trouble. For some reason, the Crystal Palace gave me the most trouble as a story. the interesting thing about The White Feather, somehow I'd heard about the Zeppelin raids on London in World War I. And this was back in 2018 when I was first writing it. And it wasn't widely known. that in World War I, they had a blitz. The ⁓ Zeppelins came over and dropped bombs. And these were big, huge things that were dark in the sky. They were invisible, basically. You couldn't hear them. You couldn't see them. They came over. They were too high for the airplanes to catch. You couldn't see. They would just drop bombs. They didn't do much damage. They didn't kill many people. But you could imagine the terror it instilled. And it was a real ⁓ crisis for the government. So I read that and I thought, well, that'd be a good thing to write a story around. Cause they really didn't want to drag them over to France and put them in the trenches. So I left them on the home front trying to bring down a zeppelin. ⁓ But the story itself, it was just everywhere. I couldn't quite piece it together. The book for them ended up like little bits here, little bits there. And I just kind of cobbled their book together with a note to myself saying, when you come back to this in five years time, this is what happened here. See if you can fix it. And again, five years later, after slogging through the magic cloak and the Roman villa and all that, I got to the White Feather and it's like, God, this is pile of words I have to make into a book. And it really was agony, but it's one of the best books. I really do like it. It's quite good. But that was the most challenging. And of course now for some reason, everybody knows about the Zeppelin raids. ⁓ It's quite common. I think one of the anniversaries of the war, they dragged out. the idea that, yeah, there was zeppelins over here bombing people during the war. But when I figured it out, nobody knew it. Jonathan Thomas (32:33) So your story start in the US and move to where you live in Sussex. How much of your own immigrant experience is woven into these stories? Mike (32:42) None, absolutely none. The stories in the, you know, the the commercial ones, of course, there's a background for the boys, his mother and father, of course, they bear no relation to, bear no relation to my grandsons even. They're just the same names. kept them as to say, even they look different. They're born at different times. They have red hair. My great-grandsons do not have red hair. Their mother and father are different. And, but where they live is where they lived, Wine and Skilled New York. I kept. that because it's quite funny and I do a lot of jokes with it when they show up over here they go, I live in Wynandskill and everybody's like, I've never heard of the kingdom of Wynandskill. ⁓ But yeah, it just them and their relationship with their parents and then having to go to the Magic Cloak to transport them. And in each ⁓ book they get an artifact, something that they have to bring with them and that carries them through the story and it's the part, you know, that's why they're there. So like with the Crystal Palace, they get glass cutters and they wind up working on the Crystal Palace. In the White Feather, they get a bullet, ⁓ a machine gun bullet. The Sacred Tor, they get shields. know, the Isle of Avalon, they get you swords. You know, they have wooden swords and wooden shields, but when they're transported back, they're made real. ⁓ So that's the only thing from them. They go from American kids to now they're living in medieval England, you better get on with it. so my experience and theirs in the books, absolutely no relation to each other. Jonathan Thomas (34:20) Well, moving on from the books, ⁓ you've described yourself as terribly uninteresting, but you've lived an extraordinary life across continents. How has becoming an expat changed your perspective on both America Mike (34:33) Well, I think it's helped open me up because when you're outside of a country looking in, you can see it a lot clearer. ⁓ Especially if, you know, to do an analogy about now, you know, you're sitting in the living room, you're watching TV, you got a beer and you're looking out, everything's fine. But the people outside are looking out going, the siding's falling off, paint's peeling around the windows. They've got a couple of windows broken and in the back, your kitchen's on fire. And you go, and they call you up and go, your house is falling apart. And you're, nah, it's fine. I'm sitting here on the couch watching TV. Everything's fine. So being outside looking in is a very different way of looking at something. And I think even though I'm living in Britain, I can get over that and look down and go, yeah, know, it's pretty screwed up in places. ⁓ But it's opened me up. It's made me more liberal, more accepting, more empathetic. ⁓ You know, it's a more egalitarian sort of place. It's everybody, there's everybody here and you just kind of get along and not everybody does, but you know, I do in my little enclave here, we're all happy and we get on with everybody. I think that's, know, and now I get to go to visit other countries. I get to go to Germany, I get to go to Austria, I get to go to Norway and you see other people and how they live. And that really just expands your worldview. Jonathan Thomas (35:55) You mentioned that you and your wife volunteer locally. Do you still get raised eyebrows and people hear your accent like, American, what are you doing here? Mike (36:04) Yeah, yeah, they do that a lot. And that's, you know, we make a lot of fun of the special relationship, but they wouldn't do it from someone from Pakistan. They wouldn't do it from someone from Brazil, you know, but you talk to them, oh, you're from America, you know, and they're really interested, you know, oh, you know, how long you've been here, blah, blah, you know. So I still do get that, especially working in a cafe. And I don't think about it anymore. You know, I'll be like, okay, two teas and a fuchs bar, blah, blah, here you go. Oh, you're a long way. home. no, I just live 10 minutes walk down the road out of the North Shore. you mean America? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's me. Came from America. So, but yeah, it always surprises me when someone notes that I'm not from here because, you I am. I live here. Jonathan Thomas (36:49) You've been there long enough, right? You got the scarlet passport or now the blue passport. Mike (36:55) Yeah, I still got the old one. I got to renew it. So my wife just had to renew hers. She got the blue passport back. But yeah, long Americans live in here. There is an interesting thing that I've noted in any of my blogs or whatever. And I don't know if you've noted. And I've actually read articles on this. It actually is real thing. I live here and I don't pick up if someone's got an American accent. And I also don't pick up if anyone's got a British accent. We'll be out to dinner. a lot. And my wife will say, those people at the next table, they're Americans. And I'll have to listen real careful, because the American accent doesn't sound odd to me. And neither does the British accent. So a British person, American person can come in room and we'll talk to me. I won't have any clue that either one is American or British. They're just other people, you know. ⁓ And that, and again, it is a real thing. They, I forget what the syndrome is, but Jonathan Thomas (37:35) Right. Mike (37:51) But yeah, if you live in another country, you find it difficult to pick out your own country because you're so used to their accent. You don't see it as different. So, you know, I just thought that was an interesting thing. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (38:00) Yeah. I've kind of experienced the opposite of that. I, I, I watched so much British TV and consume British media that whenever I encounter a British accent in Indiana, I like, I don't hear it at first. And my wife goes, British. I'm like, ⁓ yeah, right. Yeah. I, ⁓ it's just, Mike (38:15) yeah, there you go. See, same kind of thing. Yeah, you're very used to it, so you don't notice it, you know. Yeah. well. Jonathan Thomas (38:22) You just tune it out, yeah. So what do you miss most about America that you simply can't find or replicate in Britain? There's gotta be something after all these years. Mike (38:33) If you'd asked me that 10 years ago, I'd have had about five or six things. If you asked me 10, 15 years ago, I'd had about 10, but I don't miss anything really. There's nothing, nothing you got over there that I want. I don't go back over there and the, oh, I've got to buy this in the store. I got to get this guy. I don't, I really don't miss anything anymore. know, nothing, nothing you guys got that I want. I don't, I used to write home to my friends, know, mail me this, send me some of this. I can't get this here, blah, blah. Not anymore. And not for, you know, at least 10 years. I just don't. Jonathan Thomas (38:36) Ha. Well Mike (39:03) You know, everything's Jonathan Thomas (39:03) Well, with the transatlantic exchange of culture and entertainment that you could, we all have the same movies and TV shows now. So it's easy to, to, to, to experience those things. You don't really necessarily miss them. So ⁓ you've written about knowing British locals as an American tourist. Now that you're on the other side, what do American visitors do that make you cringe now that you have gone native? Mike (39:28) Just the thing, just the cliches which are there for a reason. They're loud and they're, I don't know, they're loud and they're pushy basically. But not all of them. Some of them are quite well behaved. well yeah, mean the tourists that are self-aware will go over and they'll be tourists, they realize I'm a guest in your country. I'll behave, know, I'll act nice. Oh, the Brits abroad, they're bad. Oh, they're terrible. Jonathan Thomas (39:41) I like to be a Mike (39:57) legendary how bad they are when they go on. Yeah, that's my wife closing the door. When they go on like, you know, pub crawls and stuff in other countries, they're just horrible. ⁓ But yeah, you want to be a guest in a country, you want to behave, you want to follow their customs and that. ⁓ You know, the Americans over here, you generally can hear because they do talk loud. And I'm not someone that ever talked loud. ⁓ But when I've had some friends over here, they just, they really talk loud. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just an American trait and you know, that's, that's the, Jonathan Thomas (40:30) ⁓ I'm a loud talker. My wife is continually telling me to lower the volume even here. I'm like, I'm not talking that loud. What do you mean? Mike (40:43) Mm-hmm. Jonathan Thomas (40:45) So ⁓ you mentioned finding a good job and then retiring comfortably. How different was British work culture from what you experienced in America? Mike (40:49) Mm-hmm. Well, extremely, but I worked for, I worked for New York state civil service when I lived in the States and civil service, you know, I was a computer guy and you know, statewide, these were my customers, but they were also my coworkers and I would be writing stuff for them. And you know, we would just, you know, and then I got into the corporate world and it took a long time for me to understand that our, customers were our adversaries, not our friends. Because I kept going to meetings and they go, oh, you know, we got the software we've contracted. Can you do this and this? And I go, oh, yeah, we can do that. Yeah, no problem. And you know, the boss is like, no, you can't. We sell that to them. We don't give it to them. So I had a real, a real problem with that because I just had this, you know, civil service mentality. So I don't know, you know, if someone went from like a regular corporate job to a regular corporate job over here, how it would be. They'd probably have a little better time of it than I did. I was too much steep in the civil service culture. But an office is an office, you know, and there's some good people there, there's some little idiots and you know, you got a good boss, you got a bad boss, you know, you just make do with it and it was work. And I enjoyed the work. I really loved the travel because I got to go and see all different parts of the country. But, you know, other than that, was just, you know, it wasn't any different. Work-wise. As far as how you worked, the work-life balance here is so, well, it exists where it doesn't in America. When I got hired, I got four weeks of holiday and then five weeks after I was there, like two or three years, and I had to take it. They wouldn't, I couldn't like crew this up. like, oh, I only did two weeks of holiday this year. Well, you're taking three weeks off now because you need to use your holiday. And they want you to use it. They don't want you burned out. They say, you know, take your holiday, you know, blah, The taxes are automatically taken out. You don't have to do your taxes if you're a Brit. ⁓ They just come out automatically. You never see a W-4 form or whatever. It's just a very different ⁓ method of work and life balance. ⁓ As an American, my tax is quite complicated. Jonathan Thomas (43:18) Yeah, that's, that's, that's, yeah, that's outside of the scope of this conversation, but from, from talking to other expats, it's, basically America is the only country that like taxes you on your global income. wherever you are, uncle Sam once is cut. So, yeah. So, ⁓ so if somebody asked you for. Mike (43:21) I've written blogs about it. Yeah. ⁓ Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. Jonathan Thomas (43:46) advice about making a dramatic life change like moving continents for love? What would you tell them? Mike (43:52) Well, in the blog I wrote, I told what it was. If a friend of mine or a family member came to me and said, I just met a girl. I've known her five days. I'm going to go to Brazil and marry her. I would duct tape into a chair and waterboard him until he decided not to do it. I mean, like I say, both my wife and I looked back and I go, we were insane. You just don't do something like that. ⁓ So yeah, I would definitely say, no, please don't do that. ⁓ ⁓ Yeah, and I didn't even leave myself like a parachute, you know, I quit my job. I sold my car, gave up my flat. I mean, I had nothing. left America as a homeless person and came over here. Yeah. So yeah, I don't advise it. It works for me, that's all I can say, but I don't advise it. Jonathan Thomas (44:32) Scorched earth. Take from that advice what you were willing to have your listeners. ⁓ So for my final question, so after almost two decades as an accidental expat, what would you want Americans to understand about life in Britain? What would you want Brits to understand about Americans? Mike (44:57) That's a hard one. I really don't know. mean, just about life in general, you know, we're just, we're all in this together. We got to get along and you know, there's, there's life over here is no different. We don't want the different things. We don't really, you know, we're kind of the same, but you know, we just do it differently. And I suppose we have different priorities. Like I said, we have a work-life balance. You don't. I wish America would get a national health service. You're the only. Not the only country, but the only big country, big economy country that does not have a national health service. You know, we do. ⁓ And, you know, I wish Americans understood more about that because they look at it they go, that sounds like communism to me. I think, you know, I think it could do. I think Americans could do more for themselves if they got out more often. You know, we talk about the American tourists, but please. Get a passport, go visit France, go visit Spain, come to Britain, go visit Germany, go to Egypt, get out and see the world. It really does expand your mind. You really need to do that. Brits don't need to do that so much because they're everywhere. They're all over the place. My relatives are in South Africa and in New Zealand and Australia and all over the place. You can't keep them down. Jonathan Thomas (46:21) Well, and that's a wrap on our conversation, Mike, the accidental expat who turned a leap of faith into two decades of wonderful writing about life between the two countries from his early days struggling with British eggshells and military time to still struggling with it and completing his eight book talisman series for his grandsons. Mike's journey reminds us that sometimes the most unexpected paths lead to the richest stories. If you want to dive deeper into Mike's world, check out his blog, Postcards from Across the Pond and his books. Mike (46:24) Okay, very good. Yep. Yes. Jonathan Thomas (46:51) and the complete Talisman series, all available on Amazon. And we will put all the links in the show notes for you so you can check that out. ⁓ Thank you for sharing your wonderfully honest and humorous perspective on Expat Life. And for our listeners, if you enjoyed this conversation about life as an American in Britain, please subscribe, leave us a review, and share this episode with anyone who's ever dreamed of crossing the pond, whether it's for love, adventure, or just better tea. Until next time, keep exploring the stories that connect us across cultures and continents. Thanks for listening. Mike (47:01) Heh Mm-hmm. Hmm hmm hmm hmm. Jonathan Thomas (47:23) Hi, Jonathan here, popping back in before you leave this episode of the Anglotopia podcast. I just want to let you know that since Mike and I recorded this in June, Mike got back in touch with me and expressed an interest in writing for Anglotopia again. ⁓ He wanted to sort of reimagine the way he wrote about Britain in a way that wasn't about differences between... British and American culture, but more about his life in the English countryside as an American expat and the adventures he has and what life is like in his small town. And he, and I said, I would absolutely love to have you writing for us again. And so we actually published his first column a few weeks ago when we published a couple since And so I wanted to come in and say that, ⁓ and when we released this episode so that you knew that he's writing for Anglotopia again. It's called Letter to America. The link will be in the show notes. Just the way the recording happened and the timing of everything, I didn't know this was gonna happen. So I wanted to come in tell you that he started writing for Anglotopia again. His columns are fantastic. So please come have a read and the link will be in show notes under Letter to America. Thank you.