Jonathan Thomas (00:00)
Welcome back to the Anglotopia podcast, the podcast for people who love British travel, history and culture. I'm your host, Jonathan Thomas. And today we're introducing Anglotopia's newest columnist while exploring the fascinating world of being a British expat in America. The new column is called Spilling the Tea and it's going to be written by Amanda Graves, who is a Londoner who immigrated to Massachusetts in 1985 and now calls Texas home.

Amanda comes from a distinguished British commercial family. Her relatives own Jay Lyons & Company and Lewis's of Liverpool. And she's distantly related to Nigella Lawson, so we'll have to get some tea on that. After nearly four decades in America, she's witnessed the cultural side, cultural divide from both sides. Amanda has lived the full expat experience, raising five children across two marriages, running a catering business. She's even appeared on Jeopardy.

and is constantly navigating the subtle difference between British and American life. From discovering why Americans hate fruitcake to watching her mother receive an MBE at Windsor Castle, she's going to bring a unique perspective to Anglotopia and we cannot wait to be to share her new columns with you. So starting this week, Amanda will write twice monthly for Anglotopia about these cultural observations covering everything from dinner party etiquette to healthcare systems to college sports to the eternal confusion over proper

Welcome Amanda!

Amanda Graves (01:25)
Well, thank you, Jonathan. I am very excited to be part of Anglotopia. Thank you for the opportunity.

Jonathan Thomas (01:31)
We are so glad to have you and we are looking forward to having a new voice on Anglotopia. It's enough of me talking about British stuff. Let's have some new voices.

So you come from ⁓ quite distinguished British commercial families. Can you tell us more about that and what it was like growing up with that cultural background?

Amanda Graves (01:48)
Yes, so as you said in your introduction, my father's family, they owned Jay Lyons and Company, which when I came along, they were still big and they were very well known and they had lots of different products, including tea particularly. ⁓ But they had hotels, they had restaurants, but I really didn't have any clue that this was anything to do with my family. Because when you were a child, you really just...

don't know these things. I just knew that we went out to eat a lot and we would go out to eat at all these different restaurants and I had no idea that this was actually my family restaurants. ⁓ And then my mother's family, they were from Liverpool and they owned this huge department store called Lewis's and there were, it's not John Lewis, I know people in England, they may not remember Lewis's because it doesn't exist anymore, but it was called Lewis's and it was based in Liverpool. They have this huge flagship store.

They also had one, I believe in Manchester, and I can't remember where the other one was, but they also, for a while, owned Selfridges. So that was quite exciting. But again, I was not aware of any of that when I was a child. So all I knew was that we went out to eat a lot and that we had a privileged upbringing, which also when you're a child, you really don't understand until you get a bit older and realize, my goodness, how privileged I was.

So it was all very much emphasized to us that if you were going to be in business, particularly the way our family ran it, that family was the most important thing. So if you were in business, the whole reason for this was to make sure that your family was taken care of and not just your immediate family, but the extended family. And I can't claim to be an expert on Jay Lyons.

But I do have a cousin who's a writer and he's written some really wonderful books and he wrote a book about our family. I'm going to hold it up.

It's called Legacy. One family, a cup of tea, and the company that took on the world. And it's a really wonderful history of my father's family that became Jay Lyons. And one of the reasons I didn't realize that we were Lyons is because that wasn't our name. The name Lyons was borrowed from a cousin because the family was already successful in another business and they didn't want to use their names to go into this new venture.

and they weren't sure how successful it would be. So they borrowed the name of one of their cousins, which was Joe Lyons. So I grew up in this family understanding that really family was the most important thing. ⁓ They were terrific entrepreneurs, both sides, because you had to be really to ⁓ survive and thrive. And the strength that the Lyons side of the family had was trying to spot gaps in the market that people didn't realize were there.

providing people with something that they didn't know that they wanted or needed. And the most successful thing that they did initially was they found a gap in the market that if ladies went up to London to go shopping, and this would have been in the early 20th century, there really wasn't anywhere that they could go and just sit down and have a cup of tea or a cheap lunch. You couldn't afford to go to a hotel.

you didn't want to go to a working man's cafe and there wasn't anything in between. So the way I explain it is they were sort of the Starbucks of their day. So now how Starbucks is you pop in for a cup of coffee and you can sit down and have a pastry if you want. But they brought in something called the corner houses and the tea shops and there was waitress service and it was clean and it was beautifully appointed, but it was cheap and it was where respectable women could go and have a cup of tea and a sandwich and it would be okay.

to go on your own. So this was a huge gap in the market which they were very successful with.

Jonathan Thomas (05:38)
That's super interesting, ⁓ I guess I have to ask the question, do you drink lion's tea or what's your favorite tea now?

Amanda Graves (05:45)
Well, sadly,

Lion's Tea is no more because what happened was in 1976, they were taken over because they had started to overreach themselves. And it's all in the book there. They were very successful for almost 100 years. And then everything started to go down and there was the energy crisis, all kinds of things. ⁓ So yes, we absolutely used to drink Lion's Tea. And you can still buy Lion's Tea, but it's not our Lion's. It's made in Ireland. So you've probably seen it, but that's not actually our Lion's Tea.

that somebody has bought the company name and is making instant coffees. But again, that's not us anymore. They've taken the name. ⁓ Yeah, so sadly, can't get it anymore. But absolutely, I used to drink it.

Jonathan Thomas (06:26)
to you drink. ⁓

Amanda Graves (06:27)
Well, right now, I drink Yorkshire tea. It's good. mean, in England, you know, they refer to the black tea like that as builder's tea. So it would be where, you know, your builders would be sitting around drinking a cup of tea. So I don't like any of the fancy teas. I don't like flavoured teas, particularly. I'm not a big fan of Earl Grey. It's a little bit too scented for me. I just like your plain black tea. So Yorkshire tea, and I quite like Typhoo.

Jonathan Thomas (06:32)
So that, yeah, I mean, that's a great tea.

Amanda Graves (06:57)
⁓ Other than that, no, just whatever I can find, PG tips.

Jonathan Thomas (07:01)
I drink Yorkshire tea in the morning because it's got such a good hit of caffeine in it. It's good for that. you ended up moving to the USA in 1985. What's the story behind that and how did you end up in Massachusetts and how was it?

Amanda Graves (07:20)
So I went to the University of Bristol and there I met my first husband and he was studying computer science, which back then in the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s was a very new thing. And when he graduated and I graduated, he was offered a job in Massachusetts with Digital Equipment Corporation and it was a great opportunity. And we had been thinking about getting engaged anyway. We'd been dating for

five years and so we thought well this is a really wonderful opportunity to just go over there have a whole new life and give it a try and so he was recruited by them and they moved us over there and we said to everybody we're going to be back in a couple of years and they all went no you're not we know you're not ever going to come back and we said no we really are we really did intend to but then we settled in very quickly and they did a wonderful job bringing us over trying to get us

Well, we ended up meeting a whole lot of other people that had been recruited around the same time from the UK, and they were all working for Raytheon, ⁓ which was also a Massachusetts company, and they did radar technology and things like that. So we very quickly ended up meeting up with some other expats and getting to know them, which was also an interesting experience because when you do move to a new country, people assume you're going to be best friends with your fellow expats, where you may not actually have anything in common with them.

Jonathan Thomas (08:44)
Thank

Amanda Graves (08:47)
So that was interesting. Well, that's the thing. They just assume, you're a Brit, you're going to get along. And that isn't always the case. ⁓ But that was the reason that we went is it was for his career and it did end up being a very good opportunity. And it was an exciting thing to try.

Jonathan Thomas (08:47)
Or like them.

And so how long were you in Massachusetts for?

Amanda Graves (09:07)
Um, so we moved in 1985 and then in 1995 or so my husband left digital and he went out on his own doing contract work and then a couple of years after that, 1998, we separated and I had to decide, well, am I going to come back to England? Am I going to stay where I am?

But then at the time, my children were only eight and 11, and their whole lives had been in the States. They were born there, and all their friends were there. And we were coming back to England once a year anyway, and I didn't think it was the right thing to do to take them out of everything they knew. And also their father wasn't going anywhere. He was staying in Massachusetts. So we ended up staying, and then a couple of years after that, I met my second husband and...

He was living up there even though he's Texan, but he always said he didn't want to live there forever. So when he started to look towards retirement in about 2008, 2009, he was starting to think about where do we want to be? He said, why don't we start going somewhere warmer for the winters? Because there was a lot of snow and bad weather back up there in Massachusetts. So we started coming back down to Texas, which is where he's from. And we bought a little condo in San Antonio. And we would come down here for maybe a month.

in the winter and then gradually we'd start spending a little bit more time and then he retired in 2017 and then it was the question of where are we going to be because we really can't maintain two houses when he's retired. So it was was a big wrench but we sold the Massachusetts house and we moved full-time down to San Antonio and we bought a house up in the just on the outskirts of town and we've been there full-time ever since since 2017 but

I do miss Massachusetts. I don't miss the weather particularly, but I do miss the seasons and I do try to get up there every fall. In fact, I'm going back up later this month early, well actually I should say in October. And I'll enjoy looking at the changing leaves because you just don't get that here in San Antonio.

Jonathan Thomas (11:16)
Yeah, lot of Anglotopia followers don't know this, but I spent part of my childhood in Texas. And so that's one of the things you miss is the Four Seasons. ⁓

Amanda Graves (11:25)
Where did

you, where in Texas were you?

Jonathan Thomas (11:27)
Waco, Texas. we live... Yeah. Yeah, it was such a Texas thing to say. It's not that far. It's only two hours.

Amanda Graves (11:29)
yes, that's not too far from here. It's two hours maybe.

Yeah, that's true. Of course, if you were Brit, you'd

be saying, no, I have to make it overnight to do that. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (11:43)
Yeah,

Texas is a really interesting place and it's a beautiful state and I have nothing but good memories from my time in Texas.

⁓ So you mentioned in your bio that you're actually related to Nigella Lawson. So you kind of have to explain that. You kind of buried the lede there. And did you grow up around this food culture? How did that influence you later being in catering?

Amanda Graves (12:04)
Okay, yes. Yes.

⁓ Yes, very much ⁓ so. like I said, I grew up always knowing what good food was and all about good food. And my father, came to realize when I was a little bit older, had had to train in the family business to become a manager there. Because even if you were part of the family which owned the whole thing.

you had to do two years of training in the kitchens just so you would understand how everything works. So he did his training that they had a hotel back then. It was called the Regent Palace Hotel. And now it is still there, but it's not actually a hotel anymore. But the restaurant is still there. It's called Brasserie Zardel now. I actually went and had lunch there a few weeks ago. So we were very much immersed in the culture of gourmet food. So whenever we would go out to eat, my father would educate us on what it was supposed to taste like, had the chef.

prepared it right. He at that point had given up cooking completely, didn't want anything to do with it, said he would never go in the kitchen again after his miserable two years training in the kitchens. And he was then in management and he was running the frozen foods department at Lyons, which was trying to challenge bird's eye. So Nigella's father, ⁓ his name was Felix, Felix Salmon, so that ⁓ the family that owned Lyons, we were the Glucksteins, was our side and the Salmons was

Nigella's side of the family and I was trying to find the family tree a little while ago. I have the family tree somewhere. There's the salmon tree and the gluckstein tree and then the United tree. So I think Nigella's probably a second or third cousin. I'm not exactly sure, but my father and her mother were very close growing up. So they did know each other pretty well. And apparently Nigella used to come to some of my birthday parties when I was a child, but I really don't remember that. I don't actually remember ever having met her.

but I'm sure that I have and I did get invited to her 21st birthday party, which I sadly couldn't go to because I just have my wisdom teeth out. So this was way before she was famous. I was 18 and she was 21. So we were all immersed in that culture, very much so. I mean, that was just part of our identity. Food was very important to us. But the ironic thing was I didn't know how to cook anything because my mother...

cooked some, my father wouldn't cook at all. And so I really never learned. And when I left school, I had a gap year and they said to me, my parents said to me, well, I think it's time you learned how to cook. So we're going to send you on a cooking course of the Cordon Bleu and you're gonna learn how to do it. Because like I said, I already knew what food should taste like. I just didn't know how to prepare it. So they sent me off to the Cordon Bleu and back then in 1980, it was known as the Brides' Course.

And so you went to learn how to cook meals for your husband. So that was pretty hilarious because I was, I'd only just turned 18. And so I learned everything from how to boil an egg to how to bone a duck. But what it gave me was an interest in actually learning how you got to the completed dish and how you would get there and shopping for the ingredients and all of that. And it sort of sparked a love for actual cooking. And so by the time I got to university.

Jonathan Thomas (14:57)
you

Amanda Graves (15:22)
I decided it would be fun to do dinner parties and things like that. But of course, I'm always living in the shadow of this giant successful family business and thinking, well, whatever I'm doing, it's really nothing compared to what they all managed to do ⁓ all those years ago and how impressive that was.

Jonathan Thomas (15:41)
So interesting. Now, ⁓ you also attended boarding school before you went to university. So could you tell us some more about that? Because I love hearing about British boarding schools as such an American thing.

Amanda Graves (15:52)
Well, know you had a podcast not

long ago of somebody else talking about her boarding school experiences. So in our family, it was very much the tradition. So both of my parents had been to boarding school. My father had gone to Harrow. And my mother went to a school called the Downs, which was down on the South Coast near Brighton. And I think they pretty much had to go swimming in the sea most days, no matter what the weather was. was pretty spartan down there. So the school that I went to was called Queenswood.

Jonathan Thomas (15:57)
Yeah.

Amanda Graves (16:22)
and it was in Hertfordshire. It wasn't too far from where my parents lived. So that was nice because they would come and visit and if I was in a play or if I was in a sports event, they would come and watch. About a third of the girls that went there, because it was all girls, there were about 400 girls, about a third of them had parents who lived abroad and worked abroad or were in the military or things like that so that they couldn't go home on breaks. And so they wouldn't see their parents for three months at a time.

there were the occasional days where you could go home for an afternoon. They called them chapel Sunday. You go to chapel, then you were able to go home for the afternoon and come back. So I would usually take a friend with me who wasn't able to go home. It was pretty, pretty basic. When I went in 1972, we had 12 girls to a bedroom, 12 girls to a dormitory, and it was very basic. You just had your bed and you had a...

a mat by your bed and a little test of drawers. And it was very rigid. And there was a routine where you would get up at seven in the morning and then you have to be at breakfast at 740 promptly and they would ring a ship's bell. It was like being in the military. And then after that, you would go to chapel every morning. And then after that, you would have your classes. And of course, you had to have a tea break in the morning. And of course, you had to have a tea break in the afternoon, which is very civilized. So there was always four o'clock afternoon tea. ⁓

There was an emphasis on music and emphasis on sports. So I played field hockey and I played tennis and I was in all the plays. And I really enjoyed it. I think being the oldest in the family, I was a bit more independent and ready to do this. Whereas my younger sister, she went a year after I did and she really, really didn't like it. She was very much wanting to be at home and...

she didn't enjoy it at all, whereas I did. think it's very much depending on your personality and what you can do and how independent you are because I was always very happy just reading a book or practicing the piano. I didn't ever feel like I needed to be out doing a million things or watching TV with everybody and that sort of thing. was always able to entertain myself. So I handled it pretty well, but I know a lot of people that I went to school with really

didn't enjoy it at all. And I understand that. It's not for everybody. It just was part of the culture of the way that I grew up. It was expected that that was what you did. And so I went away at the age of 10. My brother was sent away to prep school, which is when you go when you're eight until you're 12 or 13. And he was sent away at eight to a boarding school, which he said he would not do to his children. And so his children didn't go to boarding school until they were 13.

But that was pretty tough for him to go away so young.

Jonathan Thomas (19:13)
I imagine it would be. It's such an American thing, but I can't imagine sending my kids away to boarding school. As much as I had fantasized about Harry Potter and going to boarding school, I would never do it. I couldn't do my own kids, no.

Amanda Graves (19:28)
⁓ yeah, it's, ⁓ well, my father was when he was at Harrow, he said there was an American woman who was looking around and she was absolutely horrified. And she said she turned to the teacher that was guiding them around, said, if you had to send your child here, you'd cry your eyes out. So I think that that's that's the the general sort of thinking from.

from Americans and also I gather that in America a lot of times if you send your child away to boarding school it's more like a military style school and it's more like a last resort, whereas in England it's not like that at all. ⁓ It's still pretty elite but it's not a punishment, although some people might think so.

Jonathan Thomas (20:05)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, we've had more than one occasion where we've had to use the military school threat to our children and it's like, they're are real places. They're not fun guys. You don't want to go there.

Amanda Graves (20:16)
Mmm.

Well, I wouldn't say it was all fun,

but I would say that I made my own fun. I mean, I'm not painting it in a completely rosy light, but I do have good memories and that's more than some of my friends can say.

Jonathan Thomas (20:35)
So looking back when you first moved to Massachusetts, and then I realized it was a long time ago. ⁓ what were some of the biggest culture shocks that you experienced as a new expat?

Amanda Graves (20:49)
Oh my goodness. Well, I really knew nothing about America. I had been once for about a month on my gap year. I'd traveled around a little bit. So I had seen the big cities like New York and San Francisco, but I really knew nothing about American culture except from TV shows. So obviously I was devoted to Dallas. You I loved watching Dallas. Never dreamed that one day I'd be married to a Texan. But when I got to

Massachusetts, I really knew nothing about the history of the country because we had so much British history to learn at school. mean, there's so much British history. We really hardly even touched on American history. So there I am moving to the cradle of liberty, Massachusetts, where the Revolutionary War began and going up to Concord and seeing where the initial...

where the Revolutionary War began was just absolutely mind blowing to me because I had no idea about much of this history. And the other thing that always made me laugh was when they were saying, well, this is incredibly old, know, it's 100 years old. And I'm going, that's not old. You I grew up in a house that's 500 years old. A 50 year old house is not old. I had to readjust my thinking. So I think that the saying is something like Americans think that

200 years is old and Brits think 200 miles is far. There's something like that. ⁓ So I really didn't, I didn't even know that Massachusetts was part of what they call New England. I had never even heard that phrase. So I came in just woefully ignorant. But I think in a way, because I was so young, I was only 23 and I'd just come out of university. I was excited and I was...

open-minded and ready to embrace the adventure. So I didn't look at it with a critical viewpoint particularly, it was just wow, look where I am and how interesting this is. And one of the things that really impressed me was how self-confident Americans were and are because I had come from the UK where they have a phrase in New Zealand.

is called tall poppy syndrome. So tall poppy syndrome means don't stick your head up too high because you you don't want to bring attention to yourself. So I think very much back then in England it was stay in your lane, don't get ideas above your station, this is where you're supposed to be, this is what you're expected to do. Whereas in America children were told right from the get-go you can be anything you want to be, you can do anything you want to do and we believe in you and they're giving you that ⁓

affirmation. In England it wasn't like that at the time. It was just, you know, don't brag, don't boast, don't say this, don't say that, don't think you're better than anybody else. So it was a very different mindset, very different mindset. And also the fact that neighbours came over and...

knocked on my door. I mean, we just didn't do that in England. know, I had neighbors coming over, I lived in a condo, bringing cookies and things like that and introducing themselves. And I was just shocked. I mean, in a good way. It was actually nice because there I am in a whole new community and people are being friendly and welcoming. And you would never have got that. I lived for a year in a part of Bristol. We never met our neighbors. It just would never occurred to us to go and say hello to them.

Jonathan Thomas (24:17)
That is one thing we do very well here is neighborliness and ⁓ you know, I've moved quite a few times in my adult life and neighbors are always nice.

Amanda Graves (24:26)
Well, you know, particularly in Texas, Texas is very friendly. mean, in the South, they're much friendlier than they are up in the North, which I found when I moved down to Texas. Here I am thinking everyone in Massachusetts was so friendly and welcoming, but they're much friendlier down here, funnily enough. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (24:41)
You

Yeah, was actually going to ask, what was a bigger culture shock, moving from the UK to Massachusetts or from Massachusetts to Texas?

Amanda Graves (24:49)
⁓

I think Texas is, I think that was a bit of a culture shock for me. And when we started coming down here in 2008, 2009, I really had a hard time trying to figure it all out because Massachusetts and Texas are very, different. So I had a foot in both worlds as it were. And so when it came time to decide where are we going to actually live, it was a...

difficult decision because most of me wanted to stay up in Massachusetts where I knew everybody and I still had a kid up there and that kind of thing. But my husband really wanted to be here because this was his home. And so I said, well, give me a chance to establish ⁓ friendships here in a community here and then we'll see. And so after a few years, I said, all right, I think I think we're ready to do that. But yeah, it is it's very, very different culturally, politically.

food-wise, obviously, the climate, that's a big shock. It's very, very hot here. I do go back to England every summer, and part of that is so I don't have to deal with two months of ridiculous temperatures. Although, of course, now in the UK, it is getting hotter on occasion, and then it's miserable because you don't have air conditioning. But on the whole, it's a whole lot more comfortable to be back in England than to be suffering through the Texas heat.

Jonathan Thomas (25:57)
the heat.

Yeah.

Well the question is then, do Texans you meet consider you a Yankee because of all the time you spend in Massachusetts or consider you a Brit?

Amanda Graves (26:18)
No, they consider me a Brit. The first thing they always say, ⁓ is that a British accent? And I'm thinking, wow, after 40 years, I suppose I do have one. When I go back to England, I get teased that I'm very American. when I'm here, everybody says, no, no, you're very British. So they definitely consider me a Brit. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (26:36)
Yeah, definitely have a, your accent has been flattened. ⁓ You have that transatlantic accent going on. ⁓ Your friend and fellow columnist in the English-speaking world, Tony Harkus, has a very similar accent.

Amanda Graves (26:43)
I think so, yes.

⁓ she doesn't though. Tony is from Newcastle, from the Northeast. So of course, it's when I listen to American accents, I can't always tell where you're from. And I think if people hear British accents, they can't necessarily hear the differences. But Tony, Tony definitely has a stronger regional accent from, they call it the Geordie accent. ⁓ So yeah, she and I knew each other at university, which is how I got to meet you.

Jonathan Thomas (27:00)
Yeah.

Yep, small world. So ⁓ we're going to talk about your fruitcake essay. Now we're going to publish the fruitcake essay. So hopefully by the time this goes out, it will be on the website. So this is what sold me on having you write for us. And you wrote this essay about having to make a fruitcake and how in Britain fruitcakes are like a delicacy dessert pudding. And in the US,

Amanda Graves (27:18)
It is a small world, yes.

Jonathan Thomas (27:45)
Nobody wants a fruitcake ever. And so it led to a very interesting cultural experience for you. So can you talk more about that?

Amanda Graves (27:52)
Sure. So first of all, fruitcake is very traditional in England and back when I was growing up, that was the only cake that you would ever have at your wedding. It would be a fruitcake and it would be a very dense, ⁓ booze-rich cake. And so there would be an awful lot of alcohol in it, which would preserve it. And then they would make a marzipan icing on the top and then a hard icing on top of that. And that would be your wedding cake. And then...

fruitcake without the icing and that sort of thing. You would have a slice of tea maybe. ⁓ And at Christmas, you would have a Christmas cake and it would be the same thing with the marzipan and the hard icing, a little snowman on the top. And this was just part of the culture. And then we had heard about this incredible fruitcake over in Texas that everybody was raving about. So my mother had decided she was going to order one. And when you read the column, you'll see why we were very unimpressed with this fruitcake.

And then we realize that all the Americans are saying how terrible fruitcake it is. It's because this is the only fruitcake that you know. You don't know the stuff that's full of alcohol and really delicious and takes three months to sort of mature before you even bake the thing. You're having this completely different experience. And so I told my husband about this and he's from Texas, like I said, and this fruitcake is from Texas. And he was horrified that I would say such a thing because he actually thinks that

that fruitcake is okay and I'm going, but you're wrong. You know, you're wrong. It's terrible. So we argue about that and we actually ended up stopping into that bakery. It's in Waco. It's in Waco, which is where I know you, you know Waco and it's called the Collins Street Bakery. So we stopped in and I said, may I have a sample? I haven't tasted this since I was 14. And they said, we don't give out samples because they're really, really expensive. And I said, you don't understand. said in my British.

British ex and have come all the way from England to sample your fruitcake which is a big lie but anyway so they gave me a sample and it was just as bad as I remember so what I would say to Americans listening to this is if you have a world market near you which I know not every state has but we do have a world market in Texas there's one in Massachusetts they do carry the traditional British fruitcakes not the ones with the icing on but just the regular fruitcakes I would suggest

Go and try it because it's completely different from the way you make your fruitcake here. It's not nearly as sweet ⁓ and it has a lot of booze in it, which is always a good thing.

Jonathan Thomas (30:24)
Yeah, I I imagine if you had booths, any cake gets good on him.

Amanda Graves (30:27)
You

Jonathan Thomas (30:27)
So you've written about how ⁓ America, you shifted from dinner party culture to potluck culture. how has that, talk about that cultural shift for you.

Amanda Graves (30:41)
Well, again, you have to remember when I moved over here, was the 80s. It was a little bit different back in England than it is now because back then it was big deal to have a dinner party. You would invite your friends over and you would do everything. And especially after I'd learned to cook, I was all excited about that. And so at university, when I rented a house off campus, we'd have dinner parties all the time and it was just a lot of fun. And then I came over here and I started inviting my husband's colleagues over to dinner and they would...

come over and their eyes would be just out on stalks and they would always phone and ask, what can I bring? And I'd say, don't bring anything. And that, no, no, we must bring something. And I didn't understand it. Why do they always insist on bringing something? I don't want them to bring anything. I'm planning the meal. I'm planning the menu. And then if I would say, don't bring anything, they would still show up with a dish. And then you think, what do you do? Do you put it on the table? Do you serve it? But it's not what I was planning to serve.

I learned very quickly to say, thank you, please bring a salad, or thank you, please bring a bottle of wine. But I felt really wrong saying that. And so as the time passed, I think I got busy with children and work and things like that, and dinner parties didn't happen quite so often. And then when I moved down here, and we have a whole new circle of friends, I discovered that most of them don't cook at all. And they're not interested in cooking. So when I started having them over for dinner, they'd be saying,

Well, please let us bring something. And then finally they all got together and they said, we're going to do potluck. We're not going to do this dinner party thing anymore. Everyone's going to bring something whenever we get together. And I just had to say, okay. So it's a very different way. think, I think also people like to share here. You know, they, they like to be generous. They like to bring things. They like to feel included with everything. And I get that. I just sometimes miss being able to say, just bring yourselves.

Jonathan Thomas (32:21)
Ha

Amanda Graves (32:36)
and I will take care of everything because that just isn't the mentality. ⁓ The other thing is, think, ⁓ when everybody started working more. I mean, back when I was growing up, not everyone worked outside the home by any means, and so they had all the time to do that. But then when I started working and having my children, obviously you don't have the time to do these things anymore. So I then became a little more grateful for the fact that people would say, let's do a potluck style.

I would be more okay with that. But it took a while for my mind shift to change on that.

Jonathan Thomas (33:10)
And I would, I would say, and there's still a movement to have proper dinner parties like that. And I know even when Mrs. Anglotopia hosts, she prefers to do everything, but people always want to bring something, you know?

Amanda Graves (33:23)
Well, the other thing is, when we were looking for

a house here, when we were moving, we discovered that more and more people were not using their dining rooms because people weren't entertaining the way that they used to. And so houses would be offered with, well, this was a dining room, but we've made it into a living room. Or no, this house doesn't even really have a dining room. And that is also a shift in the culture. So I wouldn't say it doesn't happen at all anymore. It just happens less than it used to.

Jonathan Thomas (33:51)
Yeah, how dare you eat in your kitchen for all your meals.

Amanda Graves (33:53)
Well, if you

invite people to come to your kitchen, they know their family.

Jonathan Thomas (33:59)
Well, our house ⁓ is a very traditional house. It was built in the 70s. it has, it's not open plan in any way. It has very compartmentalized rooms. It has a dining room. has a kitchen that's separate. There's even a door that shuts the dining room off from the kitchen so that you don't see the dirty dishes while you're entertaining. it's a...

Amanda Graves (34:20)
See, my mother

always told me that was a wonderful idea because she has a very old house. Like I said, the house I grew up in is 500 years old. And so there's a double door actually between the kitchen and the dining room. And that way if you drop anything in the kitchen, nobody knows. You can serve it and they'll never know you dropped it. Whereas if you have an open-plan kitchen, everyone can see everything.

Jonathan Thomas (34:38)
I'm

Something should remain hidden. So you've also talked about the difference, how Americans sort of misunderstand the differences between afternoon tea and high tea and the various kinds of tea. Why do you think Americans kind of struggle with tea culture? Is it rooted in history where we want to get rid of our British tea or is it something else?

Amanda Graves (34:45)
lately.

No,

it's just the name. The name tea is confusing because it can mean so many different things. So if I say, over for a cup of tea, then that's self-explanatory. You have a cup of tea, maybe a biscuit. If I say, let's go for tea, it depends on what part of the UK that you're in. If you're in the North, that could mean the evening meal. It could mean supper. ⁓ If you say, tea, that is the same as evening meal tea.

Jonathan Thomas (35:22)
Yeah.

Amanda Graves (35:34)
It's just a different word for it. So if you came in from a long day at work and you're going to eat early because you've been up really early, you've been on an early shift and you're eating your evening meal at say 5, 30 or 6 o'clock, then that's known as tea or high tea in certain parts of the country. And also ⁓ depending on, I mean, I hate to say this, but if you're upper class, you would never say that you're going to have tea in the evening or high tea. You would always say,

If you said, I'm having tea and you were upper class, that would mean afternoon tea. ⁓ Or you might see on a menu a cream tea. So afternoon tea is always around four o'clock. If you say, I want my tea at 5.30, that means I want my evening meal. But again, it's confusing. It's not obvious if somebody says, come for tea. You might want to ask what time. Because if they say, for tea at four, then you know it's going to be afternoon tea. If they say, come for tea and they're from

you know, the UK and you're not sure. ⁓ And they say, come for tea at six. That means that's the evening meal or high tea. So I don't blame anybody for getting confused. It just annoys me if somebody sends me an invitation and says, come for high tea at four o'clock, because I know that's not what that means. It doesn't mean I'm going to be having beans on toast. It means they're going to be serving afternoon tea.

Jonathan Thomas (36:52)
So your mother was invested with an MBE at Windsor Castle and you got to meet the royal family and all that. Can you tell us about that experience and how that happened and what it was like?

Amanda Graves (37:04)
So we're very proud of my mother for getting an MBE, which stands for the member of the British Empire. And it was for all the work that she's done over the decades with local nonprofits and charities, but particularly for her work helping to build and fundraise and keep open the North London Hospice, which started in 1989 with a small group of local women fundraising. And then over the years, she's volunteered there and she's now patron of the hospice. And I believe

president of the hospice now. And so her friends and my late father started this secret letter writing campaign to write to the government to ask if she could be recognized by the palace because that's what happens is ordinary people who've done extraordinary things will get recognized for what they've done but you have to go through the proper channels. So she didn't know this was happening. So after a few years of getting all these letters together and testimonials, ⁓ the palace contacted her and said congratulations.

you're getting an MBE and there will be an investiture at Windsor Castle. So that was two years ago and it was incredibly exciting. She was only allowed to bring three people. So my father had died ⁓ during the pandemic. So she had the three children. So I'm the oldest then, my sister and my brother.

I flew over especially from Texas for this and they close Windsor Castle to the public on the Investiture Days. They're often a Buckingham Palace, but more and more they're being held at Windsor and we didn't know which royal would be presenting her with the MBE, They Don't Tell You. So you arrive at the castle and you have your special invitation. It tells you which drawing room to go and wait in. It was really exciting. We got to meet all kinds of amazing, impressive people who've done wonderful things to

to just enhance their communities. And then we were taken into this huge room and the Lord Chamberlain was there and he explained to our group when you go into the room, which was this incredible gold room that the royal was on the platform, the family goes off to one side. So the family doesn't actually get to meet the royal, but the person who's getting the award does. And they put a magnetic...

band on her dress so that they just put the award on there so they don't have to pin it on. So you go in and you're not allowed to turn your back on the royals. So he demonstrated how to curtsy if you're a woman and how to bow if you're a man and then how it would all go and then you would shake hands and then you would back away and then you would curtsy again. So we're standing there very proudly watching her and it was Princess Anne. And Princess Anne is

amazing. She has an incredible memory. So there were about 60 people there that were getting their gongs as it were and she asked my mother about something that she had done in the 1970s and my mother went I didn't even remember I'd done that. How did you know about that? And she said well you've covered a lot of ground but

What that meant was that she had read up very carefully on everything that my mother had done and remembered it all. And there were 60 people that she was presenting things to. So we were incredibly impressed. And then she said to my mother, so how do you think you got everything done? And my mother said, by being very bossy.

the princess just started laughing and there's a video that they send you, an official video, and you can see where she just starts laughing. And it was obvious that she was happy to meet my mother and my mother was happy to meet her, although she had met her once or twice before, but I'm sure the princess didn't remember that. But it was a wonderful day. And honestly, I felt very, very proud. And being in the castle as a guest was really...

Jonathan Thomas (40:28)
You

Amanda Graves (40:54)
amazing and just looking around and seeing how beautiful it all was because I hadn't been inside since I was a child so I didn't remember much about it but the art on the walls is just stunning and I'm staring at all these incredible masterpieces and just really I'm so glad that I went I'm so proud of her that this that it happened and she absolutely deserved it.

Jonathan Thomas (41:15)
And then for my for my last question because this is this is super interesting and I watched the video the other day and it was so cool ⁓ A few years ago. You were on Jeopardy. What was that like and how did that happen? And how did that change your life afterwards?

Amanda Graves (41:30)
gosh, so yes, I've always been a great reader. And when we moved to the States initially, we were living in hotel and I had nothing to do because obviously I didn't have a green card or work permit or anything like that. Only my husband had the work permit. So I would sit in the Holiday Inn and I would watch game shows and I would watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. They were on back to back.

I just really got into Jeopardy and answering all the questions. And then when our children were born, it was on at 7.30 every night. And so by then, of course, we had a house and everything. And we would sit down and we would have dinner and we would watch Jeopardy during dinner. And the kids kept saying to me, oh, mom, you should try out for that show. And I'm going, nah, no, I don't

But eventually I did try out and it took me a while because you have to take tests and you have to... I think when I took the test initially, which would have been in about 2010, they only did it once a year and it was online and 250,000 people would take the test. They don't tell you how you did. It was all very, very quick. You did it all online very, very quickly. They didn't give you the answers. Then if you did well enough and who knows what well enough was.

They would then, if you were lucky, you would get an email saying, come to an audition. And they would send that out to about 3,000 people across the country. So I made it to the audition process three times before I finally got on the show because they only take around 400 people a year. So I looked up the acceptance rate and it's 0.2 % that actually get accepted to be on the show. So I'm very proud that I made it. Sadly, I...

didn't win, but it was an incredible experience. I was proud that I made it that far. I couldn't believe I actually really did get on the show. But through being on the show, I've met some wonderful, wonderful people and we are all part of a quizzing kind of network. And going on from that, I've joined various quiz leagues and I play pub trivia every week and I play online quiz league and I play in a league called Learned League, which is an online thing every day.

It's complicated, but anyway, I've even been to two trivia conventions, so I am now a quiz nerd and proud of it. But Jeopardy! was an amazing experience and really surreal because when you've been trying to do something for so long and suddenly you're actually on that stage and Alex Trebek is walking on and you're going, I'm actually here. It was wonderful, surreal, exciting and ⁓ ultimately a little heartbreaking, not winning, but I eventually got over it.

Jonathan Thomas (44:05)
That's all it's a whole subculture. I didn't even know existed. So you learn something new every day ⁓

Amanda Graves (44:08)
And I didn't even know it existed either until I'd been on the show and met all

these people. So I'm very grateful to them.

Jonathan Thomas (44:15)
All right. Well, what a delightful conversation that was Amanda and about your expat experience and living what's like living on both sides of the Atlantic. Thank you for joining us on the Anglotopia podcast. And we will link to information about Amanda's upcoming column, Spilling the Tea in the show notes. And we cannot wait to read her insights into cultural differences and what American life is like compared to British life.

Her twice monthly columns promise to offer the kind of observations that can only come from someone who's navigated both cultures as an insider. So if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, or leave a comment. It really helps others discover the podcast. And if you love what we do at Anglotopia, please consider joining the Friends of Anglotopia Club, where you get early access to ⁓ podcasts and social columns, and you can connect with fellow Anglophiles in our online private community. So.

Plus you'll find exclusive content about British expat experiences you won't get anywhere else. So thank you for listening. Thank you, Amanda.

Amanda Graves (45:14)
Thank you, Jonathan, for having me.