Fr Clark is very proud of being Anglo-American. When he sends me e-mails they are always in English, rather than American English, he prefers our spelling and I think likes to be able to use it.
He writes a weekly column in the Tecumseh newspaper, and last week was writing about his English ancestors. His direct ancestor, Roger Shackelford of Hampshire, captained a ship in the mid 16th century which transported men and women to the New World. But he had another job, and in collaboration with William Penn he took part in the English conquest of Jamaica in 1655. The following year he rescued a Mary Palmer, daughter of a wealthy ship owner who had been captured and held for ransom by pirates, and he delivered her to other family members at the colonial settlement of Jamestown. The couple, he said, fell in love, and lived happily ever after (I'm paraphrasing a little here) in coastal Virginia.
Apart from water walking this morning I haven't done a lot outside the house. A little lady in the pool asked me if I had experienced the bombing in WWII, I told her I'd grown up in an air raid shelter, the first four years anyway. She also asked me what tea I drank, I told her Twinings Irish Breakfast and Orange Pekoe (which is about all that is available here, apart from Liptons and I do drink that as well because it's cheapest). I think she made a mental note that that is what she was going to buy. Someone at the next table to me in a restaurant once also asked me, and wrote it down, saying she would get some. Like if I - being English - drink it then it must be the right tea to get, ha, ha, ha.
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