Oral History Gallery

Extract Text (Duration 1.18)

Packing up is really not a problem, the Navy generally come and do it, although it's always stressful only ‘cause you've got to make sure that everything's ready.  When we went out to Naples they said, "You've got two days to pack and we'll come on one of these two days," and the ideal thing is that, first of all you take the stuff that's going to Naples out and they take that and it goes off and it gets shipped out, and then the next lot of stuff goes and they pack.  But they did it the other way around for me even though they said they weren't going to, so that was a total nightmare that I had to shift everything out and say, "No, you're not allowed to pack that," but... and I had two lots of removal men in at once and they... oh, that was a nightmare.  And then when you get out there you don't get your stuff for two months so you have a moving in pack and you just basically live in the clothes you took out with you in a suitcase, or buy more as I did, which was a good shopping trip in Italy, and you... that can be a nightmare.  Moving abroad is always a nightmare because of the time lag that it takes to get your stuff out to you, and the children's toys, again you have to take your suitcases on the train... on the plane and that has to contain your entire life for two months.