The day I became an American was actually the day when I became a Brit. It was just before Guy Fawkes Night 1984, from what I recall, a dreary wet and cold time of year in early November. The previous year I had completed high school. I was now in my first year of a three year apprenticeship attending vocational training in International Business. Vocational training in Germany consists of a two-part scholastic curriculum, one where you go through different departments of a business; mine was at a local Opel car dealership. The other part consists of weekly school or college classes with subjects like International Business Administration, Political Economics, English, Social Studies and such.
The English language had never been a huge interest of mine, but with my job at the Opel dealership I frequently ran into British customers who expected to be served and spoken to in English. Everyone knows the arrogance of the Brits, right?
My hometown Munster had been a major military training town since World War I, and a British military garrison since the end of World War II. So naturally there were a lot of British people living in Munster, or Munsterlager as they referred to the town's name using the pre-WWI Name. At the same time, Munster was also a major German military town. That's how we ended up there in the first place, with my father being an officer in the German army.
As Vauxhall being one of the most popular car brands in the UK, and Vauxhall being the "sister" Company of Opel within the General Motors concern, sharing the same models, I dealt with a lot of British customers. Sometimes there were days when I only had British customers, and no Germans at all.
In 1982 I gladly dropped English in high school, inspite of a heroic effort on my part to improve my English the year before, when my parents sent me off to England for three weeks during summer break in July 1981. I spent a very nice time in a beautiful little village in Cornwall, Petherwin near Launceston speaking English every day and watching Charles and Diana wed into their doomed marriage on Color TV (a big deal in those parts back then I guess). But that was about it as far as my language improvement was concerned. I hated English, or rather: I hated studying. That's also the main reason why I quit high school a year early, with an "Advanced Technical College Entrance Qualification" or "Fachhochschulreife" in German, rather than the "Higher Education Entrance Qualification" or "Hochschulreife". Oh well, here I was now facing my loyal but demanding customers, not being able to communicate with them in the manner in which they expected to be spoken to.
Three years ago, Hugh and I spent our Easter vacation in Cornwall, and we stopped by at the farm I called my home during the summer of 1981. I was surprised to see the old couple (who were already old to me 30 some years ago) still rather chipper and spry. Unfortunately none of the kids I used to hang out with, now like me well into their 40s, were home. Well, mainly because the farm of their parents no longer was their home. But it was nice to see the land and the trip truly brought back some fond memories.
So, my lack of English language skills was the problem that had to be tackled. Luckily, working at a car dealership in a very small town, one tends to run into interesting, sometimes important people. And so one day I happen to chit chat with one the town's councilmen, while there were British customers waiting (at that point I was still adhering to the German version of Customer Service or the lack thereof). Apparently he was also the town's historian and photographer and God knows what else. He knew the Brits standing in line behind him, so we all ended up having a conversation in English... well they were, I tried my best to chip in. Councilman Breuer recognized my plight and suggested I'd tag along to the British festivities of Guy Fawkes night in a few days, a celebration where a puppet on top of a bonfire is set on fire to commemorate the execution of a known terrorist some few hundred years ago. Mr. Breuer explained that the British had a youth club, and there'd be plenty of young people my age at the festivities, who would be delighted to teach me the proper way to speak English.
The evening of November 5th, Mr. Breuer and I met in front of the town hall, and off we went to Dennis Barracks Munsterlager, a depressing looking military settlement on the edge of my hometown. Nobody ever dared to go near it, because the British soldiers, or squaddies as they were also called, were known as drunks and hooligans. There wasn't a weekend without violent clashes between British and German soldiers in the local pubs and brothels. Am I really to learn English from these punks? Well, we'll see.
We arrived at the site of the festivities, and I noticed something I never noticed before: There were actually women and girls among the Brits. I never knew... I guess it's mainly because one recognized the Brits by their uniforms, and in those days, there weren't many female service members, if any at all. And Mr. Breuer started introducing me to people. One of the first Brits I met and actually talked to, outside the dealership that is, was Phil Rogers, the guy in charge of the youth club. And he immediately invited me to attend the weekly youth club event, which mainly consisted of selling candy and sodas to kids aged 8 to 18 and playing the latest in pop Music to keep them busy and out of trouble. Later the youth Club got a video game machine, which surprisingly lasted at least two years before it broke.
I was 19 at that time, and I felt a little old actually to hang around those kids, but in the almost two years I first regularly attended and then later helped manage the club part time as a volunteer I was able to improve my English almost to perfection. Due to constant mockery I also quickly learned to lose my German accent, and by the end of 1987 I was not only fluent, but I spoke English with almost no trace of an accent.
In those two years between 1985 and 1987, I was proudly part of Her Majesty's Youth Service (I even received a certificate with that heading after I attended youth leader seminars with the British Forces Youth Service) I met a many great friends. Sadly I lost contact over the years, and I would love to see what great folks like SM Nigel Morgan and his family, SSgt Paul (Sandy) Sanderson, his wife Loraine and their kids Martin and Neil, or Phil Rogers and his family are up to today. Well, with Facebook these days you never know. I fondly remember the Sunday evenings at the Morgan residence, watching 'Allo 'Allo and Eastenders on BFBS Television, drinking horrible English instant coffee and eating bland English "Tea" or dinner. I was invited to the 1985 Sergeant's Mess Christmas Ball and I took my first plane ride to visit friends in Liverpool, who had moved back to England. I travelled to the UK frequently in those years, attending a wedding I was invited to or to spend Christmas and New Years with great people. I helped Nigel and his family move to Scotland when he knocked at my door one Thursday night before Easter 1987 and we ended up driving almost 3,000 miles to Kirknewton and back over the Easter holidays. On November 9th, 1989 I was on my way to visit Sandy and Loraine who had moved to Mönchengladbach when news on the radio announced the fall of the Berlin Wall. We ended up watching TV and the events unfolding in East Germany together that weekend. Great memories of a time I am immensely grateful for.
Today, the British are gone and all that's left are the buildings of Dennis Barracks, now German residences and business facilities. No memorial, no plaque, no thank you note.
In the summer of 1987 I finished my apprenticeship and was called for National Service in the German Armed Forces. Time to say good-bye to Munster, because by golly, I'd be damned to spend my Military Service digging trenches in the woods outside Munster like my high school buddy Rolf. Instead I wanted to go places, see the world and make use of my excellent English. I had attended the open days at nearby Faßberg Air Base frequently and being in awe with fighter jets, runways, ATC towers and airplane hangars, I also knew I wanted to join the Air Force, a perfect match for English speakers; none of that dirt digging stuff in the Army, and on Navy ships there's no need to speak English. The Air Force was where my future lay.
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