A life of travel and adventure? Impossible. He was a shy kid in London, with no ambitions, a humble background, even a mild cockney accent. In the British Army in the 1950s that would have been deadly. But Lady Luck stepped in before he was drafted and he lost the accent. He became An Officer of Engineers. His brother officers talked about college after the army. No one in his family had been to college, but, why not? Plus with another bit of luck he became a Film Extra. You might have seen him in 'Around the World in 80 Days.' His father, a Dutchman had emigrated to England. The genes ran true and he ran away to Canada, and then to America, the lands of opportunity.
He became a civil engineer in Labrador, building radar stations in the land of ice and snow, missionaries and Eskimos, and dog team patrols with the Mounties. Lady Luck then moved him to Vancouver, Canada's fun city, full of young adventurers. There he met a young woman, slim and shy, pretty and smart, a doctor. They had a good life. The sailboat trip across the North Atlantic via Greenland through a hurricane may have given her food for thought, and then he really dropped a bomb.
"I am more interested in your work than mine. I am going to become a doctor." The years after the divorce, as med student and intern were hard, but helping patients was so challenging and rewarding that he never looked back. He traveled during vacations, sometimes as an unpaid missionary doctor in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, the Amazon etc.. After retirement his itchy feet took him all over the world. This life story, warts and all, is meant as a cautionary tale for his grand-children.
