The Handkerchief Drawer

About the Book

My grandmother, Birdie Ruck Keene, would dismiss anyone not quite gentry as, ''Not out of the handkerchief drawer, darling.'' My mother, Christina de la Paz Garsia, was less easy to classify, and what was this chiropractic quackery about? But for two years in 1921 San Antonio, Texas I had the time of my life. Then we came back to England. I asked why. The answer was unsatisfactory. Questions about religion fared no better in my Anglo-Catholic convent school, and no-one mentioned class or war (or sex).

In World War Two those questions kept turning up as I freelanced my secretarial skill from Budapest to Athens, Cairo, Beirut and Palermo. I worked for British diplomats and (briefly) military intelligence, puzzled over the games of government and politics, experienced danger, relished every country and its people, and saw that war is not noble, but a ruinous habit going on and on.

In post-war Germany the horror of concentration camps, the thousands of refugees, the devastation, and a chance meeting propelled me towards changing my life - and the world. So I made choices, sure of change. It came, but not as planned.

About the Author

In 1966 I came with my son to Canada. Here there was space and unexpected openings for getting out of one's particular 'handkerchief drawer'.

I quickly got out of mine, earning $1.50 an hour at Queen's University Library. Then I sold Encyclopedia Britannica Learning Materials in Eastern Ontario, saved money and in 1970 opened The Canadian Shop of Kingston (Canadian books and Canadian crafts). Later in Vancouver I worked against the production of nuclear weapons, and formed close ties with the Circle Craft Co-operative of BC artisans. And wrote a book.

Emigration is a risk- but you learn who you are.