>In message <l03130301b50d455abbec@[209.249.5.52]>, David Bromige
><[log in to unmask]> writes
>> Steve McCaffery is Canadian,
>
>in fact he comes from Barnsley but as anybody who regularly drives
>around South Yorkshire knows the Borough of Barnsley lays claim with its
>roadsigns to large stretches of surrounding country & perhaps already
>encompasses Toronto. Seriously, though, I think there is an English
>dimension in Steve's work underlying the more obviously North American
>aspect - his humour e.g. seems very different from, say, Charles
>Bernstein's. Or is it just the way an Englishman reads it?
>
>AH
Well of course I knew of McGaffer's Yorkshire background. But I thought a
lifetime spent largely in Canada, including current residence, plus
Canadian citizenship, made him Canadian as well, if not more importantly.
But this was my own prejudice showing, no doubt, since I likewise grafted
Canadianness onto an English childhood (and subsequently, United Statedness
onto the maple tree). But bless you, my fellow-Brits, you are right, what
subsequent adventures can dispel the virtu of boyhood and adolescence among
your ricks and sheaves, smokestacks and pumping-engines? This assurance is
the reason I am allowed to carry a British passport alongside my Canadian
one. Upon my demise, I hope you will claim my remains with the same vigour
(have to think how that should be spelled!) with which you claim McCaffery
in life. (Btw, where are the Irish claimants to his being but a generation
or two removed from Eire? His humor and his gift of the gab impress me as
not so much English but qualities bestowed by the land of Joyce and
Beckett.)
Anyway, as the little ads I glue to the windows of London phone-booths
state, I am always willing to be corrected.
Thank you,
David
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