The old world of England was picturesque and safe in a way that L.A. wasn't, but it was so amazingly socially cruel. I had never experienced that in America - never in school, nowhere.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
England is so defined, the class system, your education. I think what was unique about the Canterbury scene.
I grew up in a middle class English family just outside London. I wasn't surrounded by that speedy city lifestyle, it was a little mellower.
In spite of holidays when I was free to visit London theatres and explore the countryside, I spent four very miserable years as a colonial at an English school.
I really wouldn't want to live in America. I found New York claustrophobic and dirty. I missed England when I was there, simple things like smells and the British sense of humor.
There's a lot to love about America - freedom, the melting pot of diversity, individualism - all attractive concepts, especially to an introvert. In fact, the introverts were probably the first to feel crowded in England and to daydream about all the space they would find in the New World. Peace! Quiet!
It's quite an interesting time, the '20s, because the politics of England were changing quite a lot, and the class structure was starting to shift a little.
I loved living in Hollywood - and the weather there was just fantastic - but there is something about rural England, and especially Suffolk and Norfolk, that pulls at my heartstrings.
I have, I must admit, despised the English countryside for much of my life - despised it and avoided it for its want of danger and adventure.
In 1952, I had gone to England on a literary pilgrimage, but what I also saw, even at that distance from the blitz, were bombed-out ruins and an enervated society, while the continent was still, psychologically, in the grip of its recent atrocities.
England was incredibly dull and everything exciting seemed to be in America.