Dear Michael
Weybridge, Surrey, England
ink, watercolor and pastel
art by Jameson Currier
20221210001

In 1966, the author was enrolled in “sixth year” at Oatlands Primary School in Weybridge, Surrey, England. Because of his father’s employment with an aeronautics manufacturer, his family had relocated from Georgia several times—to Buffalo, Los Angles, and now England.

He was at this primary school for six months, until February 1967, when his family returned to Georgia. Every week at the British primary school he wrote an original essay, story, or poem—mainly as practice for spelling, grammar, and penmanship. While cleaning out a room at his father’s house, the author rediscovered the “book” of stories and poems that he wrote when he was at Oatlands. This is a sample letter written as an introductory essay when the author was eleven and illustrated by him at the age of sixty-seven.