As soon as John got up to go serve himself at the buffet, Patrycia turned towards me and asked with a glimmer in her eye, "So," she paused "is that your husband?" I laughed and assured her that we were just friends. She sighed with relief, "One never knows how to ask these things." She paused again and with a devilish little smile and her brillant blue eyes sparkling she said, "I quite fancy him. In fact, I think I quite fancied him that last time we met as well!"
Her story unfolded. She went to boarding school in Ireland, became a nurse and went off to the Korean War. On the boat ride over, the army ship broke down in the Dead Sea and they had to wait for two weeks to get a new propeller. Luckily, there was a band on board and 2000 men....and only 4 women. She leaned over to me at this point and under her breath whispered, "Yes, my dear, you just need to put yourself somewhere where you have choices." She was engaged six times before she finally got married in 1957.
The chap she married had been a prisoner of war in China for three and a half years. Having never seen prisoners of war before, she and her girlfriend had placed themselves in a good location to view the prisoners of war as they emerged from a ship. One can only imagine these chaps coming off the boat to see Ms. Patrycia and her girlfriend. I suppose the whole lot of them fell in love right at that instant. Anyway, as the first fellow emerged from the ship, her girlfriend exclaimed "oh look at him!" and Patrycia, who's sights had fallen on the 6'3" blond chap behind the first fellow" replied "oh yes". As it turned out, these two fellows were best friends. Patrycia got engaged first to the blond, then apparently broke it off and married the first chap, a very conservative Englishman. She said "that my first mistake, marrying an Englishman". The fellows, predictably, never spoke again.
Four children later, the army offered her husband a golden parachute to retire early and he applied for a position in the English Foreign Service. He was selected out of 67 candidates and a huge outcry ensured. How could they appoint a former prisoner of war to the secret service? What if the Chinese had turned him? To her delight, journalists camped out on Patrycia's front lawn every day. The Blundells were front page news. She said "yes I'd feed them breakfast and we got some wonderful photographs of me and the children." The job offer was revoked and the husband, fed up with the entire affair, decided that they should immigrate. They had lived in South Africa before so Patrycia, in the back of her mind, thought that was where they would end up.
They discussed the list of options. "North America is out" the husband said, Patrycia paused here for a moment, gave a little wink and apologized in advance, "because we can't stand the Yanks." Canada was too cold. New Zealand was too backward and boring. South Africa was about to blow up from the Apartheid issue. Patrycia said "Well where else is there? That's the entire list." Her husband replied "Australia". She thought about it for a moment and said "Well I'll go to Australia if you send me to a beauty farm first for two weeks" as she wanted to quit smoking. "Well, the poor fellow could ill afford a beauty farm in addition to moving the family to Australia, but he managed to pull it off and off I went to the Beauty Farm," she beamed.
This beauty farm was apparently THE beauty farm to go to in 1968 and included such people as David Frost, ministers from the government, etc. etc. She was of course equally famous having been in the papers for the past several weeks. She hinted to anyone who would listen that it would be fantastic for her husband to find a position in England so she could avoid the upcoming and undesirable move to Australia. Her insinuations fell on deaf ears and they boarded a ship, lived on the upper deck, and dined with the captain (as they were famous). It was simply a delightful journey.
Now? She lives a "stone's throw" away from her four children in Perth. The husband lives in England and has for many years. She has ten or eleven grandchildren and considers her life dull in Australia. "I come here," she says "to get away from the whole lot of them." She smiles. Her son told her "Mum, can't you see we've all married women exactly like you." She smiles again. She's been practicing yoga for eons and teaches out of her home in Perth. The average age of her students, she contends, is 21 years old. She's currently teaching Olympic sprinters a special class. Her motto is "I give them one new pose per week. If they haven't practiced it," the glimmer in her blue eyes increases here "then I don't allow them to come back because they have no real interest in Yoga".
I found this photo of Patrycia in her home studio in Perth online. The facebook caption "my hottie 83 year-old Iyengar yoga teacher in Perth. Red headed Irish bombshell!" May we all age so gracefully.
Horrified by the disclosure of my innermost secrets but I did enjoy that lunch and I must have done a lot of talking and you listened well. I hope you've recovered and are taking good care of yourself. Ask John if he'd like a scintillating article from me, it might stir up the American Journal. love Patrycia
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