March 8th 2018

An American’s Eye View of Northamptonshire
Gary Shaeffer

What does Gary see that we don’t? Does he enjoy the sights and sounds that appeal to us who were brought up here. Do we take the countryside for granted? Can he get us to see the landscape in a different way? 

Come along and find out and see if you agree with him.

Review of the evening
Gary spoke to us 'tongue in cheek' about village life and of his visitors' expectation of 'our little country'. We all know about Americans 'doing' the Cotswolds in a day, but they did it in 6 hours! They also did the Derbyshire Dales in a day. Some of us have been many dozens of times and still have only seen a fraction of the area.They all had to go to Church's China for gifts to take home so that shop would be happy.

Few of us realised the strange wordings to outsiders of our Dress Code. 'Smart casual' to us is obvious but to an American it means two different things so what do they wear? An invitation to an 'At Home' was confusing. Why invite someone to your house if you are not at home? Drinks parties - 12.30 to 2pm was odd but they didn't think anything of it. Just as they were settling down and getting warmed up to the drinks and food, they realised that everyone else was getting their coats and leaving!

He eventually decided to take a course in Tourism and become a Blue Badge gulde as his wife thought that he had lounged around enough since they arrived in England. She was working at Avon and had been for 5 years by then. He gave us an insight into the course, his fellow students and how they all got on with the various parts. 30 started the course and 18 completed it.

He completed his talk with a slide show of some interesting buildings and scenes from around the county and invited us to say where they were.