Lawrence Mastin of Bakewell and Toronto (C.A.)
(Born 1959.)
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I was born in my Mum and Dad's bedroom in Bakewell, Derbyshire in August 1959.
My father, Kevin (Ken), had met my mother, Ceretta Zaira Rosa, in one of those romantic wartime stories, while he was posted in rural Italy during WW2. He vowed to return and marry her after the war, and he actually did, despite not speaking a word of Italian. Not speaking a word of English, Mum followed him to rural Derbyshire, gradually abandoned her first name of Zaira for the much easier second name Rosa, and raised kids, while Dad worked in local quarries, factories and garages.
I never knew my English grandfather Frank Ernest, or my Italian grandfather, Luigi. We used to visit my English grandmother, Lillian, most weekends at the top of steep Northwood Hill, Darley Dale, Derbyshire, and play in her jungle of a garden, until her death in 1973. I have vague memories of my Italian grandmother, Nonna (she was always known as Nonna - I only found out here real name, Concetta, when looking into this family tree), visiting us once or twice in my early childhood.
I went to the local grammar-school-turned-comprehensive, where I shone academically, largely due to years spent book-learning at home during a sickly childhood. After school, I did a degree in Accountancy at Warwick, although I soon learned not to take the course too seriously, and concentrated on the drinking and carousing. When I realised I was becoming an alcoholic, I managed to give it up completely, and therefore managed to scrape a degree together. This was where the name nickname Luke came from, and for some reason it stuck.
I hung around Coventry for the next couple of years thoroughly enjoying doing nothing much, but during that time I met Julie Wood who was still finishing her degree there. She managed to convince me that if I did not get a job soon I would be considered unemployable (probably true), so we both ended up moving to London where I worked for Touche Ross as an accountant. I hated the work, and stayed in it only long enough to get my professional accounting qualification (about 4 years), and then jacked it in as soon as possible.
  Lawrence (Luke), Julie and Elena in New York, June 2000 |
Julie, the stable part of the relationship, had a good job with a bank in the city, and so we could afford for me to go self-employed, working with various dodgy left-wing pressure groups, community organisations and small charities (this was during our socially-conscious phase when we were both heavily involved with CND, Greenpeace and various other anti-nuclear and human rights groups).
After a couple of years of this, which I quite enjoyed despite my lingering aversion to work, Julie's bank offered her a post in Toronto, Canada, so we were off like a shot, despite it being mid-winter there (it was -25°C when we arrived). As we were not married, I was not allowed to work there (which of course suited me fine), and I spent most of our wonderful 3½ years as a technically illegal immigrant. We fell into a mutually acceptable regime whereby I did most of the housework, cooking, etc, (leaving me a fair bit of leisure time) and Julie earned the money (well, she enjoys it anyway). It is a beautiful country, and we loved the wilderness camping, canoeing, hiking, etc, and I have albums of photos to remind me of that time, as well as many good friends. I visited all ten provinces, as well as all but three of the American states (delivering cars, or just taking off for a week or so in our own car), and we were both very sad when we had to return to England in 1992.
Back in depressing England, I spent a year and a half completely renovating our house in London and, just as I had finished, Julie was offered a new post in, of all places, Venezuela. So off we went like a shot again (we only had one of our two cats by this time, and he said he didn't mind).
And there we stayed for over three years, watching the economy go down the drain, and waiting for the next coup, while the students rioted in the streets with alarming regularity. It is a frustrating and exasperating place where nothing works, corruption is rife, two-thirds of the population live below the poverty level, and inflation is creeping up towards 100% a year. But living in ex-patriate luxury as we did, you can usually find ways round most of that. It is also beautiful place, with a near-perfect climate, Caribbean beaches, untouched rain-forests, snow-capped mountains, vast plains rich in wildlife, old colonial towns and primitive Indian villages. So what could I do but start travelling again. I travelled throughout all the states of Venezuela, taking copious amounts of photos as I went, as well as in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.
 Elena Mastin in Caracas, February 1997 (nearly 2 years old) |
Things changed somewhat halfway through our stay in Venezuela, with the unexpected arrival of baby Elena in April 1995, definitely not in the five-year plan, although looking on the bright side at least we could afford a nanny and a cleaner there, which made life slightly more bearable. (We finally got around to marrying in January 1995, by which time Julie was "heavy with child" as they say). We still tried to go places with Elena, although it sometimes seemed more trouble than it was worth. Part of the deal, however, was that I helped look after Elena while Julie was away on business trips, and I got to make a few trips on my own to the more unexplored parts of the country.
Three years later, in August 1997, we moved to Bogotá, Colombia, out of the frying pan into the fire in some respects, although in other respects a breath of fresh air after Venezuela. Despite its terrible reputation, Colombia is actually a lovely country, with beautiful scenery, lots of history, and the most polite and friendly people you could ever wish to meet. More travelling around South America ensued (Peru, Argentine, Chile, and of course Colombia), and although travel in much of Colombia was considered dodgy at best, we did our best to do it justice. During our stay the personal security situation deteriorated still more but, to cut a long story short, the Venezuela and Colombia years are well-documented online at Luke's South American Diary.
After just two years of this stint, "the bank" in its wisdom decided to close all it's South American operations at the drop of a hat, and we moved back to the place where we always knew we would settle, Toronto, where we remain to this day. We still love the city: we live right on the beach, we go canoeing in the back-country in the summer, we sweep up bagfulls of scarlet leaves in the autumn, we go skiing for the day in the lovely cold winters, and spring only lasts for a couple of weeks anyway. I took up website design (Luke's Web Pages for Less). Elena has oodles of friends, and a busy social and sports calendar. Life is good.
