Where are we all from?

I'm a Greek living in Sweden. I learned English in parallel to my mother tongue, and can speak Swedish and Danish. Although I don't really "speak" much to people.

I live in Wiltshire. I moved to there from Southend in Essex to be near my chosen daughter(AKA stepdaughter)I was born in what is nowadays called Kinshasa, democratic republic of  Congo. I'm 67, and have a younger brother and sister. My father got a scholarship to King Edward's Birmingham, and then rather than going to uni chose to become an army officer. He soon switched to working at the Foreign office. Where a few years later he met my mother. She was very intelligent, but like my father chose to not go to uni. From the age of 4 to 18 I lived in England, Bangkok,San Francisco, and Zurich. I went to prep and then public school from 8 to 18.

It was not a good experience as I was bullied at both, especially so at public school. Nearly 50 years later I still struggle with the psychological effects of it. My parents separated in 1978 and divorced in 1983. My father took up a post as consul general to Atlanta in 1981. At the time I was either in a halfway house for those with SMI, or in psych hospital. On finishing his posting there he chose to retire and stay in the USA, rather than become ambassador to the Gabon etc. Between 1981 to when he died  last year I saw him roughly once a year, apart from visiting him for 2 weeks in 1995. In 1996 he was protocol advisor to the Atlanta Olympic games.

After divorcing my father my mother did a receptionist's course, and got a job as an assistant library manager. She was not ambitious career wise. She had an increasing alcohol problem. Was either problem drinker or alcoholic. IMO she was self medicating.

I had my Granddad and grGrandad in WW1 and my Uncle went down with his ship at Galipollli, the monument put up for those who died in that campaign has his name right, but when you look at the records they've got the wrong family attributed to him, I wonder how much that happened?

So interesting but sad that your great grandfather contracted the flu. Thanks for sharing that, found it very interesting to read. My great gran remembers being a nurse in the Second World War but none of my living relatives were in the first war. 

I'm from Ireland near by Belfast in the countryside where the RMS Titanic was built.

My paternal grandmother was born in a place called Byker,  near Newcastle, her parents went there from Ireland to escape the ‘Potato famine’. Her father is listed as a labourer. 
My maternal grandparents came from The East End of London and came to where Ive always lived to escape the ‘Blitz’, their parents were East End Labourers and worked at the Docks. Their surname is very Jewish, I would love to trace them all further back one day.
I visited my Great Grandfathers grave in Malta, he survived the whole of WW1 without a scratch, on the way home he contracted the flu when aboard the ship bringing him home, more people died from the 1918 flu pandemic than died in WW1. 

All of my ancestors seem to have been peasants too, I don't think there should be any shame in that, afterall somebody had to do the work whilst knights were going around denting eachothers armour, lol.

I think those of us with a peasant background are maybe more interesting? Exactly how long have "we" been here? Did our ancestors see the arrival of the Romans, the Saxons, the Normans, were the great events in history just a change in who we paid tax too and who's land we worked? The movement of ancient populations is still very much an unknown, the evidence suggests more stability than previously though, with population replacement tending to occur at the top social strata than the bottom.

I am of German origin, but my family live in Scotland and Australia. English is not my mother tongue, but I have learnt English since I was 6 years old. I understand it almost as well as German, but speaking it was always a problem - because of autism, of course. 

I’m Irish born, raised Catholic and have always held and renewed an Irish passport, but I’ve lived 23 years in Manchester - I still have extended family living in Rural Ireland, so I go back home on the ferries between Holyhead - Dublin as often as I can on SailRail from Manchester on Irish Ferries - my favourite spot is the Club Class Lounge of the Irish Ferries Ulysses Cruise Ferry 

English - I live in rural England in a small village. I’ve researched my family tree and unfortunately I have no exciting ancestors from exciting foreign lands either  - they were all English ‘peasants’! 

North East London

Our usual mix of locations then, I was surprised to see this thread again, I thought it had died a death months ago

I'm a mix of Devonian and Cornish, I can trace my ancestors back to 1567 in Devon, and about 1600 in Cornwall.

Ben

Maidstone in Kent 

Im from Scotland

I was born in Paris and now living near London where I've been since I was about 8 years old. 

Bonnie Scotland!

I lived in Amersham and Chesham. 

Yes, some parts of Lincolnshire are flat, such as the Fens, but it is nit devoid of hills. 

I am in Wales.

Bonjour! (Hello!) I'm from the South of France.