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I have never fully understood Robert Frost's "Home is the place that, when you go there, they have to take you in."⁽¹⁾

But my relationship with the Carneson family has brought me closest to it.  It isn't given to everyone to have more than one family.  I have been so fortunate as to have developed a rapport with these wonderful people that, in effect, wherever they are, should I happen to find myself there,  I am not merely "taken in", but I am entirely at home.  I know this isn't what Robert Frost meant, but it will do for me.

I met Lynn McGregor in the 1980s through a social media contact group that suggested we shared a love of walking, theatre-going and classical music.  We soon discovered that that was barely the tip of the iceberg.  In the hidden depths were writing, travelling and, above all, holistic therapy.  Furthermore we were both divorced and living with one mature teenage child.  We had both had books published and were currently engaged on a further work.  She had a Jewish mother and came from a very politically left-wing family.  How could we not resonate?

By the time my An ABC of NLP was published in 1992 we had gone the entire gamut of a relationship that would, under "normal" circumstances,  have marked the end.  My book was dedicated to Lynn with the statement that she "may have doubted us, but never doubted me" and the recognition that we were plotting our paths from different maps.  But my immersion into the Carneson family fold just went from strength to strength.

The walls of my house became covered with Ruth Carneson's paintings and my computer's capacity became seriously overwhelmed by its absorption of the book that Lynn was writing and I was editing and planning to publish.  In due course, in fact, it became the second published work under my ASPEN imprint and the first one that had not been written by myself.  It was published in 1996, having been delayed - at Lynn's request - until the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa was able to give closure to her problems in finalising it.  The book launch was held at South Africa House.

Over the years I have travelled much of the world with both Lynn and her sister Ruth.   With Ruth it was mainly within the UK and several of the pictures in the associated photo gallery bear witness to, for example, time spent in her home in Totnes, or celebrating my son Philip's 21st birthday in Aviemore in Scotland en route to the Findhorn Foundation.  Travels with Lynn have been somewhat more exotic, including a trip on the VSOE train from Venice to London, having had a brief stay in the honeymoon suite at the Cipriani Hotel courtesy of my association with Sea Containers, whose Orient Express Hotels Group owned the hotel.  It was the same association that enabled me to occupy a suite in another of their hotels, this time in Cape Town - the Mount Nelson - where I was able to entertain Lynn and her parents on my visit to Cape Town shortly after their return from banishment.  Again this is illustrated in the accompanying photo gallery.  We also spent much time in California,  visiting her mother's sister and brother-in-law near San Francisco, as well as visiting wonderful academic friends Phil and Judy Temko (q.v.) of Santa Rosa, and having an excellent one-week spa experience in Sonoma.  And let me not overlook the holiday we took with friends near Carcassonne in France.

With Judy Temko 1995	With Phil Temko 1995

But there have also been some vastly enjoyable joint experiences with Lynn, Ruth, family members, friends and colleagues that have embraced horse racing and personal growth presentations.  Mostly the horse races derived from my annual invitation from the Hong Kong Jockey Club to Hong Kong Day at Sandown or Ascot where I have been with Lynn, her colleague Pamela Ramsden and my colleague Rick Lidinsky; and, on another occasion, with her son Simon and my daughter Emily; finally with Ruth and Lynn together.  These are all memorialised in the photo gallery.

Then there are the events that Lynn organised in connection with her work involving the assessment and development of top executives and corporate leaders.  Emily and Simon worked very well together behind the scenes to make sure Lynn's Convivium event was a huge success, and they are rightly included in the photo gallery.

And so far I have not touched on the vast enjoyment that Lynn and I get from the performing arts.  For a number of years, before her return to South Africa, we took much pleasure from perusing the advance programme of concerts at the annual Royal Albert Hall proms.  We would each pick around 10 concerts and then pre-book them to include entry into the lottery for last night tickets.  On three occasions I was successful in attending the Last Night of the Proms.  I always ensured that one of the concerts, specifically for me, was close to my birthday of September 8.  This would normally be very close to the last night.  I would reserve one of the 8-seat boxes and invite seven guests.   Family were always first choice, but there were usually 3 or 4 others.  I have included some pictures in the photo gallery.

Finally, I have to comment on the appropriateness of the date for my completion of this work.  At this moment of writing, I am three days away from a visit to Cape Town to attend Lynn's 70th birthday celebration.  The book would have been completed before this, but for an unfortunate mishap that left me with a massive facial haematoma, from which I am well on the road to recovery.  But I fear that this will result in the publication being of the First Edition only, to be completed by a Second Edition after my return from South Africa.  It will, however, give me the opportunity to add some up-to-date pictures to the photo gallery.

And this tribute to the Carneson family would hardly be complete without further reference to Sarah Carneson, who at this time of writing is fast approaching her centenary, and to Fred Carneson who, happily, made a joyous return to his native land after the sickness of apartheid had been healed, but alas is no longer with us.  Lynn has lovingly and beautifully memorialised their lives in her Red in the Rainbow published in 2010.

Fred Carneson, when I last saw him at the Mount Nelson hotel in Cape Town in 1992.  R.I.P. Fred.

⁽¹⁾   The Death of the Hired Man http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173525