I live in L.A. so I worry my kids aren't that connected to Britain, I suppose I don't want them to become American kids. We try to get back three or four times a year. When they go to school they speak with a British-American accent but when they come home to us they go back to their British accent.
My mom, well, she's half Greek, half German-Italian; born in England. She's just a nomad. She loves Middle Eastern style, Indian style, so much so that she ended up having Indian babies.
My parents moved to American Samoa when I was three or four years old. My dad was principal of a high school there. It was idyllic for a kid. I had a whole island for a backyard. I lived there until I was eight years old and we moved to Santa Barbara.
My family is Anglo-Indian, and of the four children, I'm the only one who wasn't born in India.
I'm the rogue Canadian in my family - I just happened to be born here while my parents were studying here.
I was a major Anglophile. My brothers and I were raised knowing both languages, French and English. My dad was born in Austria, educated in Britain, and then went back to France. My mom was born in England, but raised in Egypt and Malaysia. We were a globetrotter family.
It was pretty awful for us children because we never really knew the local children. Mother was keen for us to learn languages, so our travels took us to France and Italy, as well as the West Country.
With a diplomat father, for whom foreign postings were a fact of life, my siblings and I were expected to attend boarding schools in Britain.
I am very happy in Munich and my family is totally settled - and now I have a son who is a genuine Bavarian.
