Cabbage Brain: An Englishman's Journey to American Success

By Terry McConnell

"When I lived in England, I had nothing in my head but cabbage. But after I went to America, I developed a brain."

 

Self-made millionaire shares his life story, from his early years surviving the Blitz in England to his "fake it til you make it" approach to life in his newfound home in Marin County, California. It's an intriguing read of one immigrant's determination and success.

 

"I may have been born in Britain; I may have been raised there. I may have served with pride in Her Majesty's armed forces. Nevertheless, I refused to accept that my fate and fortune were dependent on who I was related to, or what part of the country I lived in, what schools I attended, or what I did for a living. That is the main reason why, by the time my path crossed theirs, I was an American—and damn proud of it."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terry McConnell
• Release date: Mar 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215317259

Book preview

Prologue

My sister-in-law Bunny married an amiable gent named Christopher Spencer-Phillips. His family’s bloodline definitely had a blue tinge, presumably with links to both Princess Diana and Princess Anne’s first husband, though I suspect those genetic markers may have been in the distant past. Still, they were what you would consider old stock, and in a class society like the one in Britain, that meant they were my betters.

Only I didn’t see it that way. I may have been born in Britain, I may have been raised there. I may have served with pride in Her Majesty’s armed forces. Nevertheless, I refused to accept that my fate and fortune were dependent on who I was related to, or what part of the country I lived in, what schools I attended, or what I did for a living. That is the main reason why, by the time my path crossed theirs, I was an American—and damn proud of it.

Still, as brothers-in-law go, Christopher and I got on well, mainly because I think he got it. He and Bunny lived in Canada in their younger days, then moved down to San Francisco, where he made quite a bit of money in the poster business. Still, they were in the States illegally so they decided to take their newly acquired fortune and return to the British Isles. They bought a nice home in Kent, in the southeast tip of England.

Christopher bought a race car from a friend of mine, Bob Winkelman, and had it shipped to England so he could do a bit of racing. They bought a few horses. They led the sort of idyllic English country life that seems to easily attach itself to aristocrats.

At the particular point in time when the substance of this story transpired, I was also in England, albeit temporarily, visiting my sister Betty in Croxley Green and my brother Bob in Coventry. Christopher and Bunny had invited me down for dinner, which I thought was a lovely thing for them to do. I was the guest of honor, so I happily accepted.

Their home was lovely, and had that ancestral feel to it. They didn’t try to fool anybody, though. In their words, it was more of a reproduction of an Edwardian house because it had undergone so many renovations and restorations. It may have had a walled-in garden and courtyard, as well as a grass tennis court, yet it was also cheek-by-jowl with a council house—that’s what they call public housing in Britain—and that meant the council house’s tenants could see over the wall into the Spencer-Phillips’ garden.

The Spencer-Phillips really didn’t like that.

Such concerns were set aside for the dinner party, however, and the mood of the gathering was better for it. I was told Christopher’s Uncle Tony would be joining us. He owned a farm in the area. Splendid, I thought.

So, over cocktails, I was introduced to Uncle Tony. He was older than we were, a little portly, but with a very beautiful wife. Soon after, we sat for dinner. Christopher’s dad, who was a doctor, then asked Uncle Tony what kind of day he had.

Oh, terrible day, terrible day. Problems with the farm, Tony muttered in reply.

What’s going on?

Oh, I found two of my workers asleep under the chestnut tree. The English working class, he sniffed, shaking his head.

But he wasn’t done after that dig. As bad as the Yanks. They are such crushing bores.

Oh boy, I thought. Tony knew I came from an English working-class background. We had talked about it earlier. Moreover, he also knew I was American, and that I lived not far from San Francisco.

I decided then and there I had been insulted, and I didn’t care for it. Nor would I let his insult go unchallenged. I beg your pardon? I said to Tony. What did you say?

The English working class and the Yanks, they are crashing bores.

Really? I asked. Are you familiar with America?

Yes, I was in Frisco one time.

It’s not Frisco, it’s San Francisco, I said, clearly irritated. We don’t like it when it’s called Frisco. And how long were you there?

I was there for a day, he said dismissively.

And now you’re an authority on America? On Americans? By stopping for one day in San Francisco?

Yes. Crashing bores.

I’d had enough. Let me tell you something, Tony. You’re full of shit, I said with as much conviction as I could muster. The room fell silent. Don’t tell me you know anything about America. You know nothing about it. I’ll tell you something else. America is the finest country in the world. It’s a place where you get a fair shake in life. And I’m an example of that.

I was just getting started. I stood up and pushed my chair back. "And let me tell you something else, Tony. When I lived in England, I had a cabbage between my ears. That’s right, nothing in my head but cabbage. But after I went to America, I developed a brain. They encouraged me to develop a brain, and to get rid of all that bloody cabbage.

Not only that, but if you were in my home tonight, instead of eating rubber chicken, you’d be having a steak an inch-and-a-half thick. And you’d be drinking California cabernet, not Bulgarian red wine."

God, the table practically exploded. Everyone started arguing—and no one was defending me, either. Not even Bunny and Christopher, who had lived in America and made their fortune there; obviously, they wanted to keep the peace within the family. So I defended myself.

I have an airplane, an Aero Commander, I said. I wouldn’t normally be boastful in that way, but I was seriously pissed. It does 300 miles an hour. Do you have one of those?

The dinner party kind of disintegrated from there. Regretably, the guest of honor had dropped a stink bomb in the middle of dinner.

I felt bad about it later but, really, a lifetime of resentment against English snobbery and the class system boiled over that night. That social structure held back so many of my mates who were smart enough to do something with their lives if only they’d been allowed to prove themselves. These people were nothing but a bunch of classy snobs. They weren’t my betters. They weren’t anyone’s betters. What they were was the reason I had to leave the country to fulfill my destiny—and thank God I did.

---

The next afternoon, we went to Tony’s farm for brunch. I saw it as an opportunity to make amends. It was a beautiful old farmhouse, and Tony’s wife offered to show me around. There were lots of antiques, even a grandfather clock. After a half-hour or so, we returned to the rest of the group in the garden. I have to say, Tony, you have a beautiful place. Then I paused for a second.

Maybe you’re right, I said finally. Keep the bastards down.

I always was a cheeky bugger.

1

It was the best of times.

Every Christmas, I’d take my girls to see A Christmas Carol. We lived near San Francisco at the time, where it can get cold in December—well, cold for San Francisco—so I’d always wear a topcoat. And before we left for the show, I’d stuff a red scarf in my pocket. When the play reached the point where Ebenezer Scrooge emerges from his humbug doldrums, and he’s there with Tiny Tim buying a turkey, he’d put on a red scarf—you know, to look festive. And that’s when I’d pull out my red scarf, too. I’d put it on, and my daughters would laugh.

I loved to hear those laughs. It didn’t matter why they were laughing, whether it was because they thought me funny or eccentric; whether it was because I was remaining faithful to a family tradition; or even if it was just because they were a little embarrassed by my behavior. It was all the same to me.

I miss those days.

---

I have always been the sort to count my blessings and, like most fathers, I suppose, I am most grateful for my children. I have three: Fiona, the oldest, Mackensey, the youngest, and Chelsey.

I see myself in all three girls, but in Chelsey most of all. I believe even Fiona and Mackensey would agree with that: a very grounded girl, with a great sense of humor. And funny: the kind of girl who’d be on the phone with her mother and talking about nothing, absolutely nothing, for two hours—and she’d be seeing her in only a few days!

Great kid. I am very proud to be her dad.

---

When Chelsey was four, my wife Raila¹ and I took her to Disneyland. We didn’t know it then, nobody did, but Chelsey was in the early stages of diabetes.

We checked into the Disneyland Hotel, and I can remember Chelsey becoming very thirsty. We gave her a Coke, but she only wanted more. She’d go to the bathroom and then drink some more, then go to the bathroom again. And she was tired, too tired.

The whole time we were at Disneyland, it was the same deal. We’d get in line for one of the rides, and we’d have to take Chelsey to the bathroom. Even on the flight home, I’d have to hand her over the cart so she could go pee. We got off the plane, and she had wet herself. She couldn’t wait, she had to go so bad. My poor baby!

Something’s wrong with her, Raila said at one point. She either has a bladder infection or diabetes.

I had my doubts, but Raila had good reason to be suspicious. She had dated a diabetic guy in Finland when she was younger. I know the symptoms, she told me.

So I called my ex, Lesley, who is Chelsey’s mom, and I said, Make an appointment for when we come back to see the doctor because I think there is something is wrong with Chelsey.

Lesley was skeptical, but I was insistent.

Please, just make the appointment.

When we returned to San Francisco, it was already after 9 p.m. We better do something now, I said. Why don’t we take her to emergency? Lesley did so—and it was a good thing, too, because Chelsey was headed for kidney failure. Her sugar levels were crazy. It wasn’t long before she was diagnosed as diabetic.

The strange thing with Chelsey at that age—and why she wasn’t diagnosed earlier—was because she was never with any single one of the adults in her life for very long. She’d be with her mother, and then with me on weekends. She spent time with a babysitter, or the housekeeper. She played with the kid next door. Nobody picked up on it.

Nobody except for Raila. She knew something was wrong the second day we were at Disneyland. Raila’s awareness that day saved my child’s life.

Chelsey was on insulin from then on. Yet I swear to God, the diabetes didn’t slow her down, nor did she ever feel sorry for herself. When she was a teenager, she worked at this summer camp up in the Sierras, Bearskin Meadow, in the Sequoia National Forest. One of her supervisors couldn’t praise her enough. He said all the kids loved her, that she was popular and was a huge influence on them. She even led a group on a hike to the top of Mount Whitney. I had no idea. Chelsey made a difference in those kids’ lives, a big difference.

The diabetes? She could deal with that. The melanoma diagnosis proved to be a tougher nut. That came out of left field. None of us were ready for that.

I was on my way to upstate New York to see a friend when Lesley called to tell me the news, that they had just discovered the melanoma. Stage 3. It should never have happened. Chelsey knew something was wrong. I guess she just didn’t act on it quickly enough.

I was thunderstruck, you know? We all were. Everyone in our family had been through all her various health crises, the diabetic comas. We’d call in the paramedics, and she would always pull through. They’d give her an injection and she’d be fine. But Stage 3? We were in for a battle. Yet if anyone was going to be up for a good fight, it was Chelsey.

---

Even as a little girl Chelsey was wise beyond her years. She had a way of reading people.

When she was six, maybe seven, she and Mackensey were with Raila and me for the weekend. At the time, Raila was trying to coax me into getting a dog. She loves dogs. If she sees one on the street, she has to stop and pet it. She’d turn me into a dog if she could. And on this particular day, she was selling the idea pretty hard. We’ve got to get a puppy, she insisted. I miss not having a dog.

That’s when Chelsey pulled Raila aside. A word, she whispered. That’s not how you get your way with Daddy. You have to be more subtle.

When Chelsey was older, and a student at the University of San Francisco, she was accepted into Mensa. All her professors wanted her to go to graduate school and become an attorney—like we need another lawyer in the world, right? That’s how analytical she could be, even as a young woman. And she knew how to argue. She was very political.

She got as far as third year before the cancer forced her to take a break. Yet I never heard her complain. None of us did.

She had a boyfriend at the time, a guy she met in Mensa. He was a medical student. I don’t remember where he was from, which state, but she was no fan of the place. She went to see him a few times. I’ve never been so bored in my life, she confessed to me afterward.

He hung in there for a long time during her illness, as long as he could, I suppose. He was studying for his medical career at the same time, and he was working a lot of long hours. They shared an apartment with another roommate in San Francisco. But after she was done with her chemotherapy, he was given an internship in the state he was from. It’s not going to work for us, Chelsey, she said he told her. You’re not going to be happy up there. You’re down here. Your doctors are here.

Though he was breaking up with her, she was OK with that. She understood. She was heartbroken but, so typically Chelsey, she hosted a dump party. They continued to be friends. They’d talk. He was a nice kid.

---

We took Chelsey to Houston for treatment. The cancer hospital there is the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. It’s the best in the world. My friend Peter Pocklington recommended it. Peter knows former President George Bush², and Bush made some phone calls to get her in. I was very grateful.

At the time, no one else would accept Chelsey. Her doctor said there was nothing more he could do for her. You should put her in a hospice, he said. So we had a family meeting. Lesley and her husband Jim McGuinn were floating some pretty radical ideas, like getting Chelsey treated in Mexico. I said, I can get her into M.D. Anderson. This place has credibility. And a pretty impressive success recovery rate, too.

It was an incredible hospital. I met a guy who told me his group had just donated $5 million to the Anderson because of the results they were getting. A doctor there met with us and said, Yes, we do have some options. If Chelsey was going to have any chance, it was going to be there. This was by far her best bet.

We were there for three weeks, and Chelsey was incredible that whole time. Like when she was on the examination table, a good-looking pre-med student came in to look at her leg. It looked really bad by this point, like some alien was inside her leg. Bumps on bumps. Anyway, he examined her and then asked the oncologist to come in. After they left, she said, Wouldn’t you know it, Daddy, a really cute doctor and I’m not wearing my pretty underwear. She was handling this fantastically.

Raila and I would sometimes take her to her treatments because she was getting fluid in her stomach that had to be drained. They had these gurneys, and the hospital workers would be pushing them. They’d go around a corner and they’d announce themselves by shouting, Coming around!

So when Raila and I would take her, and we were coming to a corner, I’d say, OK, what do we say? And Chelsey would say, Coming around, Daddy.

There was one thing, though, that I didn’t understand at first. We’d take turns staying with Chelsey: Raila and me; then Lesley and Jim. When Raila and I were there, we usually kept it quiet. But this one night, Lesley and Jim came in after going out for dinner and they were laughing and joking, doing their best to lift Chelsey’s spirits. My first thought was that maybe she was too tired for this. What the hell is going on? I asked. What’s the commotion? What I didn’t understand is that this was their family thing. The next day, I said to Jim, You know, she is really sick, Jim. Can’t we calm it down a bit?

No, he said, it was great last night. It took me awhile to understand what he meant, but in time I did. As much as I’ve always loved Chelsey, it was Lesley and Jim who were the parenting part of the family; they had their traditions; they knew what works and what doesn’t. So I reminded myself to take a back seat.

---

Toward the end of our stay in Houston, I called Fiona and asked her to fly down. She was pregnant at the time, but she came anyway. And she had a surprise for her baby sister.

Chelsey loved to play baseball and, growing up in the Bay area, she was a huge fan of the San Francisco Giants. So Fiona brought with her a poster of the Giants’ team that had won the World Series the previous fall. It was a pretty spectacular gesture, and Chelsey was pretty excited to be on the receiving end of it. Then Fiona gave her a ball signed by one of the players. Chelsey’s eyes lit up. Ohhh! she exclaimed. But Fiona saved the best for last. The Giants were playing at home that night, and the game was on TV. We turned it on—just in time for Chelsey to see a message posted on the giant scoreboard at the ballpark:

CHELSEY: FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT AND WIN!

Fiona had arranged it. Chelsey was so delighted, because she was fighting. She was fighting with everything she had—because she knew, better than anyone, how life is something to be cherished.

---

If there is one thing I’ve learned from my darling daughter, it is to have a heartfelt appreciation for everything, everything life has to offer. The good. The bad. The joyful. The tragic. Every single day that life has to offer should be embraced.

And with new eyes, I have begun to do just that, reflecting on all the good, all the bad, all the everything … right from the very start.

2

It was moving day, and my family—my mum and dad, my brothers Alan and Bob, my sister Betty, and me—had packed all our worldly goods into a lorry, and we were driving from our old home in Coventry to our new one 90 miles to the south.

I was five years old, the youngest in my family. I was so excited. I was sitting in the back of that open lorry, a pair of kiddies’ binoculars hanging around my neck, not caring about the carbon monoxide exhaust that seemed to be everywhere, driving down the A1 motorway to our new dream home: a semi-detached, pebble-dashed, bay-windowed home in the village of Croxley Green. It meant leaving our old council house in Coventry and, for the Hornes, that was quite the step up. My dad was an aeronautical engineer, and he had taken a job at an aviation plant in Watford, not far from our new home. A job like that, where he was responsible for more than 300 workers, meant we were middle class, but in the strict hierarchy that was British society in those days, middle class didn’t mean what it means in the States. We were still poor, just a higher standard of poor.

Still, we thought our new home, 26 Lancing Way, was a marvel, and in a marvellous setting. Croxley Green is a suburb of Watford, which is in the north end of London. In those days, it was an idyllic country village, complete with a village green—the kind of pastoral setting you’d see in a Hollywood movie from the 1940s. Think Mrs. Miniver or, even better, Hope And Glory.

That’s what Croxley Green was like.

Once we all climbed down from that lorry, I can remember looking for the first time at the sheep in the village green, and running into the house³. We had a front door, a side door off the kitchen, and a back door into the garden. I’d never seen anything like that before, because we used to live in a rowhouse, and the idea of so easily getting from the front yard to the back was, for me, the most amazing thing in the world. I’d run the cycle: in the front door, out the back to the garden, around to the front, and out the back again, and again, and again … and again. I am not making this up.

The year was 1938—and as marvellous as that day was, dark clouds loomed on the horizon. Our world was about to change; dramatically so.

---

I remember my ID number from the war: DENF6. I was No. 6 because I was the sixth member of the family. And I had my own gas mask. Everyone did. Mine was kept in a cardboard box, with a bit of string on it. A little baby gas mask. Can you imagine? Quite the introduction to the horrors of war at six years of age.

I remember the first time the war really made an impression on me. It was in early 1940 when what came to be known as The Phony War came to a sudden and noisy end and the first real marshalling of troops began. There was actual shooting going on in France and Belgium.

At the time, Mum, Betty and I were visiting my grandma in Coventry. On our way home, we had to change trains in Rugby. Well, all hell broke loose and our train was commandeered by the army as a transport for soldiers. We were kicked off the train and left at the station, stranded for hours and hours. My mother was crying, she had two little kids to watch over, and we were crying, too. She couldn’t call my dad because we didn’t have a phone at home. He might have been at work by then, because he worked nights, but my mum didn’t know the number.

There were soldiers everywhere on the platform and in the station and it was total chaos because the war had finally started. It was all pretty horrid and I don’t mind saying I was traumatized. Anyway, some chap came along with a car and volunteered to drive us home to Croxley Green. From Rugby, it was like a 60-minute drive for him, no small feat with a mother and two crying children. That fellow really saved the day.

---

It was around that time we started work on our bomb shelter. Everyone had one. They were called Anderson shelters, though I admit I don’t know why. They came pre-fabricated from the government, and it was up to the recipient family to put them together.

Each Anderson shelter was made from corrugated iron. It had a front, a back, and a tube in between. It was flat at both ends with the corners cut off, and the tube in the middle was a corrugated tunnel like you would see in a culvert under a road. That part was the living area, with just a dirt floor. We dug a big hole in the garden, put the pieces in place, covered up the whole thing with dirt and sod on top, and Bob’s-your-uncle. We had little benches in there and provisions, utensils and so on, and water, of course.

Sad to say, building that air-raid shelter was not without a casualty: me. Nine stitches to the head. No, it wasn’t because of an air raid. My brother Bob hit me with a shovel while he was digging. He was telling me, This is how you do it, Den, turned around and accidentally slashed me across the forehead. Split it wide open. They had to rush me to the doctor at the bottom of the road. Bob felt pretty bad. So did I.

Once the Blitzkrieg started and the sirens would go off, we’d all go down into the shelter. After a while, though, there were all these cobwebs and bugs about in there, and it was always damp. The rain in England, you know? We went down there maybe a half-dozen times, then waited for the all clear. We’d be so damn tired. It would be the middle of the night by the time we got out, and nothing ever happened anywhere near Croxley Green anyway.

So finally we said, Screw it. We’re not doing that any more. We’ll just go under the stairs. And we would. We never went back to the shelter. I mean we’d go play Cowboys and Indians in there, but we never ever used it again for its rightful purpose.

And of course, while Mum, Betty and I were crunched under the stairs during the Luftwaffe bombing runs, Alan and Bob would run off and go scrumping; you know, stealing apples and pears from the neighbours’ orchards. We’d be clambering out from under the stairs after the raids were over and they’d be walking in with big bags of fruit. That was before they were both called up into the army.

---

Sixty or so later, I took my daughters back to Croxley Green to show them where we lived. We were standing out front, probably looking far too conspicuous, when a girl who lived there came out to ask if there was a problem.

I said, No, sorry to bother. My family used to live here.

Oh! she said, startled. Are you the Hornes? And she invited us in for tea. That was really nice.

Once we met the whole family, they were curious to know where the Anderson shelter was located. Apparently, there was much speculation as to where we had dug it. I guess they found some remnants or whatever. I showed them where it was, much to their disappointment. They were sure it was in the middle of the garden when actually it was at the end. But we all had a good chuckle just the same.

---

I remember when Alan was called up. We all went north to Kettering to see him off at the barracks. He was just a young lad then, 18 years of age—17 actually, because he lied about his age—double-marching up to the gate with his cap on and standing straight like a ramrod. He was a pretty impressive sight, and I was so proud to be his brother.

The wartime image that most stays with me, though, is sitting by my bedroom window at bedtime. Croxley Green was on high ground above London, and my bedroom was on the second floor, looking toward the heart of the city. The night sky would be pierced by searchlights, and I could see the puffs of smoke from the ack-ack guns. And there was this orange glow over the city from all the fires caused by the bombs. London was ablaze. The docks in the East End were burning.

This went on for days and days and months and months in 1940.

Occasionally, too, we would see the strays, the German bombers that flew too far. Once the pilots realized they were north of London, they’d just dump their bombs near the village, or target the railway station. And we could hear the hum-hum sound of the bombs going off somewhere close.

One time, we saw a parachute come down into the local moors, the green spaces between Croxley Green and the next town over, Moor Park. This was during a daylight bombing run, so we went out to have a look. The constabulary got there first though, and had rounded up the German airman and shipped him off to a PoW camp.

Then there was the day a Tiger Moth landed in our schoolyard. That’s one of those biplanes used for training pilots. I guess it ran out of gas. Another biplane came along with a tank of gas, and I remember the second pilot giving the first one a real bollocking, as we say in England.

Later in the war, in 1944, came the buzz bombs. The V-1s. I saw a few of those in action. They were really horrifying. The buzz bomb was really just a bomb with wings and a jet engine attached. It sounded more like a motorcycle engine, though. These things were launched with just enough fuel to get to London and then, once the fuel ran out, the engines would stall and the bombs would come down. It was a brilliant design, really. On more than one occasion, I took a dive into a hedge at the side of the road when I heard the engine cut out. And our windows were blown out. All the windows had blackout curtains and the windows were taped up in case they shattered. That came in handy.

I once saw a Spitfire chasing a buzz bomb. The Spits couldn’t shoot them down because they would get taken out by the resulting explosion. So the Spitfire pilots would use their planes to tip the wings of the buzz bombs, which would send them spiralling down to earth, and they’d crash in the countryside away from people and buildings.

It was the buzz bombs, or doodlebugs as we called them, that were responsible for one of the worst lickings I took from my mum. Oh, she beat the crap out of me. What a tyrant, that woman!

I had a friend, Gerald Gillis. He lived just around the corner, and I’d hang out with him. We’d go to the movies together. We’d catch the No. 21 bus that took us straight to the Odeon Theatre. So this one time, we decided to go see Laurel and Hardy, or the Marx Brothers, I can’t remember which. Of course we liked to sit in the front row.

We went to the early evening show that night, then stayed and hid so we could watch the movie a second time. When it was time to go home, that’s when we realized the last bus back had already left. It meant we had to walk the seven miles home.

It must have been 10:30, maybe later—and remember, this is around the time of the doodlebugs. Gerald was older than me—I think I was 11 at the time—and he was bigger, too. We had to walk up