Interview with Dave Poole, History 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Allison Poole, March 17, 2024.
Pictured: Interviewee Dave Poole on a Sailing Trip in his 20s
Overview
World War II disrupted the normal way of life for most Europeans. America experienced effects barely comparable to that of its European allies. On the contrary, America’s industrial advancement and economic growth during the war proved to be an advantage after the war. As Europeans faced hunger, unemployment, and power struggles, they looked on as America produced a scene of prosperity. Famous American singers, Hollywood’s golden age, and a bustling economy would grab anyone’s attention, let alone war-stricken countries, stained by memories of rations and airstrikes. Immigration surged from places like England to America in the years after World War II ended, as the American influence reached far beyond the end of the battle. To this day, English schoolchildren envy America’s yellow school busses, the teenagers long to go to Target, and the adults long for the gas prices of this country.
I remember helping my Grandmother, or my Nan as I called her, clean through some of her belongings. I came across her ration book from when she was a girl. I recalled a story that my mother had told me, in which she baked my Nan a pineapple upside-down cake. My Nan had been nothing short of offended, as she was rationed rotting, rancid pineapple as a child during World War II. So of course, my family was not immune to this envy, this ‘American Dream’. With influence from American soldiers and family members who had immigrated to America, my grandparents, father, and uncles found their way from Wokingham, UK, to Staunton, Virginia.
Historical Background
England played a large role as one of the Allied powers in World War II. In doing so, post-war England was shaken economically for years. Much like America post-World War I, England’s industrial economy was shaped around the needs of war. Overproduction of weapons and aircraft was taking the resources from the more mundane functions of society that were now stabilizing, and post-war debt made it much harder for society to get back on its feet.
Those who lived during this time, and through World War II, had known of, or even known, the American servicemen positioned in the UK. Millions of US servicemen were stationed in England to help defend the country from Axis threats. A spike in English immigration after World War II can be explained in part by these servicemen, or rather, who they brought back with them. Seeing as Englishmen had gone off to war, fought, died, or simply never came back, young Englishwomen turned to these servicemen for partnership and returned to the US with them.
These servicemen and their brides communicated stories of America to the British, and the state of the neighboring country was much different than that of their own. Unlike England and much of the rest of Europe, America was thriving after the Second World War. For one, Americans suffered much less of a hit to their population in comparison to the war-stricken countries across Europe. Veterans and white Americans experienced a surge in education and consumerism, boosting the average income of the middle class and pushing the economy into a golden age. Reforms were put in place to increase employee safety, and cities grew and flourished. With the rising popularity of television featuring American singers and movies, the influence of US servicemen, and the US’s general prosperity following WWII, a struggling post-war Europe began to rebuild their idea of the states as a ‘land of opportunity’.
British migration to the states spiked during and after WW II. The English were experiencing a new era of independence and freedom as the country rebuilt itself. The constraints of war and traditionalism lifted as post-war artistic, political, and social movements spread their influence throughout the country. In turn, British migration to the states spiked during and after WW II.
My father’s family was part of this spike, although they took their journey almost thirty years after the war. This begs the question; Why Virginia? Lying on the East Coast, Virginia was the first colony established by the British in the 1600s, and since has become somewhat of a land of opportunity itself. Since WWII began, America has seen spikes and rises in European immigration, with thousands of migrants settling in Virginia. This could be explained by the Urbanization and militarization of the state, beginning in the 1880s during the American Civil War and perpetuated by both World Wars. Virginia offered jobs and financial opportunities in coal mining, industrial work, and farm work, with its large cities and vast farmland.
My family immigrated to the Shenandoah Valley, specifically Staunton, Virginia in 1972 and started an Air conditioning company. Since then, my Dad has watched his parents start an Air conditioning company, moved back and forth from England to America, become an American citizen, and realized the roads in this country are not paved with gold. While America may be a land of opportunity for some, we as a country are not as exceptional as we’d like to believe. The interview following is his story.
Biography
When tasked with interviewing someone in my life on historical social change, my first thought went to my father. My dad, Dave (He/Him), was born in Wokingham, England in 1960. He, his mother, father, and twin brothers immigrated to America in 1972 for the economic opportunity that America seemed to be doing better with than their home country. My dad moved back and forth from England to America and has had many different jobs. These range from engineering and mechanical jobs to becoming a pilot, to owning multiple businesses in Staunton and Lynchburg, Virginia. I was intrigued by his experience coming to America, what he thought of the US back then, and how that idea has changed in the years since.
Transcript
(Audio Below)
Allie 0:00: Hi, my name is Allie and today I’m here with my dad. Dad, would you like to introduce yourself?
Dave 0:04: My name is Dave, Dave Poole.
Allie 0:08: And where did you grow up? And what’s something you think would surprise people about your upbringing?
Dave 0:15: Well, firstly, I’m not sure that I ever grew up. But the answer to the question you’re looking for is that I grew up until I was about 20 in England in the UK, in the town the name of Wokingham. There was a brief period when I was 11 to 13, where I came to the US and went to school, my dad was seconded with his job here. Went back, my parents eventually transitioned to living full-time in the US, leaving myself and my two brothers in the UK. It took about three years, but we all eventually followed them. They obviously didn’t move far enough away.
Allie 0:56: And what did you think when Nan and Pop decided that you guys were going to move to America, or that they were going to move to America?
Dave 1:04: I think the UK in the late 70s, or really, post World War Two was really still shaking off the effects of World War Two. And the US was seen as a much brighter economic possibility, with amazing wide open spaces and a chance to kind of break the mold of being in the UK.
Allie 1:34: So what year did you first move to America?
Dave 1:37: I think it was [19]71 to [19]73.
Allie 1:39: Got it. Um, and you said something about like America seeing like, seeming like a place where economic opportunity. So what opinions and ideas did you have about America before you moved? And what influenced these opinions?
Dave 1:55: Well, obviously media, TV, movies and stuff. So sadly, as a lot of it was influenced by you know, John Wayne [American Actor during Hollywood’s Golden Age], Elvis [Presley]. [Laughing] People like Patton [WWII US General]. And then I think another part of that influence was the number of US servicemen, particularly Air Force, that were in the UK during World War Two. People’s opinion in the UK of the US were formed on those servicemen. And In fact, one example of that is my great aunt, married a US aviator, he was a pilot of a B 17. And she eventually moved and emigrated the US. So we did have a peculiar view of the US. But in summation, it was seen as somewhat of a land of opportunity.
Allie 2:53: I see yeah. And when you got here, how was it different from where you lived before? And where did you move when you first got here? Did you move straight to Stanton, Virginia?
Dave 3:05: Yeah Stanton, Virginia, so there we were a very English family, Living in Stanton, Virginia, which probably then, was a population of about 30,000. We had very strong English accents, we were surrounded by people that were constantly amazed by hearing us talk, we would be stopped in the grocery store, and people would tell us their little anecdotes and stories, and it really was very strange.
Allie 3:34: Yeah? And then, you’ve lived here for a while in America. What are some of the biggest changes in this country you’ve seen in the past, like 50 or so years?
Dave 3:48: Well, one of the things I didn’t understand was, despite this country being a land of opportunity, the uh inequities in the baked-in and racism are not obvious. Obviously, in movies and TV and stuff, it wasn’t really obvious that that was sort of a part of society. And while the US was the land of opportunity, it was certainly nuanced as to who was able to access that. People often mentioned to me, will say things disparaging about immigrants and stuff, and I have to point out that I am one. And they say, oh, it’s different. And I say, Gosh, because I’m white, and I speak English? So that’s certainly one aspect of it. The other aspect of it too, is I think that there’s been something of a dissembling of American norms and society. And I suppose the easiest way to talk about that is back 40, 50 years ago, it was routine for dad to have a job and mom stayed home with the kids and you had a modest house and you had a decent living. But now the sort of gig economy and stuff seems to have disassembled that and changed the uh economic outlook. And I don’t think a good way.
Allie 5:15: Right. And so, what made you want to live in America forever? Did it have to do with raising a family or your restaurant business? Or did you just like it better over here?
Dave 5:33: I think it was somewhat accidental. [Laugh] It was. I was never I was never particularly enamored with small-town southern life. I was a bit of a snob about it. And I always assumed that it was just that I was in my early 20s, and hanging out with my parents, frankly, being a mooch. And it took probably 10 years [of living in America] before I actually began to understand that I was staying. And I met a woman and we fell in love and got married. But one of the things that really irritated me was that somebody said, Oh, you’re marrying an American girl so you can get citizenship, which was entirely untrue. So with the help of an old school friend, I went through the um naturalization process, which actually resulted in me getting citizenship, about I think two months before I got married. I don’t remember back that far. But I received citizenship on July 4 1989 at Monticello.
Allie 6:41: So did you get citizenship to prove a point?
Dave 6:44: Yes. [Laughing]
Allie 6:47: So uh… what was I gonna say? Oh, well, your friends Martin and Martin.
Dave 6:56: Yes.
Allie 6:56: Are both English but they live in England.
Dave 6:59: Well, one lives part-time in the US
Allie 7:02: One lives part-time, in what is it, Florida?
Dave 7:05: In yeah, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale area.
Allie 7:08: Right. So how would you describe the way the three of you, one fully English lives in England, one English lives in America and one, a little bit of both? How would you describe the conversations you three have about America? American politics, American economy?
Dave 7:27: Well, first of all, I should point out that Martin Guilfoyle, the one that has both residents here in the US and the UK.
Allie 7:34: [Coughing] Excuse me [Laughing] Tea is coming out of my nose! [More coughing]
Dave 7:39: Well, this is gonna really play well in the interview.
Allie 7:43: Okay [Laughing]
Dave 7:44: Sorry, sorry, people. My daughter’s uh, losing it now.
Allie 7:47: Okay Let me ask the question. Okay. So you’re an Englishman who has full time in the US. You’ve got English friends that live full-time in the UK and an English friend who lives part-time in the UK part time in the US. Both of their names happen to be Martin. How would you describe the way that you three talks about America including the economy, American general, politics, stuff like that?
Dave 8:17: Well, first of all, their names Mahtin [With an English accent], not MARtin. And then secondly, Martin Guilfoyle is a tri-national, if not a quad-national, he’s he’s British. He’s American. He is Irish, and I believe Italian.
Allie 8:35: Wow.
Dave 8:35: So he sort of went on on a um passport-collecting spree. Martin Randall. Also, there’s a side note here. We do have a common thread. We’re all three pilots. Martin Randall, being the uh grown up of bunch because he’s a training captain for British Airways on their 787 fleet. He used to be a training captain on the seven four sevens, but then COVID kind of put an end to that. So you that wasn’t what you asked. That’s background. The question you asked is what how does that conversation um revolve around…
Allie 9:12: Reflect your ideas of the US?
Dave 9:15: I think that we are obviously well aware of the economic advantages of living in the US bring to the table. We are often perplexed by um the idea of American exceptionalism, not that it doesn’t exist, but that it’s used in an inappropriate way, which typically ends up with, um, rather amusing conversations about US politics, and obviously the last four or five years, um, Donald Trump has given us much fodder to be able to scratch our heads and say ‘Gosh, Americans seem so outgoing and understanding and yet here they are following this path of, just crazy’, for one of a better way of putting it. And I think that if I were to sum that up, it would be that the it’s a collective scratching or shaking of the head that most people in the US, either a; don’t realise how lucky they are or to, quote, good, they got it. And so they seem to be being riled up and led in strange ways of thought that people in Europe, especially if you look at sort of Ukraine, or the coming down of the Eastern Bloc, and the you know. So I think that there’s a collective memory in Europe, in particular, I’m not particularly well versed with the rest of the world, that people in the US have been insulated from the deprivations of World War Two and economic hardship. And so I think there is a bit of a scratching their head that like, wow, you just don’t realise how lucky you have it. An example of that. And one that you well know Allison, is that people from the UK when they come to the US, they’re like, Oh, my God, this house is ridiculous. I remember when Keith and Sandy came from the UK, and stayed at our old house. And it was on two acres, it was ridiculously large. And it had lots of bedrooms and bathrooms.
Allie 9:15: Yeah, normal house for that neighborhood, though, for that neighborhood.
Dave 10:10: For that neighborhood. And Sandy was out back on the, on the deck. And she said, ‘Dave, you live on an estate. It’s like a country state. You got deer in the yard and stuff’, and I was like yeah okay great, and a lot of grass to mow. So there is a scale thing that comes into that.
Allie 12:09: Right.
Dave 12:09: And then the other thing is cars. And you’re well aware of that.
Allie 12:12: Oh, yeah.
Dave 12:13: That were such a car-dependent society, where you probably knew people in the UK that had fairly large families, or maybe only had one car or no car. So,
Allie 12:25: I mean you live five minutes away from a train station
Dave 12:27: with fairly good public transportation available.
Allie 12:30: Right.
Dave 12:30: So there’s some confusion about the differences in the benefits of society, I guess
Allie 12:38: So you think that like, overall, the view of America from Europeans has changed from either pre-World War Two, or like World War Two post World War Two times, like in the past 50 years, Europeans have kind of been like, Oh, you guys just don’t get it?
Dave 12:55: Yeah, and I think that was probably even true during World War Two,
Allie 13:00: Because we weren’t really taking part?
Dave 13:02: No! Good God, 1000s of Americans died and came over and thank God that the US came into World War Two, else it would be a different world. But even in that the, American servicemen, the pilots and stuff always seemed to have more money and stuff and goodies. And, and so the disconnect has been between American consumerism and European frugality. Now that viewpoint has changed drastically. I mean, you know, there’s always those stories back probably 150 years ago about New York streets were paved with gold and yada, yada, yada. Obviously, not true. But I think with the advent of recreational air travel and stuff, and vacations and Disney World and stuff, I mean, Europeans flocked to the US, and they obviously see a different picture of it from what even their imaginations are. Even though media gives a much better viewpoint of it than say, when I was a kid. You know, it wasn’t all Elvis and John Wayne,
Allie 14:09: Right.
Dave 14:10: But nevertheless, I think there’s still a disconnect, but it’s still one of Europeans of sometimes bemusement about Americans complaining about their poor lot in life. [Laughing]
Allie 14:27: And you’ve told me before that you like America better than England, or at least you like living here better than England. But I know you’re not exactly the poster child for a proud of America- for a proud American. So do you think… what about living here do you think changed your view of this country from the one you held when you were young?
Dave 14:47: Well, obviously I think age make- causes cynicism.
Allie 14:51: Right.
Dave 14:51: But-
Allie 14:52: Do you think it had to do with… Well, nevermind, keep going. Thats a different question.
Dave 14:57: So my joke is, England’s a great country you just can’t afford to live there. And so, to put that in the bluntest terms possible, I can enjoy a better lifestyle here than I could there because of the income disparity. So in terms of that, I could see myself sort of as I get towards retirement, probably going to the UK and spending a month or two, sort of as a roots kind of thing
Allie 15:25: As a roots k- oh..
Dave 15:33: Like returning to my roots and sort of re… because I still very much- well thats not true, I was gonna say I very much associated with being a Brit. Although my friends would tell me that I am from it, they would say ‘oh you bloody Yank’. So, yeah, great country just can’t afford to live there. And I think that from perspective of an American go into the UK, theyre like ‘Oh, so many houses, castles and the pubs are quaint and cute, the traffic’s crazy’. And I suppose we’re jaded by that, if you grew up in the UK, you’re used to going into a pub where the door is so short, you had to duck down and go through it. And you’re used to castles that are 500 years old. Whereas in the US, the history is so shortened, at least by the European settlers, as opposed to the Native Americans, that there’s a bit of a blind spot to the fact that people live in this place, and it’s not just a museum. That there are actually people living in 300 year old houses or whatever it is.
Allie 15:45: Mhm. Um, is there anything else you’d like to add about your experience coming to America, or the way this country and its global perception has shifted during your lifetime?
Dave 17:10: Gosh…
Allie 17:10: I know, broad question.
Dave 17:14: Broad answer. And so yeah, obviously, time has changed. As a kid, I knew that the US was the land of big cars, cheap gasoline, inexpensive cigarettes, and some very peculiar views on sex and religion. As an adult, I begun and probably understood those things. Because if you don’t have to worry about the price of gas, or you don’t have to worry about the price of groceries, now, you would think listening to the media in today’s United States, that we’re in crisis about the price of gas and stuff, or the price of groceries. My suggestion would be figure out what the price of gas is around the world. And you’ll find that we’re still probably one of the cheapest except, you know, the, the uh Saudi Arabia or somewhere,
Allie 18:17: Right.
Dave 18:18: So we have a we have an incredibly good lifestyle that we don’t… we’re sometimes miserable about and don’t realise how lucky we have it, I guess.
Allie 18:29: Got it. All right. Well, thank you, dad. That’s all the questions I have for you, do you have any for me?
Dave 18:30: Thank Goodness!
Allie 18:48: All right.
Dave 18:48: Well I think we should point out here that Allie is also a dual national.
Allie 18:48: It’s true I used to live in England.
Dave 18:48: Cause she- cause she lives in England sometimes with her Mother.
Allie 18:48: Its true.
Dave 18:48: But thats a whole different story. But she too has two passports.
Allie 18:48: I do, I do just like my father. All right. Well, thank you for listening. Say thank you.
Dave 18:50: Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Digital Process
This interview was conducted in person through the Voice Memo app on my personal iPhone. I transferred the audio to my laptop and used a free online converter to change my audio file from M4A to MP3 so that it was compatible with the website. I then uploaded the MP3 audio into otter.ai, which transcribed my entire interview. I double-checked the AI transcription, listening to my interview as I edited any mistakes the auto-generated transcript had made. The AI was very helpful, with the process taking about two hours. It even categorized different sections of my interview, which helped tremendously with the research process. I used a personal photograph of my dad from when he was young.
Bibliography
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