I was reading recently about a brilliant young Australian basketballer who was trying to decide whether she should accept an offer of a sports scholarship at the University of Oregon and I wanted to get in touch with her and say, 'Go! Don't hesitate.' I would write to her, I thought, as memories flooded back ...
On 20 January 1981 Ronald Reagan became the 40th President of the United States. He was no political neophyte. Though a native of Illinois, he moved to California in the 1930s and served two successful terms as governor of that state (1967-75).
But before — and even to some extent during — that successful interlude, he was much better known for his previous career in film and television. A B-grade movie actor, he came into his own as an archetypal figure of the old west, the TV host of the long running Death Valley Days. By the time he ran for governor, he was truly a westerner — an established Californian, a horseman, a man of action.
Along with this 'mythic western image of rugged independence and self-reliance' went a remarkable political make-over. As a young Illinoisan, Reagan had been straightforwardly a liberal Democrat but following his move to California and his experience of Hollywood's culture and political complexity, he became a hard line conservative, emphatically and vocally anti-communist, the champion of individualism and personal initiative for whom even the tepid 'socialism' of the New Deal was dangerous.
He metamorphosed into an official Republican in the 1960s and his two terms as governor powered his bid for the Republican presidential nomination which, after a couple of failed attempts, he won in 1981. He campaigned for a second term in 1984 with the slogan it was 'Morning in America' and won the largest Electoral College victory in American history.
He was well into enjoying his overwhelmingly approved second term when, unnoticed by the President, his administration or anyone outside the city of Eugene, Oregon, I arrived in the United States.
I had worked abroad several times previously, in England and Europe, but had never been to the US, had not entertained any particular desire to do so and, in any case, hadn't been invited! That changed when, encouraged to apply for a Fulbright Scholar in Residency at the University of Oregon — and following one of the more gruelling interviews I'd encountered in an interview-strewn professional life — I got