Feature: Former Wycombe resident and BFP reporter, Alan Hunt, shares memories of the town from across the pond

Here, he shares with the Bucks Free Press how he came to move across the pond, his memories of High Wycombe, what it was like to work with the young Terry Pratchett and how Christmas in Texas is not so different from Christmas in Wycombe.

Christmas 1975 proved a major milestone in our family’s history as we celebrated our first yuletide event deep in the Heart of Texas. Today, in 2015, we are planning our 40th Texas Christmas, which, surprisingly, is not unlike those we used to celebrate in our hometown of High Wycombe.

At heart, we are all true “Wycombites.” I am Downley born and bred; my wife Jacqueline hails from Castlefield; and our three children, Julia, David and Geoffrey spent their early years in Downley.

How did we bridge the 5,000 miles between leafy Bucks and the huge state of Texas? The plot had its beginnings in the dark days of the Second World War.

A young American pilot was forced to bring his burning de Havilland Mosquito aircraft down in the Pinions area of Wycombe on July 8, 1944, after carrying out a photo reconnaissance mission over the Normandy, France, D-Day invasion beaches. He and his navigator died in the crash.

Fast forward to the year 1972, and a group of aviation enthusiasts from the High Wycombe area unearth one of the aircraft’s two Rolls Royce engines at the Pinions crash site. In the buried wreckage, they also discover the pilot’s graduation ring from Texas-based Baylor University, the world’s largest Baptist University. He had received a business degree there in 1940.

As a reporter at the Bucks Free Press I covered the aircraft “dig” for the newspaper and also filed a story for the daily newspaper published in Waco, Texas, home of Baylor University.

That introduction led, three years later, to a job offer at the Texas newspaper. The thought of leaving the Bucks Free Press, however, where I had worked since 1953, needed some serious consideration. It was here that I had “cut my teeth” as a junior reporter.

Fresh out of Mill End Secondary Modern School, one of the most important tasks I was assigned was to make the tea for the entire editorial office. The chief reporter proudly showed me the stain build-up inside the teapot that gave the tea its “delicious” flavour, as he termed it. “Treat this teapot with care,” he growled.

Tea time arrived that first day. Carefully, I picked up the treasured teapot – and promptly dropped it on the stone floor of the office kitchen. Panic-stricken, I picked up the pieces and crept out into the High Street, where our office was then located. Without tea from the famed pot, the entire staff of reporters would surely rebel, I feared.

Scouring the Wycombe shops, I quickly located a similar looking brown teapot and quietly resumed my tea making in the kitchen. Fingers crossed, I served the suspect brew. There was no criticism. In fact, the chief reporter even offered a word of praise.

I worked with many fine journalists at the Bucks Free Press. A notable newcomer was an initially shy lad called Terry Pratchett, later to become Sir Terry Pratchett, renowned fantasy author and Discworld creator.

Terry, who passed away recently at the age of 66, had one of those rare writing skills that kept readers “glued” to his copy. He was a true wordsmith extraordinaire who tackled every assignment with enthusiasm. His writing sparkled. The world’s great reading public obviously felt the same way, judging by Sir Terry’s book sales.

The Bucks Free Press and the Christmas season also are responsible for the 52 years of married bliss Jacqueline and I have enjoyed. After attending Lady Verney High School, she worked in the advertising department at the Free Press. We first met at a Christmas party thrown by a Free Press staff member.

Twelve years later, in 1975, Jacqueline and our children joined me in America. I had left England four months earlier to settle our new Texas home.

In 1980, the full circle was turned when I left the Waco newspaper and joined the public relations department at Baylor University. I retired in 2006 and my son, Geoffrey, a graduate of the university, started working in one of the archival facilities at Baylor, specialising in Texas history. Daughter Julia is charge nurse at the Baylor Scott & White Paediatric Clinic.

The cultural differences between life in Buckinghamshire and Texas didn’t seem quite so enormous after we began to put down roots in the Lone Star State.

We had imagined lots of dusty, wide open areas; we found instead tree lined city streets and green, open spaces in the countryside. Above all, we were warmly welcomed by the ever friendly Texan people. This was just how we had imagined Texans to be. And they didn’t let us down.

The weather tended to be a different story. It was a shock! Before our departure from England, we had read about Texans frying eggs on pavements brought to sizzling temperatures by the blazing sunshine. Well, it’s true. You CAN fry eggs on the pavement with daily summer temperatures commonly nudging, or above, 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius).

Air conditioning is a “must” requirement for Texas summers. At the other extreme, Texas winters can sometimes be bitterly cold with snow and ice.

Christmas Texas-style is so very similar to Christmas Wycombe-style. Stores are crowded as shoppers search for that elusive popular gift or toy; homes are transformed by Christmas lights and Christmas trees; and food diets are put on hold for a while. Celebrations are huge family affairs, with family members often travelling hundreds of miles to be with their loved ones on Christmas Day.

This will be the case for members of the extended Hunt family on December 25, as our Texas-born grandchildren, Laura, Alan Jr. and Madison, continue to experience some of the joys of our Wycombe- and Texas-style Christmas celebration.

Our English traditions still rate pride of place at the dinner table. We even have a box of English Christmas crackers, along with mince pies and Christmas pudding. Nobody in our neighbourhood can top that!