Longtime Birch Cliff resident Sean Mallen has just published his first book. Falling for London – A Cautionary Tale is the memoir of his time as a foreign correspondent for Global News, focusing on the adventures—and misadventures—he shared with his wife and daughter when they moved from our neighbourhood to across the pond. Here’s his first-person account of how the book came to be.
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By Sean Mallen
Not many of us are fortunate enough to land our dream job. It happened to me, unexpectedly and later in life. But as it turned out, my dream came true in ways I never could have anticipated.
Like many reporters, I aspired to move to London and to work as a foreign correspondent. What could be better? You get to live in an endlessly fascinating city, covering the world’s greatest stories. You might wear a trench coat, adopt a serious, magisterial expression and pretend you are Edward R. Murrow as you intone big thoughts to the camera as Big Ben looms behind you.
The seed was planted on my first visit to London, back in the late 70s. Callow, clueless and woefully unprepared for the grand spectacle of this great city, I was bowled over from the moment I stepped up onto the street from the Piccadilly Circus tube stop.
As I write in Falling for London:
“Somehow, I managed to find a fleabag bed and breakfast, where the toast was cold, the butter hard and the bacon leathery.
But it didn’t matter.
I walked, astonished, through the streets until my feet screamed, drank warm beer in the pubs, and then fell asleep as I watched the world’s greatest actors on stage.
London had me then and never let me go.”
The dream was a long time coming. I enjoyed a long and mostly fulfilling career with Global News, but the foreign jobs kept passing me by. I started to accept that it might never happen.
Until it did.
Sean Mallen in Jerusalem.
Europe Bureau Chief for Global National
In March of 2011, the thunderbolt hit. I was offered the position of Europe Bureau Chief for Global National and told that I needed to move to London within a matter of weeks to cover the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
From the outside, it would seem a simple matter. Pack your bags, head for the airport and have a great time. Except, there were two other people deeply affected by my good fortune: my wife Isabella and our daughter Julia, who was then 6.
Sean Mallen, spouse Isabella Favaro and Julia.
I was asking them to uproot their lives, to leave behind family, friends and in Isabella’s case a job that she loved and at which she excelled.
They did not want to go. REALLY did not want to go. And who could blame them? I had landed an amazing opportunity, but it meant asking them to sacrifice greatly and move to a city they had never seen where they knew no one.
To their great credit, they ultimately agreed to come. But first, Isabella had a special gift and some sage advice. As I was about to get into the taxi to the airport to jet off to cover the Royal Wedding, she handed me a journal with a green cover.
“If you’re going to put us through this, you’d better write a book,” she said. She had always believed in me as a writer and saw that this was my chance. Best gift and advice ever.
I kept the journal faithfully, filling it and two other volumes during our time abroad. It was the raw material that ultimately produced my first book Falling for London-A Cautionary Tale.
I tell anecdotes about some of the stories I covered—the Arab Spring, the wedding, the Russian elections and the wreck of the Costa Concordia.
And there are tales of our family travels around Europe, including skiing in Austria, surfing in Ireland and the unfortunate incident of the fragrant and gamey grouse dinner in the Cotswolds.
Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring.
Falling for London
But the heart of the book is a memoir of how we learned how to live in and love one of the world’s great cities.
There were challenges and mishaps—including the story of the overpriced flat with the dodgy ceiling and the even more crazily expensive flat with the freezer than turned into a glacier. We encountered a few goofballs and jerks, but far more fine and supportive people—both Londoners and fellow expatriates.
London is replete with so-called “trailing spouses”. They are remarkable people who set aside their own careers and uproot their lives because their partner is offered an extraordinary position in an amazing city. They must find their own way in a strange new place.
We met many of them through Julia’s school and, thanks to Isabella’s efforts, created a mutual support society that helped us all adapt. It made the experience so much richer and resulted in many deep and lasting friendships.
By the time my posting was done, the two women who never wanted to move to London wanted to stay rather than return home.
Falling for London has some moments of comedy (although we didn’t always laugh at the time), a few tears and a series of memorable adventures and misadventures.
My dream was realized in ways I could never have anticipated.
I am planning to stage a book reading in the neighbourhood in the weeks to come and I hope many of the Birch Cliff News’s readers will attend to hear more about Falling for London. Meanwhile, I am happy to see that Book City in the Beach is stocking it, as is Queen Books in Leslieville and it is also available online from Indigo and Amazon.