In the mid 80s I had just remarried and was living in Didsbury, a leafy (slightly posh) Manchester suburb. My eldest daughter went to the local comprehensive school that had a dynamic headmaster and he arranged for a school exchange trip to Martha’s Island in America. A very unusual destination for a school exchange.
We had to fill in a form about our background, family make up, lifestyle etc. that was used to ‘match’ the children to their exchange family and then our children were to visit America and the host’s child would, in turn, visit us.
The first we knew of the agreed match was a note from the school informing us that we would be hosting a girl named Sally Taylor. Then we received a hand written letter from the host, Sally’s mum, a week or so before the exchange was to take place.
I read the letter, re-read it, read it again and then passed it to my husband and asked him to confirm that the signature really did say........Carly Simon. Now, my husband is ten years younger than me and at first could not understand why I almost went into a swoon. I had to piece it together for him that Sally Taylor must be the daughter of THE James Taylor and THE Carly Simon.
So yes, my daughter did stay with both Carly Simon and separately, her ex husband James Taylor on Martha’s Vineyard and then their lovely daughter, Sally, came to stay with us. Subsequently James Taylor did a tour in the UK and Sally and her brother Ben literally turned up on the doorstep with a personal invitation to attend his concert as his guests and spend time in the Green room afterwards. Sally and Ben were (I’m sure still are) really exceptional human beings - children any parent would be proud of.
How on earth we were matched with that family I have never been able to fathom. We lived in an area where a lot of the children lived in huge houses and had wealthy families, unlike us who were as poor as church mice and squeezed (with a homeless lodger) into a 3 bed semi.
So, that’s my James Taylor/Carly Simon tale. Couldn’t make it up it’s so bizarre.
