Autobiographical Newspaper Articles Written by Eric Dunning and his First Wife Ellen, Part 1: July 1962 to February 1963

On July 27, 1962, Eric Dunning married Ellen Sweets in St. Louis, an event captured by her father's newspaper, the St. Louis American, from which all the sources in this post are taken:

Eric and Ellen had met delegates from Ghana at the CME Conference on May 20, 1962 (St Louis American, May 24, 1962)

In July, 1962, Eric wrote a series of articles on his experiences in the USA for the newspaper's We're Telling column. The first is here:

                                            

Dunning had arranged to link up with Alvin Gouldner in St. Louis because the latter's books had impressed him and because Neustadt knew Gouldner. He was still living with his parents, who almost failed to leave the ship, The Mauretania, before it departed Southampton. Eric notes in this first piece the different US inhibitions about using the word "toilet".

The second article (July 12) revealed that his attitudes towards nuclear war had been influenced by spending two weeks in a London bomb shelter in 1940 at the age of four:

His third and fourth articles compared British and US universities. He noted that US ones were far larger and used exams instead of essays to assess students. He concluded (July 26):

On August 23, Eric wrote of an incident that occurred during 1958 "rag week":

On October 11, 1962, Ellen began to have letters published in the St. Louis American in a column titled "Excerpts From Ellen". Ellen became interested in folk singing after seeing Peggy Seeger and Ewan McColl. Later that month, the Dunnings met David M. Grant, special representative of President Kennedy, in London.

On October 25, Ellen and Eric report that their interactions with strangers as an interracial couple in Leicester have been positive and friendly

In 1963, Eric and Ellen were living at 14 Palmerston Blvd, Leicester (a house on that same street is shown here). The UK experienced one of its worst-ever winters in 1962-63. In January 1963, Eric and Ellen had befriended neighbours Ron and Cath Young. They saw Odetta at the Prince Charles Theatre on a Sunday afternoon. In February, the Dunnings went to a Duke Ellington concert with Ilya Neustadt in February (article: Feb 21):