PEORIA MAGAZINE November 2023

WORD COUNT

HIGH TEA AND HIJINKS Pekin-based author shares the humor of being an American on British soil

BY LAURIE PILLMAN

Author Claire Craig Evans

M oving is stressful. Moving to a foreign country is a whole different level of stress. But most people don’t expect major culture shock when the foreign country is England. Sure, Brits drive on the opposite side of the road, but they speak English, don’t they? In 2009, Claire Craig Evans moved to England with her British husband and found out just how wrong that assump tion could be. Now, she’s turned her sometimes-traumatic, often-humorous

experiences into a laugh-out-loud travel memoir — High Tea and the Low Down — for anyone who fantasizes about life in the British Isles. Growing up in Springfield, Illinois, Evans remembered watching British television on the local PBS station. “My mother and I would watch Are You Being Served? every Saturday down in Springfield when I was a teenager,” Evans recalled. “I think it was on at nine at night. That was just what we did. But then they would show other shows,

The Vicar of Dibley and Father Ted and Fawlty Towers .” Those hours of television established her as a lifelong fan of British culture. Meantime, Evans went to college for mechanical engineering but switched to journalism. After graduation, she decided to pursue law. In 2001, between her first and second year in law school, Evans discovered that Notre Dame of fered a summer law session in London. She jumped at the chance to immerse herself in all things British.

108 NOVEMBER 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE