Mad-on-mash Mexican finds her groove in UK

A Mexican woman who moved to the UK when she began to feel unsafe in her homeland has become a fan of mashed potato - and also the inspiration she finds in strong British women.

Maria Kelly fell in love with an Englishman when she was in her 20s and lived with him in Mexico for 40 years, before uprooting and eventually settling on the other side of the Atlantic in Shropshire.

She said in contrast to more traditional attitudes in her own country "women are really strong here, I see they are really independent, they make decisions on their own".

Inspired by their confidence, she said it had extended to her own life, from the way she dressed to letting her hair turn grey.

Kelly said her journey to the UK started 46 years ago at a university party.

She met her future husband Peter there over a punch bowl.

He had been invited over from Britain to teach and to study philosophy and she said: "I thought 'oh my god, he is the most handsome man I have seen in my life'."

Four months later, they got married and her family persuaded them to buy a flat in Mexico.

She said he was very different from Mexican men at the time and allowed her a lot of freedom.

"I was able to work, then I opened my own school and he supported me," she said.

They had two children together and they were "very happy", but five years ago they decided it was time to leave.

Kelly explained: "Mexico started getting really violent and I said 'I can't do this any more'. Especially as a woman, it's way more dangerous, so I said 'lets go'."

The couple's first plan had been to move to Canada, where one of their sons lived, but coronavirus restrictions put a stop to that, so they flew to the UK instead.

They first settled in Reading, along with a number of other Mexican families, but when the other son got a job in Shropshire, she told herself: "If the kids are coming now I want to be by them, so we decided to move here."

She said a number of cultural differences had struck her since her move to the UK, including attitudes towards women.

She said things were changing in her own country, but she felt women had more freedom in the UK.

"You've had really strong rulers - Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Elizabeth II, Margaret Thatcher, no wonder," she said.

She added her friends warned her "that English people are really cold", but while her new friends were less tactile, she found a warm welcome in her new home.

And then there is the food...

When she came to the UK, she already knew a bit about British food through her husband, but said discovering more was "fascinating and can be delicious".

She said she loved British cookery shows and especially enjoyed "a really good mashed potato" along with gravy, sausages, beef Wellington and Yorkshire pudding.

She has also become proficient in making an English trifle, but has not been impressed by some Mexican restaurants in the UK.

"We don't put cream or cheese on our food," she said.

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