Lt Col John Cross (rtd) lives in Nepal and is in his fifth decade of CIOL membership.

He speaks a great many languages – including some very rare ones as you will read below – and has had several books published drawing from his 99 year life with languages, published by Pen & Sword Books https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/J-P-Cross/a/870.

In a significant personal milestone, John turned 100 years of age in June this year.

At school from 1939 until 1943 (when I joined the army) I was totally overshadowed by the genius of an elder brother. Although we were very close, I never felt I could discover how good I could be at anything.
  

I joined the army in April 1943 and, after being promoted to Lance Corporal, was sent to India for officer training. I was glad not to be under my elder brother’s shadow, so I could better find my intrinsic ability, but I struggled with languages. I learnt of my brother’s death while still a cadet and felt an infusion of his spirit.
 

I was then posted to a Gurkha unit and spent the next 38 years in Asia. I fought in Burma, French Indo-China, Malaya (now Malaysia) and in Borneo. I spent ten years in the jungle, had a price put on my head twice, was announced as dead three times and was engaged on operations from the age of 19 to 51. By then I was fluent in nine Asian languages and reading and writing five scripts.
 

In Borneo, I was nearly decapitated, side-stepped death monthly and once was so tired I slept from 9 p.m. Wednesday till 6 a.m. Friday. Over the Indonesian border with my Gurkha Parachute Company we all miraculously escaped death from a devastating ambush and being chased from the air. My last job was recruiting in Nepal when hunger and fatigue caused me blindness for nearly two years. I then worked in the university in Kathmandu as a researcher for nearly four years before being granted permanent residential status.
 

I have lived in Nepal since 29 February 1976 and was assailed by cataracts in both eyes in 1980. That meant eyes cut open, lens taken out, eyes stitched up and stitches out six months later: ‘hit your head and you’ll be blind for life’ said the doctor. And once said it could not be unsaid so, wifeless and siblingless, I asked King Birendra if I could stay in Nepal. The King sanctified this and, for the first time in Nepalese history, a foreigner was allowed to be a house and land-owner in his own name. A signal honour.
 

When the Maoists expelled the monarchy in 2008, I was afraid that what King Birendra had done for me would also be revoked. So I applied for Nepalese citizenship. This took a total of 32 years, 6 months and 2 days to be approved; 12 years, 6 months and 13 days being stateless. But, as the application was in the works, expulsion was no longer a threat.
 

Since 1977 my final years have been blessed with tranquility and happiness with my surrogate family. Almost every morning I walk a hundred times round the house, using two sticks: 7 miles, and am working on my twenty-eighth book.

Having recently celebrated my 100^th birthday I am delighted, as ever, to be part of a worldwide community of CIOL linguists. And as my own story amply shows, languages can change your life, save your life and give you a new life, no matter if you perhaps once struggled with them in formal education.

Languages are for everyone and for all your life.
 

Views expressed on CIOL Voices are those of the writer and may not represent those of the wider membership or CIOL.