In 1991 Kate was nearly 24, in love with Graham, and ready to go to Turkey with him, partly to walk and climb in the Taurus mountains, partly to look at how Turkey dealt with environmental problems, and partly (with her political interests) to investigate the question of human rights for Turkish citizens. She had no money, so eventually she borrowed money from Graham and together they spent four months in Turkey. Graham believed in strenuous walking, and, as a specialist in plant studies, he was eager to investigate the bulb industry in Turkey. Kate loved the mountains and the local life but found the flowering bulbs, however important for Turkish villages, a little boring. Although they met three or four impressive human rights activists, Kate realised that, despite her experience in Britain and the reading she had done before the visit, that she was quite unprepared for work of this kind in Turkey. For two years she and Graham were very happy as a couple, but eventually it became clear that Graham was a wanderer and that Kate did not want to spend the rest of her life in other countries. So they split up, in a friendly fashion, and Kate was on her own.
Besides her degree in politics and history, Kate had taken courses in law which enabled her to act as an advisor to environmental organizations which were becoming active in response to development in the 1980s. These organizations were campaigning against building more motorways and extra air terminals in our major airports. She enjoyed meeting the environmental campaigners and kept in touch with many of them. However, her time in Turkey must have been lying in the depths of her mind, because when she met Tariq Khan, a British lawyer of Pakistani origin who was working in a solicitor's law firm in Reading, with an active interest in human rights legislation, she eagerly challenged him on what she had seen in Turkey.
Tariq was highly intelligent, a charismatic talker and someone who enjoyed Kate's enthusiasm for putting the world to rights. He was also someone who accepted Kate's strong views on the place of women in society although he explained that, culturally he felt himself to be a Muslim even though he did not feel any personal religious belief. Kate gave this account much thought over the months in which they grew closer, and decided that she was a 'Christian atheist' and that Tariq was (probably) a Muslim atheist although he would feel uneasy about describing himself as such. Early in 1996 they were married at the Registry Office in Reading where they were both living. Kate was 28, Tariq was 30. Bill and Carol were surprised that Kate had decided to get married ('too bourgeois!' she used to say), and surprised that she wanted to marry a Muslim, since Muslim men were supposed to keep their women in order! Then they met Tariq and were charmed. They also thought that he probably would be quite good at keeping Kate in order ('though it'll be harder than he thinks' said Bill, feeling sympathy for Tariq).
Tariq's parents and two sisters with their husbands came to the wedding. One of the sisters seemed to have a traditional Muslim husband who felt uncomfortable about his brother-in-law marrying a white British girl. The other husband was quite different: he quickly identified Peter as another man who liked machines and using his hands, so they talked about bicycles and the car-trade during most of the party. Tariq's mother was clearly nervous about meeting so many white people whom she did not know, but she felt very warm towards Sarah's nicely-brought-up children, then aged 9 and 7. As for the children, they thought that Mrs Khan was very exotic because in their small town on the Welsh borders there were very few Asians. (In Reading there are thousands, for Reading has a typical urban mixture of different ethnic groups.)
Once married, Kate and Tariq decided to start a family as soon as possible. Their son, Ismail, was born in 1997, their daughter, Emmeline (named after the famous English suffragette), was born in 1999. Apart from the fact that Tariq's solicitors' office was in Reading, one of the reasons why they stayed in the town was that in 1996 around the time of their wedding, Kate became actively involved in a famous campaign against the building of the Newbury Bypass. [Newbury, a town in southern England, was suffering intolerable traffic congestion, since the direct route from Portsmouth and the Channel Ferries to the Midlands ran right through its main street. The Transport Ministry decided to build a 'bypass' around the town, through particularly beautiful and peaceful countryside. Six major environmental organizations, Friends of the Earth, the Council for British Archaeology, Greenpeace UK, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Wildlife Trusts and the World Wide Fund for Nature, all argued that although a solution to the serious traffic problem was needed "the proposed bypass route is not the answer". The bypass was begun in January 1996 and completed nearly three years later, having been much delayed by the sustained activities of protesters who lived in tents and in the trees along the route of the new road.]
During those years, Tariq was increasing his reputation as an excellent lawyer in Reading, Meanwhile, often carrying baby Ismail, first in a sling on her front, and later in a 'baby carrier' on her back, Kate spent months working as a legal advisor to the protesters - often unpaid. Although the campaigners were eventually defeated, their efforts changed the views of the British public about adding even more roads as a solution to traffic congestion. (This is not such a great problem in Russia where you have huge spaces; in our small but beautiful country, every stretch of road means a landscape destroyed, peace disturbed, beauty damaged - but a swifter, safer, route for lorries and cars.)
Soon after Emmeline was born, the family moved to Nottingham, a large city in the Midlands because Tariq had applied for a job in a law firm which specialized in immigration problems and in human rights law.
What is a 'large city?' Nottingham has about 288000 inhabitants, but in the 'Greater Nottingham' area which includes suburbs and villages which have expanded towards the city until they are adjoining, the population is more than 650000. This makes Nottingham the 'capital' of the East Midlands. The Taylors had always been based in and around London until Sarah moved westwards. By moving northwards Kate and Tariq felt themselves travelling into an unknown part of England. Despite our small size, the different regions of our country feel much more diverse than many cities in Russian which are a thousand kilometres apart. For example, people in Nottingham speak with a different accent, often using different words from people in Reading, so that Kate and Tariq were instantly identified as southerners. Midlanders also feel themselves to be different from northerners. These are subtle matters of long historical memory, and of the industries developed in these areas in the nineteenth century.
Tariq and Kate settled into the bottom two floors of a house built at the end of the nineteenth century. The top floor contained a separate flat with its own side entrance and 'back staircase'. Kate looked for part-time work which she could combine with looking after Ismail and Emmeline. Eventually she found a job as a 'support officer' at a Community Centre in a different part of the city. It was not easy to get there by bus, but once there, she could relax because the Community Centre had a crèche for small children, so that she was free to attend to all the people who turned up with various problems ranging from debt and childcare to arguments with the neighbours about gardens and rubbish. Kate had by now had years of experience in giving advice, helping troubled people to reach the right experts. Soon she was extending the range of activities in the Centre. Then she got pregnant again; the baby was due in September 2001.