BACK TO BRITAIN - BRITS ABROAD

BARNSLEY TO BRISBANE & ADELAIDE - THEN BACK HOME TO BRISTOL.

The only reason we came back from Australia after seven years there was simple - we didn't do our homework before we went out. In the late 1980's our life in Barnsley was not an easy one. Work was hard to find and poorly paid, and the influx of 'foreigners' made the town I grew up in look like something out of Casablanca with its veiled women in sari's and its men in a kind of a fez. We wanted out of England more than we wanted in to Australia. So we saved, went through the qualification process, and flew out within six months of applying.

I'm not sure why we chose Australia, maybe its 'ga-day mate' attitude we'd heard and read about, maybe Crocodile Dundee, maybe a lot of things outside of the reality of being British in a foreign country, but there we were on our way to the far side of the world. Settling in had a holiday effect about it and set challenges for us that gave us a new lease on life. Right off we liked most of what we saw and felt, until It was assumed I was to give up my ties to Britain and fall in line behind the average Aussie. That's where everything came apart.

We started meeting longtime British immigrants who kept telling us that assimilation was the most important thing and not to go on about Britain in any sort of complimentory way or we'll get the 'go back if you love it so much,' reply from Australians. I put that to the test and sure enough you either loved Australia unconditionally with the cutting off of all ties to any feelings for Britain. I couldn't buy that. Simple. Not for me. If I can't hold some reverence to my home country, my heritage, and to all the things I still cherished about Britain, and say so, then sorry 'mate' I can't become an out and out Aussie.

Once the negative aspects of life in Australia set in, brought about by seeing the other side of the coin, a lot of things began to sink in. Not only was I expected to keep my praise of Britain to myself (jeers, boos, from exBrits & Aussies alike) but I was expected to embrace every aspect of Australia as being the forever mecca to any immigrant Brit who should start thinking he was damn lucky to live there. Rollocks. Not for me, or Sue my wife, and our daughter Elizabeth was now just four years old. We'd lived in Australia seven years and now we decided to go home.

We didn't go back to Barnsley simply because what we left it for was still there. We went instead to Bristol where my type of skilled trade was much needed. We knew no one in Bristol so in a way it was like emigrating all over again. We got a place, I got a good job, it rained, there are sari's and veiled women here as well, but it's home with a capital H. Our way of life. No one telling me I got to like this and I've got to like that, just all the familiar things that I could accept. Hope someone can draw something from this story, because we gained nothing by emigrating except perhaps the wisdom of knowing we're British - and damn proud to be so.
Bill Cressington, Bristol, October 7th 2005

OXFORD TO MELBOURNE - MANY HOME VISITS - THEN BACK TO BRITAIN FOR GOOD.

My story about my return to Britain is one of the gradual realisation that I was still very British, and that Britain was head and shoulders ahead of many other major countries in the world, and in many ways Britain still sets a fine example to others. It all began for me after I'd been in Australia just over 8 years and I had to return to England to bury my dear father.

We emigrated to Australia from Oxford in 1989, paying our own way, but with a job for me to go to. I was 30 at the time and my wife was then 28. We had one boy, Laurence, then aged 8. Australia was not a mystery to us like it had been to the many migrants we met who had made the journey out in the 1950's and the 1960's. We'd met many Australians in Britain; and they're a proud lot when it comes to talking about their own country, not like our countrymen and women in Australia who have very little good to say about Britain. With a job offer arranged in Melbourne from one of these new Australia friends we met in London, we decided to give it a try. After all the paperwork and the medicals we were ready.

Much was as we expected downunder, except perhaps the 'feel' or the 'atmosphere' of the country. It seemed quiet, somewhat American in style, with those cowboy town small wooden houses with all-round verandahs and a few big square looking warehouse type city buildings, and there seemed to be a false feeling of settlement in an area that seemed to have been just scratched out of the desert. It was hard adjusting to Australia, the land, the soil, and the climate. We couldn't tell the what season was what, and beach bathing on Christmas day just didn't seem right.

After a successful 8 years in Australia my father suddenly took ill and died, and I flew back on my own to attend the funeral and see that my mother was going to be okay. After just 8 years Britain was changing, and all for the good. The country was preparing for the big centennial celebrations and everyone seemed contented and happy. I watched a few top league football games, toured the countryside I thought I was familiar with - but wasn't, and saw the new prosperity, saw the new Britain, and realised very quickly I was still very much a true Brit at heart.

Back in OZ I struggled to resettle in. It all seemed a little out of touch, a touch foreign, and I began to get pissed off at the continual knocking the Brits had to take from Aussies, specially the media. Loosing Dad and worrying about Mum was also a factor, but so was the feel of a vibrant Britain that hustled and bustled with new life and purpose. When Mum fell ill just under a year later I was off again, staying a full month this time. I thought that I'd get Britain out of my system by staying longer and being a touch negative about things, then go back convinced Australia was for me. It didn't work that way.

Mum got better, and I reluctantly flew home, but then my wife's mother Audrey took ill and as she was on her own my wife Dawn wanted to be with her for awhile. I decided to go back with her. Laurence was about to reach his 18th birthday and with some trepidation we left him in charge of the house - with our good neighbours holding daily court on his activities! Dawn's Mum Audrey either had to go into a home or have Dawn care for her. What would you do? I told Dawn to stay with her and I'd go back to Australia and talk things over with our son.

Laurence wanted to stay in Australia. It still is very much a young persons country. He had a good job. He was a good lad and there never was any trouble the time we were away. We talked things over. He'd assume the house, not in full ownership but it was his as a half owner with Dawn and myself. Dawn's mum's house was written over to us, and that's where we finished up. I have a good job near Oxford and Dawn and I can afford to visit Laurence at least once a year. He's even coming over to visit us next year.

We're back in Britain. More by circumstances than anything we were driven to do. And we love it. It's alive, bustling, so much to do and so many places to go. And we're among our own people, not struggling in another culture hoping to become like them and be accepted by them. Australia is for Australians as any lagered-up Aussie will tell you, or, as any half-drunk Brit will tell you that Britain is for the British, as he looks across the pub to a few non-Brits. We're all the same. Home is home. And it is good to be back.
Peter Walker, Oxford, England. September 14th 2005.

DORSET TO TORONTO TO DORSET - HAD IT WITH BITCHING BRITS BITCHING ABOUT BRITAIN!

I've been reading the stories in your 'Back To Britain' series and have been very tempted to write to you about my family's experience after we emigrated to Toronto in Canada many years ago. What's held me back is that my experience as a British immigrant in Canada doesn't seem to be in line with all your other stories, and not wanting to sound too negative I decided you didn't need my input. Until I read about that new book 'Ten Pound Poms' in the International Express, a newspaper about Britain that is sold around the world, that my son John, still living in Canada, sends to me here in Dorset.

That book isn't about British immigrants in Canada; it being about the million plus that went to Australia, but it tells the same kind of story. We weren't called Poms in Canada, we were called Limeys, not very often, but that name was levelled at us whenever that small percentage of the Canadian public felt like saying it. We didn't get to Canada for £10, we had to pay our own fare after meeting a very involved 'points' system. And thank goodness we didn't have to live in a hostel like those poor buggers I read about in that article.

By the standards that book talks about we immigrants to Canada had it much better than our countrymen and women who went to Australia. But Canada has many drawbacks that can add up as quickly as the problems immigrants faced in Australia. Canada is basically friendly to Brits, but only just. Whilst the ordinary Canadian accepts a Brit fairly well the Canadian media seems to have a major problem with Britain and the British. What has been well documented on your website these last few months about misrepresentation of British involvement in world affairs, past and present, [July & August 2005] is more than true, reaching as it does into the schooling of all Canadian children, leaving them with a totally biased and almost racist attitude to Britain.

This is where our problems started. We were not ready to condemn Britain, as so many new arrivals from Britain do, and we were not ready to join in the 'love it or leave it' attitude detractors of our heritage wanted us to do. I often replied, 'would you give up on Canada if you lived in Britain,' and the reply was always, 'of course not,' so my reply was, 'then don't expect us to give up on Britain.' But in time we got over these silly hurdles by applying ourselves to living within Canada's pseudo-American culture whilst at the same time seeking out those British things we missed. Trouble was there was not enough to replace the things we were expected to give up. Not all Brits can switch to insipid weak tea, poor newspapers, TV that is one fifth commercials, ice hockey, cap-in-hand worship of American culture and values, or a school system that teaches some very weird facts, like Canada went to war with the Americans in 1941, and, the Irish were the backbone of Canada's culture!

The final straw was our own people, not the Canadians, who drove us round the bend. Within months of arriving in Canada we naturally met other immigrant Brits and were stunned to have this whispered in our ears several times. 'Canada is for the British middle class immigrant you know. The working class go to Australia.' My eyebrows raised. What was I, I asked myself. Then we met many Brits who spent their whole free time scoffing at Britain, how it was 'over-run' with Asians, how the country was declining in wealth, power, and influence, and how glad they were to be in Canada and out of that dark, wet, cold, miserable country. These, were our own people? It was hard to believe.

Soon we were truly homesick, specially after a few holidays back home with our families and friends, and coming back to meet up with these self-centred, 'middle class' very ex Ex-pats, caused us to find nothing of value left in our positive hopes we once had of a life in Canada. So you see, I can't look back and say 'Canada was good to me' - it wasn't. It suffers from a split culture, sometimes humble, and most times American wannabe. I can't say 'the people were good.' They weren't, specially our own kind. When Canadians heard these bitching Brits bitch about Britain you could see their eyes squint in shame. And I can't say, I was treated badly. I wasn't. But swapping Britain for Canada was a big mistake, and as any Brit worth his British salt will tell you, when it comes to a worthwhile fully rounded life, life in Britain is just about the best.
John Carter, Bridport, Dorset. September 1st 2005.

DONCASTER TO MELBOURNE TO DONCASTER TO MELBOURNE TO DONCASTER!

We saw your request for stories from returning Britons in the section 'Helping Hands' in the July issue of 'Best Of British' and wonder if our 'out & back and out & back' boomerang life as immigrants from Britain would be of interest. In a nutshell we left England in 1967 for Australia, couldn't settle, and came back to England in 1971. But on our return to our home town of Doncaster we found ourselves more unsettled than when we first arrived in Australia. After just a year and a half in Doncaster we applied to Australia House in London to return to Australia and before that second year was out we were off once again to the land downunder! Don't go away! The story doesn't end there. Back in Melbourne things were good for a year but soon we were feeling that 'Aussie isolation' we felt on trip one.

There's a lot of adjusting to do, whether it's your first time or like us, you're second time. This time we stuck it out in Melbourne until 1984 when the last of our parents (from both sides) took ill and died. For that we both flew back to be at the funeral. We had planned to stay just ten days but finished up staying twice that long. Our daughter Jan, then 18, was looking after our home in Melbourne, and both Cindy (my wife) and I were using up our vacation time from our jobs. There was really no hurry to fly back to Australia so we stayed with my sister and her family in Stainton near Maltby and had a good old time. We even got to see a lot of the Yorkshire countryside we'd never seen before. A bright, airy, bay-windowed bedroom, a lovely modern kitchen, and everything we ever missed (the shops, the food, the TV, the friendliness) all came flooding back. We were starting to enjoy ourselves and feel 'at home,' something we hadn't felt since leaving in 1967.

Back in Melbourne we became unsettled - yet again. I know, it's something we should have overcome, but we couldn't. Jan told us to bugger off back for a year, she'll keep the house going in Melbourne, and when we realised that Australia was where we really wanted to be, we could come back and start all over again! And that's what we did. We called my sister, flew back, stayed with them until late August (just under two months) got ourselves a nice place to rent, and both started work. Oh yes, we did start to get that 'displaced, what are we doing here' feelings again but, we were 'home' and everything around us was forging ahead and we were caught up in it all. After that year we decided to stay, and we're still here.

Let me finish with a few thoughts. Australia wasn't at fault in any of this. We liked it. But we were not and never would be modern day Aussies. We were still very much Yorkshire people with unbreakable ties to our roots. We were still unsettled for a long time after that second return home. We had originally uprooted ourselves without being fully aware of all the consequences. Take heed any who read this. Home is where the heart is, and not always where the sunshine is, the jobs are, and the new culture and lifestyle beckons. We've been there - done it, and now, as we approach retirement let me say it was all a lot of fun and I'm glad we tried it - and tried it twice! Will & Cindy Woodhouse, Doncaster, Yorkshire. August 17th 2005

MANCHESTER TO SYDNEY AND RETURN

I'm so glad I saw your details in the magazine 'Best Of British' looking for people to tell their story about why they came back to Britain after emigrating. I want to tell my story because I'm sure it'll help lots of other people who are thinking of emigrating and what to expect and how to get started.

I came back from Australia in 1998 after being there since 1995 and the first thing I'll tell you is there's nothing wrong with Australia. It's a big, beautiful, sunny, friendly country with bags of scope for anyone with a bit of training coming from Britain. I learnt my trade in Manchester and I've got my ticket for heating and air conditioning, private and commercial. Took me awhile to get it with another four years on the job experience afterwards, but when I applied to go to Australia they bent over backwards in okaying my application.

My wife Lena and I and our boy Josh left for Sydney one cold November day amid tears from us, our friends and our parents. We told them if things didn't work out we'd be right back. But from day one downunder things really did work out. Three, count them, three really good job offers, then after a few weeks we rented a nice but small house, sort of old and woody-like, but cosy. Christmas went by sort of lonely but we made some friends from Britain and some local Aussie friends. Christmas downunder is high summer, so you eat your turkey with the air conditioning on and the fly-traps by the doors! All the same, after six months we were adjusting.

Then wham, I'm sitting bored like on the veranda and I start to get to miss my saturdays. My football. The pub afterwards (no BIG football in OZ) and I got to miss my mates - let's face it, it is damn hard to say goodbye to your mates, let alone your parents. I got to miss sundays. Treadle Old Boys sunday league football. The clubhouse rowdiness and friendliness. The club dances, days out to Blackpool, the dogs (racing that is) and the odd sunday throwing a hook into the Dean River. Bustling weekends full of endless things to do with scores of friends and countless family. I started to miss the 'heart' of my life.

Lena and I had it made. Good home, great job, one heck of a great climate, and some fair Aussie friends, if you can take the odd snidey remark about Britain and being British, and let it go. Josh wasn't that turned on. Few kids at school understood his accent, and surprisingly he was grades ahead of the local kids his age. We had all our material ducks in a row, but not our 'happy heart' ducks. That's what Lena called them, 'happy heart' things that your heart tells you are missing. And we were 'missing' a lot.

What does it take then to change your mind after taking such a giant step? Was the 'lost weekends' and the loss of 'happy hearts' enough? Yes they were. We decided to go back home, for a year, and if we didn't like it back in Manchester then coming back to Australia could hardly be as hard as it was to go in the first place. On April 14th 1998 we landed in London with several cases, a good stash of money in the bank, and took off for home, sweet home. They put on one great welcome home party that lasted from one saturday to the next, and on a bright sunday morning a few weeks after we got home my old mate Maury said: "Come on Don we're off to that old spot of ours on the Dean, to catch a few dace." It sounded magnificent. Lena was back with her family and friends, Josh was back in school for his last year, and me, well I had a couple of job offers, bought a car off a mate, and went with the lads to Man U for their last game of that season.

Thanks Australia. You were good, you were kind, you were sunny, and you were friendly, but I can tell you, home is home, and when it comes right down to it one good country like Britain is as good as any other good country, but as Lena says, you have got to have 'happy hearts' - and they all are now - once again.
Don Hartley, Manchester, August 7th 2005.

ALNWICK TO LONDON (Ontario, Canada) AND RETURN

I'm not sure if my story about returning to England would be of interest to you and your readers but I'll tell you about it anyway. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has gone back under mine or similar circumstances. I suppose it's best I start right at the beginning.

We decided to emigrate to Canada because we thought the opportunities there were better than here (Alnwick, Northumberland) and that our two kids might stand a better chance with their schooling. My work wouldn't be hard to find being a diesel mechanic with 12 years experience. Nellie my wife was in computer sciences and a recruiter in that field. Workwise we had no trouble getting our points, so, after a visit to London and a talk with Canada immigration we filed our forms and got the all clear very quickly.

After a few months we were in Canada, first in Toronto at the height of one of their worst summers for sticky heat and smog, then we moved to London (Ontario) where we were soon employed and living very well in a rented home with a nice back yard. We both had to have cars for our work and the boys started school that September. Everything seemed a great improvement over our life in Alnwick, yet underneath all our improvements there seemed to be a feeling of unsettlement. We were going through the motions but it all seemed like we were on an extended holiday, which is good, but not condusive to putting down roots.

One day I was looking out across the lake that seperates Canada from America and I had a sudden feeling of not belonging. A kind of slump in the stomach. I said nothing to Nellie. It persisted for several months, then my oldest Ryan said sadly he wasn't liking school. After talking with him about his reasons it was because of his being from the north of England and having that accent. At school he was thought of as 'odd.' It made him sad. Now there was two of us feeling the pangs.

I opened up to Nellie to find she too had had second thoughts about the changes we had made from England to Canada. A co-worker asked her 'well how are you adjusting,' and Nellie said it was slow but sure. The same person remarked, 'yes, living in someone elses country must take a lot of adjusting. I know I couldn't leave here for anywhere. There's really no place like home.' We took a holiday back to Alnwick after our third year in London (Ontario) and enjoyed it so much, catching up on the sports, the restaurants and pubs we missed, and meeting all our old friends and family, that we wondered just what were the advantages in moving our lives to 'someone elses country.'

After four and a half years we returned to Alnwick, none the wiser as to why we went in the first place but very much wiser as to why we came back. Two things remain lodged in my mind. 'Someone elses country,' and, 'there's no place like home.' And there isn't. Yes, we went and we soon got on our feet and became a touch more affluent than we were in Alnwick. Yes, we liked Canada and Canadians. But as that American once said, 'you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy.' So we're back 'home' and have been going on six years, and our 'trip' to Canada seems nothing more than an extended holiday. Count your blessings before you count your gains. What's in your pocket won't go into your heart.
Robert Fairbrother, Alnwick, Northumberland (July 2005)

DURHAM TO NEW ZEALAND AND RETURN.

Whatever you think about returning to England after making that giant decision to emigrate, the important thing to remember is that once you've sold up and left, going back is even harder than leaving. We went to New Zealand on the advice of friends who had friends there. A lot of emails exchanged and indications that getting work wouldn't be a problem we then decided to make the trip to Dunedin and try our luck in a different country with a new set of challenges. There was nothing wrong with New Zealand. We just didn't like it. Thousands of British couples going there do like it. We didn't. We missed England and we missed most of all being 'English.' We were not and could not be New Zealanders. I don't know why. We came back after just two and a half years, and coming back was a nightmare. After just under a year we nearly gave up and went back to New Zealand. Re-settling was hard. Everything seemed different, yet we'd only been away a few years. But we stuck to our guns, my dad said, 'for God's sake make up your minds,' and we did. We got back into life again, but it was hard, it was at times strange, and it took a long long time. That was back in 1998/1999. Today we're happy and settled, and seeing your mention in 'Best Of British' I thought others might like to know how it is, coming back. We've since met several other families who'd tried Canada and Australia. And we all had the worst kind of time re-settling. My advice? Don't go, because coming back takes more guts than leaving in the first place.
Jeff & Rita Harsley, Tow Law, Durham. (July 2005)

NORTHAMPTON TO SYDNEY TO NORTHAMPTON - IN NINE MONTHS!

I emigrated to Australia in 1989. My wife, myself, and my young boy David. He was nine at the time. We had been trying hard to get somewhere with our lives but the struggle seemed never to end. Some friends we'd met years before had gone to Australia, and after a shaky start, got on their feet and loved it. We got lots of letters from them, and gradually decided it was something we should do. It meant leaving our aging parents (on both sides) and a host of friends. Going was not the problem. Giving up on our family and friends was. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. But so many people were doing it, and we heard nothing but good stories, we thought we'd try. You always say you can come back, but in your heart you know you won't. When we left my mother broke her heart. So did Joy's mum. My dad gave us £500 and said, 'show 'em what us Brits are made of.'

LONDON TO WINNIPEG TO VICTORIA TO LONDON TO VANCOUVER!

It was the summer of 1966. I was living in Ealing, West London in a rented semi-detached at the end of a culdesac. I was married and had a little girl named Susan, then aged five. It was a great time to be alive and living in Britain. The 1960's. The Beatles, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield. Cilla Black, Matt Munro, Sunday Night at the London Palladium, and hundreds of other people and events that would last in memory for a lifetime. Not just my memory but the worlds.

It was a great summer. I had left my job voluntarily and decided to take a few months off. We didn't really want for too much, so taking this time off and looking for another job caused no hardships. One of the main reasons I took the time off was to see the World Cup. I had bought a block of tickets for Wembley Stadium that went all the way to the World Cup Final - and sure enough England won the Cup. What a great experience. If you ever see film of that final and they show the crowd, I'm the tall fella in a light tweed sportscoat behind the goal where Geoff Hurst scored the last and fourth goal. You can't miss me!!!!

I took in a few visits to Wimbledon, went to the races at Windsor, and counted the days until the next football season started. QPR were on the rise, thanks to Rodney Marsh. Fulham played great football with Johnny Haynes, and Chelsea were drawing crowds of over 50,000. Even the Yanks were singing the praises of England, 'England swings like a pendulum do, Bobbies on bycycles two by two,' and in Richmond Park John Mills and his family drove past me in an open top Bentley! And it was the year I took up refereeing. I was 30 years old. I was happy, content, and living in the greatest country on earth.

What happened in the next six months was to change my life forever, and not for the best, and I was to leave everything I loved for something I knew little about. This is how it all began. I saw an ad for a 'Sales Representative' for an international car hire firm. I applied. It was Hertz Rent A Car in Knightsbridge. I got the job. I did extremely well. I was featured in a national advertising campaign, and I was eager to gain promotion. My American boss said I could really do well by going to Canada and working there for Hertz. And as a well paid Sales Manager no less. In Toronto. With Canada celebrating its EXPO 67.They'd write to them on my behalf and see if that job could be arranged. They got a letter back saying Ken Fisher can have a job in Toronto if he can get here within the next six months. This was December 1966. I had plenty of time.

My wife and I decided it was a chance I shouldn't miss. 'There comes a tide in a man's life that when taken at the flood.....you know the saying. I told them yes I'd like to emigrate to Toronto. I wrote to them. They wrote back, and said let us know when you arrive and we'll interview you in Toronto. We applied through Canada House for immigrant status, and the letter sealed our acceptance. A brown envelope arrived with tickets for Air Canada for all three of us. I could pay the fares back over the next two years. Our date for departure was March 31st 1967. It was now late January. I wrote to Hertz in Canada again, thanked them, and they said call us on the monday after arriving in Toronto (a friday) and they'd have someone interview me there. We were on our way.

We sold our few possesions. My mother, who lived with us, went to live with my sister in West Sussex until we were settled, when we would then bring her over to join us, by late summer. Our dear dog Suzie, aged seven, was due to go with my mother, but my sister said no at the last moment. No one else would take her. I very reluctantly put her down on several friends well-meaning advice. I still regret that cruel and selfish act. But a new life beckoned. A guaranteed job. We were going to make it. And it seemed sacrifices were needed, and in any event I was thinking positive, wasn't I - I was going to be a great success. If only I had known.

We arrived on a wet, cold friday. The first night we spent in a nice motel near the lake in Toronto. On the saturday we reported to Canada Immigration, lining up with hundreds of other people who all seemed to be Italians or middle-Europeans. They told us to move into a nice hotel with a self-catering unit in it, and they'd pay for the first week. Great we thought. I called the Hertz people and they told me to meet the national sales manager on monday at the York Hotel. On the monday I went into the lobby at the prescribed time and met their top man. He sat me down on a sofa and sadly informed me the job they had waiting for me was now not available. He also said he had nothing else for me in Toronto, or nearby! Nothing. I had come all that way on a written promise of a job. Here I was, in Toronto, no promised job, with less than $450 in our pockets. I was shattered.

I went back to the hotel, pretentiously named The Waldorf Astoria, and told Mary my wife. She was totally dumbfounded. What now we thought. The next day I called all the other Toronto car rental companies - nothing available, not even counter help. I called a few other companies - nothing. I pounded a few wet pavements all edged with dirty snow. I then called Hertz head office and told them how disappointed I was and reminded them of the letter I held, promising me a job. They said they'd get back to me by friday. We still had just over $300 left but were due out of the hotel by the saturday. We began to worry. On friday morning I got a call from Hertz. I was told they had a temporary sales managers job in Winnipeg (central prairies) they would give me, although the city manager there, an Al Collins, expressed his annoyance at being given an employee he really didn't want. Hertz had moved a minor mountain, and put me into a position I was not wanted for. It was to cause enormous problems.

We took a train that saturday, a slow, overnight train, without a sleeping compartment, and arrived in Winnipeg, in the cold dark early evening, and this very quiet, un-welcoming man Al Collins the local Hertz manager, hustled us into his car and drove us to a real dump of a hotel that had bolsters for pillows, and one corner of the bed resting on an empty coffee tin! He said report to work monday morning. We sat in this very old hotel room, our cases by the bed, tired out, and wondering what the hell next. I got some coffee, we smoked a few cigarettes (it wasn't a sin in those days), and tucked our daughter Susan into bed. I looked out of the hotel window on a dimly lit, flat, old fashioned looking town, where big cars trundled around big streets, passing under hanging traffic lights. There was still a layer of the winters snow packed into dirty corners of warehouse-looking buildings. Good God, where was my London, and where was my life going.

Monday I reported for work in my best grey suit, white shirt, and tie. Collins was not around. An office girl; well woman - she was well over 50, said, 'watcha cock' in that patronising piss-taking way I was to become very familiar with over the next little while. Another person took me through the garage (Hertz occupied an old US style warehouse building that went back to the late 1890's) to the back where a small staircase led up to a stockroom. This room was piled high with boxes, junk, and old tyres. He said, 'this is your office so clean it up and we'll find you a desk.' I spent that day moving stuff up & down stairs and finally had it cleaned out by about 4.30 pm. Collins arrived. He smiled at my efforts. I asked him if he had a car put by for me (my position came with a car) and he said yes. He took me to an old VW 'beatle' parked in the back of the garage. 'You can use that, and I'll be charging you 4 cents a mile for the gas.' (no kidding!). As I cautiously drove out of the dark garage the entire Hertz staff, about five people including Collins, stood looking out of the large office window, all grinning snidely, and waving to me as if I was a child going to school.

This nonsense with Collins went on. Several people working in the Hertz office kept up their mocking English accent when I was around, except an older person named Tommy Markwart who was the 'car jockey.' He was the only person who showed me any degree of kindness. Collins used my services to deliver and fetch cars, take cars through the car wash, and do odd late & weekend shifts at the Hertz airport desk. The VW broke down and he gave me an old, run down Chevy that also broke down. This seemed to tickle everyone there. Finally we had a talk. I told him I wouldn't pay the 4 cents a mile, and that his hatred for all things British should be seriously toned down. He proudly said he was of 'Irish stock' and that traditionally the proud Irish in Canada and the US had no time for 'limeys,' and if I didn't like the job I could always leave.

In expectations of leaving I started a small business with two English friends whom we met at the motel in Winnipeg shortly after we arrived there. We opened the 'Winnipeg Accommodation Bureau' and right away it took off. We all took turns in manning the one single telephone, and before the first month was up we had recovered our capital outlay and met all our running costs. Things looked good, then an executive from the head office of Hertz in Montreal arrived. He reemed out Collins, ordered I get a new Ford car (I got a Ford Galaxie in Hertz colours), and told Collins to lay off the Brit bashing, and let me do my job as the Manitoba Sales Manager! After that short but sweet visit things got a lot better. We had now been in Canada just under three months and the 'Canada Day' July 1st holiday was coming up. We planned to go fishing and camping. On our return from that weekend holiday my whole world fell apart.

On the sunday night we returned to our apartment having been eaten alive by mosquitoes on our friday & saturday overnight camping trip. Hanging on the door handle was a card saying an urgent telegram awaited me and I was to phone the telegram office as soon as I arrived. It was getting on for 11 pm. My daughter Susan was asleep on my shoulder, and Mary my wife put the kettle on for some tea. I called the telegram office not expecting anything too drastic. The woman on the line said that it appears to be very sad news and she would read it to me over the phone if I'd like. I said go ahead. It read: 'Mum passed away today in Redhill hospital from a heart attack....I didn't hear the rest. I lost my breath. I called Mary. I had the woman read it again. It was from my sister in west Sussex where mum was supposed to have been staying. I hung up the phone and began to gradually fall apart. Everything that had happened in that first three months in Canada now culminated in the death of my mother who was only two months away from joining us, and finally it all brought me to my knees. I was licked. I was devastated. I had faced job loss and job rejection, racial hatred and humiliation, and now I faced losing my mother whilst I pined away in a dreary flat town thousands of miles away from where I really wanted to be. I never slept that night. English friends came over and comforted us. The next day was a monday, a holiday, with all shops and offices closed. It gave me time to think.

On the tuesday I went to the Air Canada office, applied for their 'fly now pay later' plan, then went to my bank, and asked them to grant the loan necessary for me to buy the tickets. It was noon. They gave me the okay. I took the form back to the Air Canada office (an office I had called on several times in my capacity as Hertz Sales Manager) and purchased three tickets for a flight out, that very night, to Heathrow. Around two pm I arrived home and showed Mary the tickets. She was staggered. We had six hours to pack, to tell the landlord of our sudden decision (they were good about it - we hadn't paid that months rent yet - which came in handy) and to tell Collins and Hertz I was going 'home.' My attitude in the office as I told them went like this: 'You'll be glad to hear I'm off back to Britain and it's unlikely you'll ever see me again. My mother died on sunday and we're going home to bury her. Here's the keys to the Galaxie.' I stood there waiting for reaction. There was very little. A few 'ohs' and a sad frown from one person. Tommy came out and moved the Galaxie. He shook my hand, looked up at me, and said, 'take care.' With that I returned to the apartment by taxi, had some English friends take us to the airport, and just after 8 pm that tuesday the plane lifted high above a flat, dreary, town I thought I'd never see again. But we did.
Ken Fisher, Chilliwack, BC Canada.
(Ken returned within a year, went back to Lancing in West Sussex in 1985 for a year, and returned once again in 1986. He is now reluctantly living in Canada but plans a final return in 2007)

Write to Ken at: Kensship@aol.com he returned again to Canada and he'd love to hear from you.

What seekest though, far, in the unknown land?
In hope, I follow joy gone before,
In hope, and fear persistent more and more,
For long the journey is that makes no stand.

More than a thousand hopes in jubilee,
Dearer the music of one tearful voice,
That forgotten, calls and calls me...
"Follow me here. Rise up, and follow here."

One exile holds us both, and we are bound,
To selfsame home-joys in the land of light,
Weeping thou walkest with him: weepeth he?
Some sobbing weep. Some weep and make no sound.