大象传媒

Evacuation to Canada, I James Lang Brown

When war broke out I was recovering from rheumatic fever. I was aged 8, and knew nothing of the war, apart from the excitement of watching fighter aircraft practicing overhead. One day my father came upstairs to sit on my bed and say 鈥淗ow would you like to go to Canada?鈥� 鈥淲hat about typhoons?鈥� I asked. (I had been reading Conrad) 鈥淭yphoons? Teaspoons!鈥� he retorted, dispelling fears. We had to attend Canada House for a medical. Being still poorly I was expected to fail, but the MO asked where we were going, and how we could support ourselves. We said Salmon Arm in British Columbia, to live with our Uncle Bob. 鈥淲hy I know Bob鈥� he said, 鈥淚 was born in Salmon Arm.鈥� We were on! One fateful day at the end of June 1940 the whole family left by train for Liverpool 鈥� Father and Mother, my sister and me. Father was to return home to continue his war effort in the Admiralty; Mother came with us.

The 鈥淒uchess of Atholl鈥� was a vast ship 鈥� a liner on the Atlantic run 鈥� ferrying hundreds of mothers and children across to Quebec and Montreal in Canada. We had a fearful storm. Every passenger and eventually every steward was sick. No doubt the grownups were made worse by a feeling of total despair: we were very likely to be torpedoed, and if we did make it across the Atlantic we were very unlikely to see our families again, or even to return home. Happily we children were oblivious to the danger and pessimism. It was not long before I was up and about and eating beef stew and dumplings in the empty saloon. (We learnt years later that our sister ship, not many miles from us, was torpedoed and went down with the loss of practically all the passengers. Mr Churchill decreed that no more refugees should cross the Atlantic.)

We steamed slowly up the St Laurence River with the banks clothed in maples, birches and cotton-wood trees. Disembarking at Montreal we found ourselves in an enormous shed, as long as the ship, with huge piles of luggage. Every heap had the initial of the passengers鈥� name on each cabin trunk, case and bag. With the help of porters we sorted ours out from a pyramid labelled 鈥淟鈥�. We had brought all the clothes, books, toys we might need for a very long stay. The train was behind the shed, and we found our compartments for the journey. We had a double 鈥� two compartments, with a door between. The seats slid together to produce a bed, and another folded down from the roof; there was a table, a washbasin, mirrors, cupboards 鈥� this was to be home for four days. A large kindly negro steward settled us in. My sister had a compartment to herself, and as the train left Montreal through the forest the steward looked out with her for 鈥渄eers鈥�.

Crossing Canada by train is one of the great rail journeys of the world, ranking with crossing Africa or Russia. After the forests and lakes of the eastern provinces came the prairies, that vast expanse of grassland across which we espied in the far distance the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The train climbed slowly up from the plains to the 5,500 foot Kicking Horse Pass: the Great Divide, from which rivers to the east flow to the Atlantic, and to the west to the Pacific. We were in the country of glaciers, mountain peaks, long thin lakes, forest and romantic names 鈥� Medicine Hat, Golden, Glacier, Albert Canyon, and Indian names like Kamloops, Kelowna, and Sicamous. We were headed for the Shuswap Lake, H shaped, with four arms. The southern-most one is Salmon Arm, which gives its name to the 鈥渃ity鈥� of Salmon Arm. A tiny place, with one dirt street, a boardwalk 鈥� like a sidewalk, but made of boards to keep you out of the dust, snow or mud, depending on season, with wooden shops either side. The biggest was 鈥淭he SAFE鈥�, the Salmon Arm Farmers鈥� Exchange, trading post and department store. It had two storeys. The town also boasted an hotel, a hospital, and a creamery which made butter. The main produce for export from the farms, which stretched up the valley for many miles around, was apples. Golden Delicious and Jonathan were the favourites.

It was dark when the train stopped. Hardly a station 鈥� just an expanse of black ash with the tracks and a few sidings. As we climbed down the steps from the carriage into the darkness we wondered what we had come to, until we realised we had Uncle Bob beside us, welcoming us and ushering us into his huge Hudson Terraplane car. I think I could describe Bob as a rough diamond, but with a heart of gold, and very very generous. To add another three to his household was an act of great self-sacrifice, particularly as we could not pay our way. Dollars were at such a premium for the war effort that Father was only allowed to send us $5 per month. Uncle Bob called it his war effort.

Winter came. A measles epidemic started to sweep across the town. I was to be isolated, but how could this be done, and how could we keep warm? Mother was tough and resourceful. There was a motel being built just out of town on the Trans-Canada Highway. It was just a horseshoe of a dozen one-roomed houses, with an office and loo block in the middle. Work had stopped for the winter. The owner was a drinking man. The country had crazy alcohol laws; drinking was only legal with a liquor permit or in hotel beer parlours. She made her way to the one hotel. Shouts of boozy laughter and cries of 鈥淐an you beat that?鈥� came through the door as she knocked. Six hard drinkers tuned to face her. She told her tale, won their hearts and was granted the use of the only finished hut rent free till spring. It was tiny. There was a wood stove, an oil lamp, a basin, a bucket behind a curtain for use as a loo when it was too cold to go up to the office, two beds, two chairs and a table. Luxury. But we had virtually no money. Absolute essentials we could buy on Uncle Bob鈥檚 account at the Salmon Arms Farmers鈥� Exchange, but other supplies simply arrived. We were the town鈥檚 war work. A new friend arrived with firewood, a box of apples and seven pounds of honey.

We were safe, warm and alive, but it couldn鈥檛 last. After Christmas it would be far colder and these huts were built for summer. Mother looked round for something warmer. Over the other side of the valley, far above the town, the steep slope of the mountainside was interrupted by a shelf perhaps half a mile wide left by some retreating glacier. On it were perched four or five small farms, scraping a living. It was known as Poverty Flats. An impoverished farming couple were glad to take me in (for very little reward) as a paying guest. To say they were poor doesn鈥檛 really convey how poor. They had no farm machinery, apart from an old lorry engine to drive the buzz-saw to cut building materials and firewood, and a pickup which they could scarcely afford to use. They milked by hand and separated the cream by hand. They cultivated by horse power. They felled trees by hand. They grew huge amounts of lovely vegetables. Of course there was no fridge or freezer, but the cabbages hung in the barn, the tomatoes and fruit were bottled, they slaughtered their own pigs and cattle. The pork was sweet-cured, put in a box and buried in the snow. The slaughter of a steer was a major event. The animal was hung up by the hind legs from a huge wooden tripod. The famer slaved away for what seemed like days, and the smell permeated us all and everything. Of course in the cold there was no hurry to eat it; it just had to be hung high enough to keep it away from the bears. For light we had paraffin lamps, but there was a strict rule that only the minimum was allowed. You burnt the lamp very low, and if not using it you turned it out. Water was carried by hand from the crick 鈥� the stream that ran through the farm.

Mother had great plans for moving again and keeping the family together. Perhaps a mile or two along the Flats, was another farm, derelict, empty and rotting. The owners had gone bankrupt and given up the struggle years before, but the house was just habitable, and come the thaw and with the blessing of the little Flats community we moved in. It was quite a big single storey square house, with wonderful view of the valley from the verandah. Behind this was a vast living room, with one or two tables and chairs left by the owners. Round the sides, where the roof was lower, were small bedrooms, with two or three uncomfortable beds. The crick was a long way off, but our kind neighbours sank a barrel in it so we could dip a bucket in, and lent us a water carrier 鈥� a two-wheeled cart with handle bar and a ten gallon tank slung between the wheels. The top was open, so you had to be careful on the way home up the rough path to the house. This was a happy time. We could explore and play and climb trees (and fall out of them) in the forest 鈥� keeping a look out for bears. There were other wild things about as well. One night we woke with alarm to a regular rhythmic grinding noise. Somebody or something was sawing up the verandah or the front door. I heard the other two exchanging terrified whispers, and very bravely deciding they must go and see. As they tiptoed across the living room the noise stopped; as they settled back in bed it started again. If they opened the door there was nothing there. Back to bed and it started again. It was not a good night. In the light of the morning we opened the door to find that a great deal of work had been done 鈥� the threshold had been reduced to chips 鈥� it had been a porcupine.

That summer we went into 鈥渃amp鈥�. Down on the shore of the Shuswap Lake, between the single track trans-Canada railway and the beach was a row of splendid huts, big cabins with room for whole families. This was the most splendid holiday 鈥� all the cousins and the three of us. Uncle Bob would come at weekends - ten of us, plus the children of farming friends, mostly sleeping on the floor, under the stars or in a tent. We swam, we explored the forest (always lying down with an ear on the railway line before crossing), there was a raft with a diving board anchored off shore, neighbours had boats for the occasional trip out into the lake. I learnt to swim with undignified water wings. We had campfires on the beach and roasted wieners and marshmallows on sticks. We lived barefoot, but had to be careful not to tread in poison ivy. All too soon the fall arrived and the school term loomed.

Our next move (in the autumn of 1941) was to another shack in the apple-growing hills outside Salmon Arm. Mother had succeeded in renting it for $100 per year. It was luxury compared with Poverty Flats. We now had a tiny weatherproof house, with (almost) a bedroom each. It was fully furnished and had a wood stove (a neighbour gave us 5 cords of cut firewood). It had a tap for fresh water! It stood in a clearing in the forest, which was open to the orchard on one side. Opposite the front door across the clearing was the loo; a wooden hut over a deep pit, with a plank to sit on 鈥� with two holes in it! Big families would have a longer plank with more holes. Perhaps even a 鈥渇amily 5 holer鈥�.

Our new home was a couple of miles out of town on a dirt road; three quarters of a mile further on was the school. All eight grades were in one room 鈥� each grade being a line of desks from front to back 鈥� with one teacher. My sister walked to school every day, but recorded that she didn鈥檛 learn much. I continued being taught by Mother, and by correspondence by Father. She was wonderful with English literature; he answered my continual questions on scientific matters and astronomy. I was also learning to write 鈥� something I had not been able to manage lying flat on my back.

The winter was superb 鈥� deep snow, sunny and dry. We were snug in our shack. We went for walks, to the mystification of the Canadians. There were just a few cars on the roads, and they always stopped to offer a lift. We acquired a white cat, we bred rabbits. The meat was more than welcome, and we cured the skins with saltpetre to make gloves. One day in early spring came the Chinook. The snow was still two feet deep; the air became warm and dry. The snow didn鈥檛 so much melt as evaporate 鈥� it just disappeared and spring was with us; all in two days. We opened a vegetable garden and planted peas, runner beans, carrots and lettuces. We fed the rabbits on chickweed and dandelions. We played in tree houses with the children on nearby farms. We even acquired a bicycle. We could now go for extended walks, one riding the cycle for a mile and leaving it for the other to walk to pick it up and ride a mile further than the walker. Life was good.

Education was a problem, but a very good friend invited us to live with her in Vancouver. There was hardly room, but I had a bedroom; Mother and my sister slept in one bed on the verandah, under many blankets!

Mother set about finding schools. My sister went to a convent, which kindly allowed father to pay their sister house in England, and St Georges said that he could pay after the war. This was the first time I had been to school since kindergarten at the age of five. Though I was well read I had never tackled any ordinary school subjects. Arithmetic and writing were very difficult. I withstood quite a bit of teasing for my English accent, and soon learnt to speak Canadian. Mother decided that she must become independent so she took gardening jobs, and rented a room in a boarding house down on the rough old town of English Bay. This was a beautiful row of dilapidated Victorian houses, down by the waterfront more or less in Chinatown. We spent happy weekends there, eating Chinese takeaways 鈥� a long time before Chinese fast food appeared in Britain.

In spring 1943 Father was sent over by the Admiralty to discuss top secret scientific developments with the Canadian government in Ottawa, and the Americans in Washington. Mother actually spoke to him on the telephone. It was clear from inside reports from the Admiralty that the Battle of the Atlantic was being won; the German bombers and U-boats had been inflicting such damage to allied shipping that it was practically impossible to get munitions and food across the Atlantic. With an enormous effort and the sacrifice of countless lives, and with the help of secret weapons such as Asdic, infra-red and radar we beat them, and the last few U-boats were being sunk. The war in North Africa had also at last started to go our way, with the appointment of Montgomery as C-in-C, and the defeat of Rommel. There was now talk of our getting back to Blighty before the end of the war.

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