“June 29 Dear Granny, The train trip wasn’t too bad though I was miserable with a cold one day. Trish travelled fairly well. Met some nice people on the train who we played cards and password with. Montreal is very hot – hardly slept all night. We are going up here today. Love Aileen + Pat”
Montreal was a large city and though I had grown up in a city there were two major differences. Of course, Montreal is a French-speaking city, so signs would have been in French. As I had taken French in school, this wouldn’t have caused any problems, but hearing French spoken would have been unusual.
What sticks in my mind most was the traffic culture. In Vancouver, pedestrians always obeyed traffic lights and never crossed the road without the “WALK” signal or a green light, even if there were no cars coming. In Montreal, however, it seemed like chaos to me – people crossing against the light, dashing between moving cars. Cars were honking their horns a lot more. This was my first real experience of a different culture.
The picture in the postcard is taken from the hill above the center of Montreal. We climbed up the hill and walked around Mount Royal Park. I have always enjoyed the great outdoors, more than city streets, so I remember walking through the trees.
My memory is warm, sunny, summer weather, though on the postcard Aileen mentioned that it was very hot.
Up until this trip, I had only traveled to places by car, ferry or bus. So this trip introduced me to other types of long distance travel and it included a three-day train trip, a six-day ocean liner voyage across the Atlantic Ocean and an international jet plane flight.
Cross Canada train trip – June 25 – 28
The first leg of the trip was a three-day train trip from Vancouver to Montreal. We were assigned two sleeping berths which would make up into sitting places during the daytime. At night, an upper bunk/berth would be folded down and the seats were made into one bed. A curtain would be pulled across to give some semblance of privacy. There would have been a bathroom at the end of the train car.
During the first part of the trip, there would have been a car with the observation deck so that one could see the fabulous scenery in British Columbia. I remember sitting there and experiencing the Fraser Valley and the Fraser Canyon from the observation deck. Unfortunately, even in June, it gets dark at night and then there was bedtime too. Something new to experience, sleeping on a moving train.
The next morning we were in Jasper and from there the train travelled across the prairies. Having read about the prairies as flat, it was interesting to see how it wasn’t as flat as I expected. The terrain was often rolling and there were rivers that had cut down into the land and created an uneven landscape. However it did become a bit monotonous and then we often played cards or talked to the people that were travelling with us.
I don’t have the train schedule, but at some point we passed through Winnipeg and travelled on through the Canadian Shield where there were lots of trees and lakes. I think that somewhere near Sudbury, in Ontario, the train was divided in two – one part going on to Toronto and the part we were on going on to Montreal.
From the back of a postcard sent from Montreal: “June 29 Dear Granny Hi. The train trip wasn’t too bad though I was miserable with a cold one day. Trish travelled fairly well. Met some nice people on the train who we played cards and password with.”
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean – July 1 – 7
The second leg of the trip was a six-day voyage by ocean liner from Montreal to Cobh, Ireland. This was still a time when passenger ships crossed the Atlantic Ocean, though it was probably nearing the end of such regular routes. The ship we were on, the Arkadia, was not very new and not so very large, but it was a completely new experience for me.
We sailed from Montreal to Ireland on the Arkadia.
We left Montreal in the afternoon and we reached Quebec City after dark. We then headed north of the island of Newfoundland and into the Atlantic Ocean.
This was an interesting experience and a very new experience for me. Every meal was eaten in a dining room where we sat with the same people for every meal and had the same waiter for every meal. I was never a very social person so I don’t remember much of the evening activities that I’m sure were available on board.
I do remember that all of the days were grey and cool. It was nothing like what I had expected, which was sunny days. The sea, however, was calm, which was quite good for someone who often gets motion sickness. I don’t remember having any problems at all with that. Though one could walk around the decks to get exercise outdoors, in the middle of the Atlantic there is absolutely nothing to see, especially when the sky and the sea are the same grey color. I was very disappointed and probably got very bored as we were on the boat for six days.
On the back of the postcard is written: “July 7 Dear Granny, This is the boat we are on. The trip was quite good. We met some interesting people. Ireland is in view now. We will be landing in a couple of hours. Haven’t seen the sun since we left Montreal. Love Aileen + Trish”
We got off the Arkadia at its first stop in Europe. Cobh is on the south coast of Ireland, in a sheltered bay in County Cork. The boat anchored off Cobh and a tender took us to land. I was now in Europe.
After looking up the SS Arkadia on the internet, I came across this link (http://www.c-and-e-museum.org/marville/other/maother-40.html, downloaded 2020.03.31) which gives some information about the ship.
Built in Walker-upon-Tyne as the Monarch of Bermuda and launched in March 1931
It served as a troop ship during the Second World War
It was rebuilt and renamed in 1947 as the New Australia
It was bought by the Greek Line in 1958 and renamed the Arkadia
Its route was Bremerhavn, Southampton, Cherbourg, Cobh, Quebec, Montreal. We took the reverse route.
Its last voyage was in August 1966 and it was laid up in November 1966. It was sent to Spain for scrapping.
Tourist day trips by bus
We often took day trips to various tourist places. This was very common and easy to book once you were in a city or town. This allowed people to see places outside of the cities and yet get back to your B & B or hotel in the evening. The trips we took included:
From Cork to Killarney
From Dublin to Glendalough
From Dublin to Boyne Valley
From Belfast to the Giant’s Causeway
From Belfast to the Mourne Mountains
Jet plane home – September 9
Getting home we took a jet plane from London to Vancouver. This was my first plane trip ever and I find it interesting that in my notes from the trip I use the word “jet” when describing the plane. Air travel was still relatively new. We took an Air Canada DC-8 as in the picture below.
This was the type of plane we flew home on.This is the airport we flew home from. It was renamed Heathrow Airport in 1966.
I was sixteen and my sister had just turned twenty-four. She had saved up her money (she was working as a nurse) and wanted a traveling companion and the two of us took off for eleven weeks. The goal was to visit our relatives in Ireland and England as well as visit my sister’s birthplace in Glasgow, Scotland.
Trish on the left and Aileen on the right
This blog will be an overview of the trip, but more memories from the trip will also come out in other blogs later so that this one doesn’t become enormous. As memories are notoriously bad at remembering correct details, you, the reader, will just have to accept that this is what I remember over 50 years later. I’m sure my sister will have remembered quite different things.
This trip was my first extended trip outside of my home province of British Columbia. I’m not good at remembering people from back then, though reading sent postcards has been interesting. Traveling is a good way of learning about oneself and also learning about how other people do things differently, though not necessarily in a better or worse way. I think teenagers and young adults should spend time traveling to places where they get to see how other people live as this is a good learning experience.
I have found a “log” over what we did each day, but it doesn’t include any details. I also have an album with the postcards that I collected to show where I had been. I didn’t have a camera, though my sister had one with her. Photos were expensive to develop and print in the 1960s. I didn’t have much money of my own so decided to just buy postcards as souvenirs and a picture memory of where we had been. Many of the postcards were sent to people and then retrieved from them when we got home. Some of them even say on the back “Please keep this card for Trish.”
We started on the 25th of June at 16:25 by taking the CN train from Vancouver to Montreal arriving there at 18:00 on the 28th of June a little over 73 hours (three days) after leaving Vancouver. We were in a sleeper with bunk beds made up at night, had seats during the daytime, and had all our meals on board the train. We passed through Jasper and Winnipeg.
We stayed in Montreal for three nights. On the 1st of July at 11:00 we took off by boat from Montreal, on the Arkadia, heading to Ireland. spending 6 nights on the boat. On the 7th of July we landed at 19:00 at Cobh, the port for Cork, going to land by tender.
We stayed here for one night in a guest house, then moved to Cork where we stayed two nights, visiting first Blarney Castle, then Killarney.
On the 10th of July we traveled by train to Dublin where we met my Uncle Ken who at the time lived with his daughter, Audrey, and they put us up during our stay in Dublin. We also met other uncles, aunts and cousins while we were there. These were my dad’s sisters, brothers and their children.
On the 23rd of July we took the train to Belfast where we stayed for five nights. We took two bus tours where we saw the Giant’s Causeway and the Mourne Mountains. This was a period of relative quiet in Northern Ireland and I don’t remember any unrest at all.
On the 28th of July we took an overnight boat across to Glasgow arriving early the next morning. Here we stayed with some friends of my parents. This was the city where my sister was born and it was only twenty years since my parents and my sister had moved to Vancouver, Canada. Here we were taken on several day trips in Scotland, including Loch Lomond, the Trossachs, Stranrær, Edinburgh, Tarbert and Prestwick.
On the 6th of August we took the train to Rochdale, which is just outside of Manchester and stayed with my dad’s brother, Walter Commins. He also took us on several day trips while we were there, including York, Scarborough, Blackpool, Southport, the Lake District and North Wales.
On the 21st of August we went by bus to Stratford-upon-Avon and stayed two nights there, before heading to London. We arrived in London on August 23rd and stayed in and around London until we left on September 9th. We flew home from Heathrow airport direct to Vancouver.
This trip was also about being in close contact with my sister for weeks on end. Fortunately we were both quite good at looking after each other and I only remember once getting very fed up with her. I also remember sitting playing cards with her in the evenings, especially when we were staying in guesthouses and not with relatives. I felt like I was treated as the young adult that I felt that I was, even though my sister was considerably older than me. We still have a good relationship and keep in touch on a regular basis.
On the outside the school looks very much as I remember it. I started in September 1955 when I was five and a half years old, not turning six until December. I attended the school for six years.
Pupils were restricted to which entrances could be used. The girls went in on the right-hand side in the picture above and the boys went in on the left-hand side. We were supposed to go in from the backside of the school. Because Vancouver has a very wet climate, there were two very large open spaces in this basement floor, off which were the toilets and cloakrooms. We were expected to hang up our outdoor clothing in the cloakroom before going to our classroom.
On wet days, we used to play in the basement during recess, the boys on the boys’ side and the girls on the girls’ side. It would have been noisy when everyone was running around, playing games, or just talking with each other. But it was better than being outside and getting soaking wet.
Kerrisdale School always had a very large open area around it and I think it is still in tact. There was a treed area where one could climb trees or run around between them. There were sports fields for playing different games. There was an black-topped area with a hard surface where we could play hopscotch or skip rope. The outside area was at several different elevations so it was easy to find a place for the group one was in that was separate from other groups.
On the few winter days when there was enough snow, one could use a sled and slide down the long slope. However, a more important memory is riding my bike around the school grounds on summer evenings. The paved areas were a favorite and one could ride around the building many times with one’s friends. I only lived a few short blocks away, so the school grounds could also be used in our free time.
In second grade there were too few classrooms for what was needed, so we were housed in “portables”, where we had a hallway where we would hang up our coats and take off our wet boots.
In third grade my class was in the new addition (which was off to the left of the main building in the picture). The new addition had a gymnasium and a lunch room as well as new classrooms.
I lived close enough to the elementary school to go home for lunch every day. We had an hour for lunch and it was good to go home. In the winter months it was often soup and sandwiches. The exercise of going home for lunch was good for young bodies. If my mom was not going to be at home for lunch, I could usually go over to my girlfriend, Kerry’s house. Occasionally I had to take a lunch to school. I didn’t like those days as the time seemed to drag. When most kids went home for lunch, there were few kids at the school and not necessarily the ones that I was used to playing with.
My daughter has just given me this book and asked me to write in it. My first response was that I had wanted to write some of my memories in this weblog. My second response was how interesting the questions in the book are, as they make one think about different aspects of the past.
I have decided to hand-write in the book periodically, but also to put some of my memories in this series of blogs.
I have often thought about writing down some of my memories. As I got older I would have liked to know more about my own parents’ lives . Unfortunately we lived far from each other and communication wan’t nearly as easy thirty years ago as it is today with the internet. I think this book will help me write down memories that are worth sharing with the younger generation.
One of the reasons that relating memories can be important is to show how things were done differently in the past. In addition, I grew up in a big city with lots of other children to play with while my children grew up out in the country with few playmates close by. My experiences are not their experiences. Relating some of my memories may help them understand how I came to be the person I am.
I started school in September 1955 and attended Kerrisdale School, which was about a five minute walk from where I lived.
When looking back on memories we have, I often wonder how much has been influenced by what we have heard others say about the event, often afterwards. So the reader will just have to accept my memories as how I remember the event, and not actual fact.
My mother had been very determined that I should start school the year that I turned six, even though I was still only 5 1/2 when the school year started, as my birthday is in December. It wasn’t until several years later that I found out that many of the girls in my class, who also had birthdays in December, were actually one year older than me.
In 1955 the schools in Vancouver, BC, Canada, were coping with the large number of children born shortly after the end of the Second World War. I remember having three full classes in each grade all through elementary school. A full class had 40 pupils, five “columns” of desks (from front to back) and eight desks in each column. This lasted most of my 12 years at school.
On the first day of school, there were too many children in the classroom I had been assigned to. There were 42 children and only 40 desks. I wouldn’t remember who it actually was, so I must have heard my mother say something about the situation. Two children were picked out to start a year later. The reason, I heard, was because they could not yet hold a pencil, so their mothers were told to teach them a few very basic skills so they could start a year later. How true this was, I have no way of knowing.
