Thursday, November 14, 2019
Montreal -Winter 1942-43
I finally got out of the hospital. Spring in Montreal comes late, but it was beginning to look like spring.
My pea plant had grown nicely. It was good to see it in person, if a pea can be said to be a person, and sparked my interest in growing things.
One afternoon my parents were entertaining another couple when the doorbell rang. My father opened the door. There was a young boy standing there. "Telegram for Mr. Wilde"! Much excitement ensued, the guests were quickly ushered out, and my parents sat down to bask in the wonderful news.
As I have said, we were living in very straitened circumstances at this time, with my mother stretching every penny. Some time before, hoping for a decent income, my father had applied for a commission in the British Army. His knowledge of shipping was evidently of value to the British military to relocate their personnel. It was the shipping experience, and not the education that they valued. So now, wonder of wonders, he had suddenly become a Second Lieutenant (pronounced Left-tenant) in the British Army! Leslie Wilde, although well educated , had never gone to University, and thus did not qualify for a commission in the military. He had been too old during World WarII to enlist in the ranks, but now, in his 40's, he had achieved, in a flash, a lifelong ambition. Upper class status with a well paying job.
My father would have liked to have been "to the Manor born ". He had a lordly manner and would hand out lavish tips, which he could ill afford, saying "Here, my good man, take this!"
He grew up in a part of Northern England where people tended to have strong regional accents. He did not consider that 'cooth'. He apparently took elocution lessons at one point in his early life in order to lose his Manchester accent, and forever after, spoke only in the most cultured "British Broadcasting Company" accent. He could mimic a Manchester accent very well, and being a natural linguist, could speak a smattering of Russian, Japanese and German, but he never, never spoke when serious in anything but the most impeccable BBC.
Very soon he appeared in uniform. There were the "pips" on his lapel to designate rank, and a lot of buttons that had to be polished, an officer's hat with brim with some fancy stuff also denoting rank, but what I marveled at most was the Sam Brown. Now if you don't know what a Sam Brown is, you can look it up. He also had a swagger stick that officers carried. Wow!
When he was transferred to New Brunswick that spring, he was immediately put to work in the port of Saint John, and since the job required it, he was bumped up to the rank of Captain. Captain in the British Army!
Oh, My!
Saturday, October 5, 2019
Scarlet Fever
The winter of my ninth year was hard. My health had suffered in the unfamiliar climate of Quebec and I spent a good deal of that winter in bed with one childhood ailment after another. My father had no job. My mother for the first time in her married life had to cook, clean, sew and manage to the penny my father's meager stipend. As described I had a daily four mile trek to school, but helped her when I could. One project was to grow peas, indoors! We put a sprouting pea in a cup on some cotton wool and I watered it daily.
It was a lonely time as I had no siblings, no friends. All my relatives were being bombed in England. I had never met any of them. I begged my mother for a little brother. "No." she said. "A sister?" "No." "A dog?" "No." Well, we did have a cat.
When I developed a high fever one evening, the doctor was called and he made a terrible pronouncement. Because scarlet fever was extremely infectious it was necessary for me to be taken immediately to the hospital for quarantine. I was trundled off that night in an ambulance, and found myself in a brightly lit ward in a cot with side rails, a prison cell. The hospital ward was full of cots, with nurses bustling about. I began to cry. "I want my Mummy!" A nurse tried to cheer me. "How long will I be here?" "Oh, about two weeks. " TWO WEEKS! "When can I see my mother?" "Shhh! Go to sleep". She hurried off to forestall more questioning.
I continued to cry. Two weeks seemed like an eternity. Would I see her before then? The answers were evasive. The ward was brightly lit, and never in my life had I slept in a brightly lit room at night. A record was playing in the distance. "You Are My Sunshine". I can never hear that song without recalling that awful night. It was the first time I stayed awake all night.
In the morning the doctors and interns came to "inspect" me. As I was a charity patient the medical staff allowed me to earn my keep by becoming an object of scrutiny. " Look here," the doctors would point at my scarlet chest, and the group would move on to the next patient. I found this humiliating, but there was more. I would not have any visitors during the quarantine period. I could write to my parents, and receive letters from them, but first the letter and envelope had to be 'sterilized' by sunlight outside.
Since there was not much sunlight during a Montreal winter, the mail delivery to and fro was painfully slow. My mother wrote every day, but sometimes I would get no mail for several days, then it would arrive all at once. There were no telephones. Those letters were my one link to happiness. The nurses were kind, but they were not my mother. I might as well have been quarantined on the moon.
I soon learned that, although I did not have a bad case of the fever, regulations required me to be in the hospital for FIVE WEEKS. I counted off the days, grimly accepting my fate.
My mother drew pictures in her letters of the progress of the pea. First the root lengthened downward, then the top began to sprout leaves. She told me of the coming signs of spring in the back alley. From my hospital bed I could see nothing but concrete roofs. Five weeks!
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Montreal apartment
Our low-rent-but-good-school-district choice of abode was very important to my parents, who aspired to nothing less that a college education for their daughter.
The janitor's apartment we rented was such a compromise. It was below ground level, but my small bedroom window could look out onto the front courtyard at sidewalk level. My parents bedroom had a similar window. The room where I slept, actually more of a storage room, had a door leading to a back passageway, with a short flight of stairs up to ground level opening onto a back alley. Nearby was the chute to the coal cellar. The coal was delivered by a truck that poured coal noisily down to the coal bin, coal that would feed the large furnaces that kept us warm.
The entrance to the apartment building was blocked by the main door opened with an owner's key or a buzzer if you were a visitor. To get into our apartment we went down a half-flight of stairs to our front door. This opened directly onto a living room. To the left was a small hall which opened onto my parent's bedroom and bathroom. Going down the hall the other way the living room became a kitchen, and beyond that, my room. We ate at a small table in the kitchen. In the evening we would listen to the news on a three foot high wooden radio in the living room and live radio shows Sunday nights.
At eight I still believed, a teeny bit, in boogy men! It was fall and I had found an acorn tree and gathered some acorns in a paper bag. I put them in the passageway, closed the door into my bedroom, and forgot about them. Sometime in the night I heard noises. Snapping, popping noises. Dare I look under the bed? The sounds continued and half frantic with fear, I finally got courage to flee out of the room, through the kitchen, through the living room down the hall into my parents room. They got up to investigate. Nothing under the bed. Someone thought to look in the passage way and found the acorns were snapping and popping away, perhaps due to worms inside. I never cared to find out.
Fall turned to winter, and my parents were able to buy me a sled. Across Sherbrooke Street was a little park, where children used to gather to slide down a snowy hill on toboggans or sleds. I had never done this before and found it quite delightful. The boys wore woolen knickers to keep their legs warm, but girls didn't wear pants in those days. The problem was solved by the so-called Red River outfit, hight fashion for little girls, consisting of a heavy navy pea coat calf length, a red knit hat called a toque, a matching knit sash and heavy red stockings and mittens. I longed for one, but, alas we could not afford it. I do not remember making any friends there, but while sliding down the hill I would play with the other kids as kids do, and enjoyed the novelty of so much snow.
The janitor's apartment we rented was such a compromise. It was below ground level, but my small bedroom window could look out onto the front courtyard at sidewalk level. My parents bedroom had a similar window. The room where I slept, actually more of a storage room, had a door leading to a back passageway, with a short flight of stairs up to ground level opening onto a back alley. Nearby was the chute to the coal cellar. The coal was delivered by a truck that poured coal noisily down to the coal bin, coal that would feed the large furnaces that kept us warm.
The entrance to the apartment building was blocked by the main door opened with an owner's key or a buzzer if you were a visitor. To get into our apartment we went down a half-flight of stairs to our front door. This opened directly onto a living room. To the left was a small hall which opened onto my parent's bedroom and bathroom. Going down the hall the other way the living room became a kitchen, and beyond that, my room. We ate at a small table in the kitchen. In the evening we would listen to the news on a three foot high wooden radio in the living room and live radio shows Sunday nights.
At eight I still believed, a teeny bit, in boogy men! It was fall and I had found an acorn tree and gathered some acorns in a paper bag. I put them in the passageway, closed the door into my bedroom, and forgot about them. Sometime in the night I heard noises. Snapping, popping noises. Dare I look under the bed? The sounds continued and half frantic with fear, I finally got courage to flee out of the room, through the kitchen, through the living room down the hall into my parents room. They got up to investigate. Nothing under the bed. Someone thought to look in the passage way and found the acorns were snapping and popping away, perhaps due to worms inside. I never cared to find out.
Fall turned to winter, and my parents were able to buy me a sled. Across Sherbrooke Street was a little park, where children used to gather to slide down a snowy hill on toboggans or sleds. I had never done this before and found it quite delightful. The boys wore woolen knickers to keep their legs warm, but girls didn't wear pants in those days. The problem was solved by the so-called Red River outfit, hight fashion for little girls, consisting of a heavy navy pea coat calf length, a red knit hat called a toque, a matching knit sash and heavy red stockings and mittens. I longed for one, but, alas we could not afford it. I do not remember making any friends there, but while sliding down the hill I would play with the other kids as kids do, and enjoyed the novelty of so much snow.
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Moving to Montreal
As I have written, in August of 1941 my father was reunited with us in Vancouver. Some time after that, I am not sure of the date, we moved to Montreal, the other end of the country. The only way across in those days was by train. There was no Trans Canada Highway, so no automobile or bus trips, nor commercial air travel.
I found the four day train trip very exciting. We had a regular seat by day which the black porter made up into berths at night. There was a lower berth, where my parents slept, but I got the upper berth, much more desirable to an eight year old, arrived at by a ladder. There was a heavy dark curtain that pulled across to make my private cave. There was no window in the upper berth, but downstairs you could lie in bed, which I did before my parents came to sleep in the lower berth, and in the fading light I would watch the impressive Canadian Rockies flash by as we left British Columbia for the endless central plains of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The bathroom was not private. You had to go down the ladder, put on your bedroom slippers and walk to the nearest toilet, one at each end of the car. I was very amused by the sign in each toilet room, "PASSENGERS WILL PLEASE REFRAIN FROM FLUSHING TOILETS WHILE THE TRAIN IS STANDING IN THE STATION". Beside the toilet there was a small sink and if I recall, a roller towel. Then you trotted back to the berth, making sure you had the right one because they all looked the same with the curtains drawn, climbed the ladder and drew the covers up in you little cosy world. My clothes for the morning would be ready in the net slung beside my bed. I do not remember taking a shower or bath, but some of the more expensive 'compartments' had private bathrooms.
In the morning we all went to the dining car for breakfast. Since my father still worked for the Canadian Pacific Steamship and Railway company we travelled first class. The first class dining car was quite elegant, in the style of Orient Express. We had breakfast, then went back to our berth which had been magically transformed into two double seats facing each other with a table in between. We read, played cards, looked out the window, and when that got boring, went to the Observation Car where you could sit up high and look out over the vastness of the Canadian countryside.
Montreal
My father had a very small stipend from the CPR to live on, so in Montreal the best my parents could find was a one bedroom janitor's apartment below street level. It was right on Sherbrooke Street in the English speaking suburb of Westmount . You could take a streetcar along Sherbrooke into Montreal, but there were no busses. Since there was a war on there were few private automobiles, milk and other goods were delivered to front doors by a deliveryman driving a sled pulled by horses over the snowy streets.
The nearest public school was Queens, but was not in a very desirable neighborhood, so the decision was made to send me to Kings about a mile away. There were no school busses in those days, so I had to walk - to school in the morning, back home for lunch, then off again for afternoon classes and then home again. There were no school days off for bad weather. Montreal could get bitterly cold.
I was put into fourth grade, with a wonderful teacher called Mrs.Wright. There were rows of desks, each one with an ink well. Every morning the ink monitor got some black powder, mixed it with water, and went to each desk. Bladder pens were not invented then, so we had pens with removable tips or nibs. Splatters were frequent. Blotters were a necessity. Blotters were absorbent sheets of paper that soaked up the wayward ink. Ink stains were an ongoing problem.
We learned a poem called "In Winnipeg at Christmas" .
"In Winnipeg at Christmas there's lots and lots of snow.
Very clean and crisp and hard, and glittering like a Christmas card
Everywhere you go."
We learned about the forthcoming roadway to be built across all of Canada called the Alaska Canada Highway, dubbed the AlCan Highway.
We called it the AshCan Highway.
One morning after heavy snows I was trudging to school in ankle deep drifts. The wind was bitter and even though bundled with wool hat and scarf I felt miserably cold. But suddenly the wind stopped blowing and things felt much better. When I got to the playground my classmates looked at me in horror. "You have frostbite! Rub your face in snow!" The wind had not stopped, my face had frozen! Thawing out from frostbite can be very painful, I can attest.
Montreal to be continued...
I found the four day train trip very exciting. We had a regular seat by day which the black porter made up into berths at night. There was a lower berth, where my parents slept, but I got the upper berth, much more desirable to an eight year old, arrived at by a ladder. There was a heavy dark curtain that pulled across to make my private cave. There was no window in the upper berth, but downstairs you could lie in bed, which I did before my parents came to sleep in the lower berth, and in the fading light I would watch the impressive Canadian Rockies flash by as we left British Columbia for the endless central plains of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The bathroom was not private. You had to go down the ladder, put on your bedroom slippers and walk to the nearest toilet, one at each end of the car. I was very amused by the sign in each toilet room, "PASSENGERS WILL PLEASE REFRAIN FROM FLUSHING TOILETS WHILE THE TRAIN IS STANDING IN THE STATION". Beside the toilet there was a small sink and if I recall, a roller towel. Then you trotted back to the berth, making sure you had the right one because they all looked the same with the curtains drawn, climbed the ladder and drew the covers up in you little cosy world. My clothes for the morning would be ready in the net slung beside my bed. I do not remember taking a shower or bath, but some of the more expensive 'compartments' had private bathrooms.
In the morning we all went to the dining car for breakfast. Since my father still worked for the Canadian Pacific Steamship and Railway company we travelled first class. The first class dining car was quite elegant, in the style of Orient Express. We had breakfast, then went back to our berth which had been magically transformed into two double seats facing each other with a table in between. We read, played cards, looked out the window, and when that got boring, went to the Observation Car where you could sit up high and look out over the vastness of the Canadian countryside.
Montreal
My father had a very small stipend from the CPR to live on, so in Montreal the best my parents could find was a one bedroom janitor's apartment below street level. It was right on Sherbrooke Street in the English speaking suburb of Westmount . You could take a streetcar along Sherbrooke into Montreal, but there were no busses. Since there was a war on there were few private automobiles, milk and other goods were delivered to front doors by a deliveryman driving a sled pulled by horses over the snowy streets.
The nearest public school was Queens, but was not in a very desirable neighborhood, so the decision was made to send me to Kings about a mile away. There were no school busses in those days, so I had to walk - to school in the morning, back home for lunch, then off again for afternoon classes and then home again. There were no school days off for bad weather. Montreal could get bitterly cold.
I was put into fourth grade, with a wonderful teacher called Mrs.Wright. There were rows of desks, each one with an ink well. Every morning the ink monitor got some black powder, mixed it with water, and went to each desk. Bladder pens were not invented then, so we had pens with removable tips or nibs. Splatters were frequent. Blotters were a necessity. Blotters were absorbent sheets of paper that soaked up the wayward ink. Ink stains were an ongoing problem.
We learned a poem called "In Winnipeg at Christmas" .
"In Winnipeg at Christmas there's lots and lots of snow.
Very clean and crisp and hard, and glittering like a Christmas card
Everywhere you go."
We learned about the forthcoming roadway to be built across all of Canada called the Alaska Canada Highway, dubbed the AlCan Highway.
We called it the AshCan Highway.
One morning after heavy snows I was trudging to school in ankle deep drifts. The wind was bitter and even though bundled with wool hat and scarf I felt miserably cold. But suddenly the wind stopped blowing and things felt much better. When I got to the playground my classmates looked at me in horror. "You have frostbite! Rub your face in snow!" The wind had not stopped, my face had frozen! Thawing out from frostbite can be very painful, I can attest.
Montreal to be continued...
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Shangri La (continued)
I chose the name Shangri La because it is a fictional place and I want to keep my chronicle free from lawsuit attacks.
Mifanwe is the name of the heroin in my father's bedtime stories, whose adventures miraculously mirrored my own. I liked his stories about her better than those read to me from books.
So far I have only had one response, that from Trev. Please let me know if you would like to know more details of the place where Mifanwe has moved to.
Chronicles of Shangri La (continued)
Mifanwe had always been called Miv, so from now on that will be her name. She gazed at the stacks of unpacked boxes around her, the furniture placed wherever it would fit, and much too big for the smaller rooms she was to inhabit.
Little by little the living space became more habitable. There was a little alcove off the kitchen she has chosen to have covered in linoleum instead of carpet. This became the tiny dining room, which was just large enough to accommodate the table that opened to twice it's size when the hinged top opened. Eight chairs were too many, but some could be stored in the garage. The bedstead, new mattress and night tables were delivered and the foam mattress moved to the guest room. She now had a proper bed. With the help of her son, who lived a couple of hours drive away, and both grandsons, the furniture was assembled and pictures hung. The boxes, stacked in the living room five and even six on top of each other, gradually dwindled as places were found for the things acquired over 64 years of marriage that she could not bear to give away.
Those first few weeks passed in a kind of trance. Get up in the morning. Push the button, make some coffee, get mail at the near by clubhouse, and back to the work of sorting and unpacking. Miv explored the grounds on foot, for exercise and to find her way around. She had been provided with some rudimentary maps by the Marketing Department, but the names of the streets and buildings were not helpful. Names such as Canyonside, Gardenside, Oakside, Mountainglen, Lakeview, Lakeglen, all seemed to blur together. There was a large meeting room called Santa Cruz Hall, but it was several exploratory walks before she found it.
Mifanwe is the name of the heroin in my father's bedtime stories, whose adventures miraculously mirrored my own. I liked his stories about her better than those read to me from books.
So far I have only had one response, that from Trev. Please let me know if you would like to know more details of the place where Mifanwe has moved to.
Chronicles of Shangri La (continued)
Mifanwe had always been called Miv, so from now on that will be her name. She gazed at the stacks of unpacked boxes around her, the furniture placed wherever it would fit, and much too big for the smaller rooms she was to inhabit.
Little by little the living space became more habitable. There was a little alcove off the kitchen she has chosen to have covered in linoleum instead of carpet. This became the tiny dining room, which was just large enough to accommodate the table that opened to twice it's size when the hinged top opened. Eight chairs were too many, but some could be stored in the garage. The bedstead, new mattress and night tables were delivered and the foam mattress moved to the guest room. She now had a proper bed. With the help of her son, who lived a couple of hours drive away, and both grandsons, the furniture was assembled and pictures hung. The boxes, stacked in the living room five and even six on top of each other, gradually dwindled as places were found for the things acquired over 64 years of marriage that she could not bear to give away.
Those first few weeks passed in a kind of trance. Get up in the morning. Push the button, make some coffee, get mail at the near by clubhouse, and back to the work of sorting and unpacking. Miv explored the grounds on foot, for exercise and to find her way around. She had been provided with some rudimentary maps by the Marketing Department, but the names of the streets and buildings were not helpful. Names such as Canyonside, Gardenside, Oakside, Mountainglen, Lakeview, Lakeglen, all seemed to blur together. There was a large meeting room called Santa Cruz Hall, but it was several exploratory walks before she found it.
Saturday, April 6, 2019
Shangri La chronicles
Introduction.
At Wendy's request I have begun a fictitious chronicle of the place where a certain widow chose to reside shortly after the death of her husband of 64 years. It is fictitious, any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1
A series of fortuitous events allowed our heroine to find herself in a gated community called Shangri La, somewhere in Southern California. It was October, but although some leaves were falling, there was also much tropical vegetation, lofty palm trees, towering birds-of-paradise, hibiscus, succulents and carefully tended roses everywhere.
The gated community housed at any given time somewhat less that 800 people. There were two clubhouses, north and south, two swimming pools, one outdoors, the other and indoor pool and spas with sauna and exercise room adjoining. Each clubhouse had its own dining room and kitchen, with terraces where in the warmer months, residents could dine outside, to the soothing sounds of falling water. There were koi ponds, and large turtles that sunned themselves with legs outstretched.
A paradise indeed.
Our heroine, who shall be called Mifanwe, arrived behind the moving van in a Tesla driven by her son. The movers were directed to place what furniture had been selected from her previous home in the small two bedroom villa she had managed to secure. The mattress went on the floor. The queen size bed frame would come later. The king size bed had been left behind.
At Wendy's request I have begun a fictitious chronicle of the place where a certain widow chose to reside shortly after the death of her husband of 64 years. It is fictitious, any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1
A series of fortuitous events allowed our heroine to find herself in a gated community called Shangri La, somewhere in Southern California. It was October, but although some leaves were falling, there was also much tropical vegetation, lofty palm trees, towering birds-of-paradise, hibiscus, succulents and carefully tended roses everywhere.
The gated community housed at any given time somewhat less that 800 people. There were two clubhouses, north and south, two swimming pools, one outdoors, the other and indoor pool and spas with sauna and exercise room adjoining. Each clubhouse had its own dining room and kitchen, with terraces where in the warmer months, residents could dine outside, to the soothing sounds of falling water. There were koi ponds, and large turtles that sunned themselves with legs outstretched.
A paradise indeed.
Our heroine, who shall be called Mifanwe, arrived behind the moving van in a Tesla driven by her son. The movers were directed to place what furniture had been selected from her previous home in the small two bedroom villa she had managed to secure. The mattress went on the floor. The queen size bed frame would come later. The king size bed had been left behind.
Saturday, March 2, 2019
New Computer
This will be brief. I bought a new computer. The blog site was inaccessible and only Trevor knew the password. He is staying here this weekend and has restored it! You will be getting more blogs soon.
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