We Sailed on the Sloop John B

By June

It was 1960 and the song playing was ‘we sailed on the Sloop John B’ which was quite appropriate as in March that year, one week after we were married my husband and me sailed across the Atlantic from Liverpool not on the Sloop John B, but on the Empress of Canada. Seven says later we docked in Montreal, then after a five-hour train journey arrived in Toronto.

We found a couple of furnished rooms to rent in a large house owned by a French Canadian couple. Our rooms were on the first floor. There was also a young German lad and a couple with a baby who were also from Germany in the house.

It was a very friendly household. The landlady was a treasure. They had no children of their own so she was like a mother hen to us, keeping us well supplied with home made goodies.

We were always included in their weekend jaunts to the Lake and they even took us to Niagara Falls.

I son found work in the offices of Simpsons Dept. Store the largest shop I Toronto. My Boss Mr Kemp was from Scotland so we hit it off straight away. Eddie however couldn’t find work as a Blacksmith, which he loved, so took a job in a factory. As the months passed I could see he wasn’t taking to the Canadian way of life at all and I knew the writing was on the wall when he was laid off at the start of the winter.

And so on the 30^th of November my dream ended when we boarded the Empress of England. As the tug pulled us from the dock into the river I felt like jumping ship. 

The St. Lawrence River is steeped in history and is eye-wateringly beautiful with its green banks and picturesque villages. What a contrast to our arrival in Liverpool with its grimy buildings and black smoking chimneys. The dark overcast skies matched my mod exactly.

On the train back to Newcastle I suggested to Eddie that we might try Australia, his reply however was unrepeatable.

In those few short months we had saved enough to put a deposit down on a new house in Cramlington and fully furnish it, which gave us a good start. But every time I hear Sloop John B I’m transported straight back to that summer in Canada.