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My Early Memories of Canada
by Gillian Hewitt 
In the spring of 1952, my mother, my two brothers, and I left our home at 13 Blackburn Road in Bolton, Lancashire, England, and sailed on the Queen to join my father in Canada and to start a new life there. A few months earlier, believing that this young country of just 14 million people held great promise for us, he had gone on ahead to find a job and a place for us. On the ship, I ran along the decks after my brothers who looked very British in their shorts, jackets, and caps. Together, we went to the cinema (which was a new experience for us). Three times a day we ate at a big table with white linen napkins and tablecloth and too many knives and forks. I wore the dresses my mother had made for me and had a mass of ringlets that she brushed out for me every night, despite my howls. My father had taken a job with Jerrold Radio in Toronto, which at the time had a population of 700,000. Since we had very little money, having used most of our savings for the trip, he gladly accepted the offer made by one of the company's employees, Evelyn Harrop, to let us live in her basement until we could find other accommodations. Her home on 173 7th Street in New Toronto was a two-story duplex, covered with imitation red-brick siding that was popular at the time. Our basement "apartment" consisted of a living room, one bedroom, and a kitchen/bathroom. The living room had a cement floor, painted brownish-red and covered with a thin rug. The walls were cement block, painted pale yellow and sprinkled with a generous assortment of Luther Harrop's oil paintings. Luther liked to paint women, especially nudes, a source of much delight to my brothers and of much distress to my very British, very modest mother. In the middle of the "living room" on the back wall loomed a monster coal furnace. Its silver skin was pockmarked with age and its tentacles snaked out in all directions, providing heat to the far reaches of the house above. On the right of the entrance to the bedroom was a small door that led to the coal bin. This was a room with a tiny window, through which the coal deliverymen would insert a metal chute, and a mountain of coal would thunder into the bin. On those days, clouds of black dust would float through the air and settle on the furniture--another source of distress for my mother. My father was an electrical engineer, and our family's claim to fame was the TV he had made out of parts. When my dad came home with it one day, it was one of the first televisions on the block. In September of 1952, the Canadian Broadcasting Company first went on the air with CBLT in Toronto. I remember watching the test pattern just for fun, since there weren't many programs. Later, we would watch Hockey Night in Canada, and I was allowed to stay up on Sunday nights to see the Campbell Soup Kids' commercial on the Ed Sullivan Show. Most of the time, however, the 17-inch circular screen was blank. An open archway led from the living room to the small kitchen. Along the kitchen's far wall were two cement laundry tubs. These served as kitchen sink, laundry sink, bathroom sink, and bathtub for the children. To the right of these was a rickety table, painted yellow and covered with a vinyl, checkered cloth. The table served as a countertop between the sink and a small four-burner electric stove. At the other end of the kitchen was a makeshift bathroom that consisted of a toilet separated from the rest of the room by a temporary wall of thin wallboard. There was no room in the kitchen for the icebox, so it became a piece of our living room furniture. Every week, the iceman would come down the stairs wielding a huge block of ice, held securely in the grip of the large, black tongs. Clinging to the ice were specks of sawdust, which was used to keep the ice cold in the non-refrigerated truck. The iceman would open the upper door of the icebox and, with a grunt, hoist the block of ice onto the shelf, where it would keep our food cold for the coming week. My brother Steve and I loved to swing on the lower door of the icebox. When Mom's back was turned, we would take turns hanging on to the top edge of the door as it swung back and forth on its hinges. The weight of a new block of ice would counterbalance our weight and keep the icebox upright We did not understand the physics involved however, and one day when we played this game, the ice block was all but melted. I jumped up on the door and, as I was holding on, it swung out. What a ride! Suddenly, the icebox was destabilized and it started to topple forward. Down it came! My head hit the hard floor. Then the weight of the icebox crashed onto my head. I was out cold. Steve rushed upstairs to find Mom. When she arrived at the scene, she was frantic. There I was, trapped under the icebox, with a red pool oozing out from under my body. Mom got me out from under the icebox and set me on the sofa. She placed a cool cloth over the rather large lump on my forehead (which is still there today). As I lay there, Steve was reprimanded for the swinging game and the icebox was righted. The red liquid? It turned out to be tomato. Sleeping arrangements were cramped in our small apartment. My parents used the pullout sofa in the living room and kept a watchful eye on the monster furnace. At first, I slept in the single bedroom with my brothers. They shared a double bed and I had a makeshift one in the steamer trunk that had carried our belongings from Britain. Soon, however, I charmed my way into sharing a bed upstairs with Evelyn's daughter, Eleanor, who was 18 and soon to be married. Stretching across the front of the house was a verandah, which became my outdoor refuge. I would sit there for hours, painstakingly cutting from the pages of my "cut-out" books and dressing my paper dolls with the latest fashions that I found there. Was this the start of my passion for sewing and fashion? A small lawn spanned the front of the duplex. A driveway at the side led to a one-car garage. Because it wouldn't fit into the garage, Luther Harrop's Cadillac was always parked in the driveway. The back yard was a narrow patch of grass surrounded by flowerbeds. To the left of us was the Polish Hall, which came alive every Saturday with the music and the excitement of a wedding. The strains of lively polkas often lured me into that wedding hall in search of the bride in her beautiful lacy white dress. I would wander among the guests like Cinderella at the ball as the wedding magic unfolded around me. The guests never seemed to mind having a little intruder. Sometimes they gave me food and even danced with me. Then my mother would appear, apologizing profusely, and whisk me away. One day, the most fabulous thing happened: I was asked to be the flower girl in Eleanor's wedding! I remember standing in the living room of our little apartment as my mother pinned the hem of the pink dress I was to wear to the ceremony. She had made the dress out of a hand-me-down. It was full-length, with short sleeves, a pink sash, and an underskirt covered with a fine, thin net called a tulle. To me, it was a princess's dress. Mom had fashioned a small hat with the tulle, and my blonde ringlets spilled out from under it. I felt very special. The wedding itself was a blur. Clutching my nosegay of pink and white carnations, walking step-close, step-close down the aisle without tripping, deciding which fork to use...and then it was over and the bride and the groom were leaving--without me! How could this be? My last memory of the most exciting moment of my life was being carried kicking and howling out of the hotel and put to bed. And life went on at 173 7th Street.  Gillian Hewitt is a Certified SLN Affiliate.
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