"A Traveller's Journal" - 1967/68 Canada

                              A Traveller's Journal - Canada




                                        Letters 142A & B - Montreal : Largest City in Quebec

Montreal, Canada. Friday March 17th 1967 For the first time I am now writing to you from Canada, with London far, far behind us. We departed those shores on Monday and soared across the Atlantic at over 500 miles per hour in a beautiful new VC 10. It was all quite exciting, especially as we ended up visiting another country on the way. This was  because of unexpected strong head winds on the original flight path, so the pilot chose to avoid them by taking a detour which took us over Greenland.(and delayed our arrival time by one hour). As we flew above it I was able to look down and quite clearly see a wilderness of ice and snow, with great jagged mountains. It looked very inhospitable from our cosy cabin in the sky, and it was hard to believe that people actually lived down there. Roger was a little bit - well a big bit - airsick , but I ordered a few beers (press a button and the hostess comes) and in no time he was okay. Best cure for travel sickness!(I know by now). We dined really well on the plane with steak and the works, with wine and liqueurs, and coffee to follow. The General Manager, Fred Dobbs, met us at Montreal Airport, and drove us to the Holiday Inn, one of Montreal's best hotels, where he had a terrific room reserved for us. He then ordered drinks, and had the Lab manager come over to meet us. Later his wife arrived as well, and he took us to dinner at the very posh restaurant in the hotel. What a place it was! It looked like one of those high class restaurants that one sees in an American movie. The meal only cost a mere 17 pounds though(Fred paid), and of course it was marvelous. If we had the equivalent in London, at a similar hotel, it would cost a small fortune.. Not content with that, Fred then insisted on taking us on the rounds of Montreal's night clubs until the wee small hours. I danced with Eileen, his wife, who was a very good dancer, and we even got a round of applause in the night club for our old time waltz. I had seen that happen often in movies, but never in my wildest dreams did I think that it would happen to me and my partner one day!.(all thanks to the Past Pupils dancing classes!). We sang lots of old English songs(it was an English themed night club), and Fred even got them to play "Waltzing Matilda" for me. (I had to sing it too!) We had a marvelous night, although by now Roger and I had been on the go for almost 24 hours. In the morning we phoned the desk and had breakfast sent up to our room.(just like in the movies!) Later Fred had arranged a car to take us to CineLabs for a look about, and said his staff would help us find accommodation. Everyone was very helpful and very friendly, and Fred invited us over to his place on Sunday night for dinner. He also wanted us to start work on Thursday, with Roger in processing and me in printing.  So we did…Shock 1 - CineLabs has a staff of only 7. Shock 2 - All are expected to work until all hours of the night, 8,9,10.30 etc, and weekends, and don't get paid overtime rates. Shock 3 - There is no union to counteract the slave labour. Shock 4 - no tea breaks and only half an hour for lunch, which made it, at best, a 43 and a half hours work week. We worked Thursday - me in a temperature of 105 degrees in the printing room and Roger in terrible conditions in the processing area with a man who could only speak French. I could have kept going for a few days, but seeing Roger's face that day told me that we couldn't accept this job. So we sacked ourselves, and, after one days work in Canada, and we are now unemployed. There is so much that I can't explain. Fred was trying to impress Monica, who he wants to tempt over, and knew by impressing us so much, we would tell Monica what a great guy he was, and what a marvelous welcome he gave us. He also liked the idea of taking two of Humphries best technicians away from them.. What he overlooked was that we had been trained for special jobs, and can’t go back to operating machines. (which is a job anyone can do). Roger, especially, was the keenest and brightest technician that Humphries had - and he couldn't waste all he had learned on operating CineLabs developing machine with a guy he couldn’t communicate with. Anyway we talked it over that afternoon, and for better or worse, we decided to throw it in. Fred, of course, is rather upset. We phoned a few other places in Montreal but the difficulty is that it is very much a French city and it is a requirement that if you want a job there, you must be able to speak French. So, on Monday we are off to Toronto, 400 miles away, where they are English, and where we were going to go in the first place. We feel rather bad about it, especially as Fred had done so much for us, but the facts are that we would not have been happy there, so what has to be done, must be done for the good of all in the long run. At the moment we are in a moderately priced hotel, and will use the time here to see a bit of the city, before we leave. Despite the intense cold (15degrees), it is a different cold - a very dry cold, and one does not feel it anyway because everything is heated, even buses and trains. Thank goodness we bought the heavy fur coats, because they really are a necessity here when walking out doors. They actually cause a bit of laughter between us as, being synthetic fur, they become charged with static electricity because of the very dry air. This means that if we touch some metal, or even each other, we get a zap of static electricity, which is quite audible, and makes us burst out laughing!. It never happened in London, because it was a damp cold there. It reminded me of our experiments with static electricity at our science class at high school. At night you can actually see the flash of electricity. It is very weird! But not to worry, dear Mother, as it is completely harmless. Although it is March, Montreal has snow and ice all over the place. The cost of living is not as high as we were led to believe. The food is excellent and there's far more variety than in England. The people seem friendly, but of course, the difficulty is that they all speak French. Even the street signs are in French. I guess one could say that it is vastly different from London. When out doors we wear everything we can under the furs, and I even put my hood up today to protect my ears from freezing and dropping off, but we ended up in fits of laughter because Roger said that I looked like an Eskimo - and I did! . I also felt like one too.. Don't write until I let you know how things are in Toronto. If we aren't successful in getting jobs there, we shall see you sooner rather than later……………Saturday 18th  I just thought I would start another letter from Montreal because there is so much to tell you and I could not get it all in the last letter. It is all very exciting, especially as I have always dreamed of being in this part of the world. After being in Canada for five days, we are now getting accustomed to all the different things. We have learned how to find our way around Montreal, know a few good restaurants, how much to tip, what the coins are, we know the people a little better, and all in all, are settling in rather well. - though it is vastly different from London. The weather is extremely cold, but marvelously sunny all day. We don't expect to be getting our gear off for a bit of sunbaking though, as the temperature is around freezing point at 0 degrees centigrade, or 32 degrees F.  Everything is all set for our journey to Toronto on Monday. We fixed it up with the bank yesterday to transfer our accounts.(no trouble - nice old lady), arranged to divert our trunk to Toronto(no trouble - nice young lady), and booked a hotel and rail passage with the travel agency across the street.(another nice friendly lady). Honestly, it's amazing how friendly and helpful people are here, and they are so polite as well, it hardly seems true. Nothing is too much trouble - and when you thank them they always say "You're welcome” and usually add “Have a nice day”. In England one always gets the impression that they think that they are doing you a big favour by serving you. Some are even are downright rude to customers. Then there is the food here! It is marvelous! They tell you in England that the cost of living is higher here. What utter rubbish! We eat like Kings for a couple of dollars (12/-). Today we had sizzling steak, served really sizzling on a hot plate, with a side salad and french fries.. It was really terrific - and then there is the great Chinese food - and Italian food. At the big American hamburger restaurant near our hotel, your order is served in a basket by way of a conveyor belt. Everyone drives huge cars(Detroit Dragons) and the city is built for the automobile with drive in everythings.
 Sunday: We spent the day wandering about until our feet were too sore to carry on so we went to the movies and saw three movies for the price of one. It must have been a special for that day because when a big procession came down the main street, we discovered it was St. Patrick's day and all the French/Canadian/Irish people were celebrating it... Monday 4.30pm  We are about to leave Montreal for Toronto on the Canadian National "Rapido". This is a great flashy train like one sees in all the American movies. It is a very fast train and travels the distance of 400 miles in five hours.(That is about three times faster than the Rocky to Brisbane train). We are now in the "parlor" car, a plush lounge type car with negro attendants to bring you drinks etc.(and take our coats) Dinner will be served later. It is only costing us a fiver each to make the journey. Later. We are now racing at high speed through the snow and ice covered country. I guess our speed is near 100 MPH. The train is all air-conditioned and warm, with plush red carpets and seats, pale pastel green walls, with a charcoal feature wall hung with a few paintings. There are no exposed light bulbs to annoy your eyes, as the lighting is all diffused and comes as a soft light from the ceiling above. The intercom has just announced that the Rapido is North America's fastest inter-city train. Roger is busy taking photographs out the window. At the speed we are moving at I am not sure if that is a good idea as the scenery would look rather blurred!.........
The narrative here needs to be paused, as, once again Barry is not giving his mother the complete story. For that we need to cross to Roger's letter to his parents as they get the full account of what happened that last day in Montreal.............Roger : We arrived in Toronto at 10pm on Monday somewhat later than we had intended because we missed the 8am train. After getting up at 6am and calling a taxi we asked the taxi driver to take us to the Central train station, but he was a Frenchman and he misunderstood us and we ended up miles out in the country. We did not get back to the station until 9.30am and, of course, had missed our train. We were very annoyed as you can imagine, for the next train was not until 5pm. We also thought we would lose our money but they were very helpful when we explained what had happened and transferred the tickets. Of course we booked the best seats which cost us $15 for which we were served dinner in a posh restaurant car and served with drinks in our seats. The cheaper fare was $7 for which you get nothing but your seat. Before we left Montreal, in the time waiting for the train, we went up the tallest building in the Commonwealth, which is 737 feet tall (100ft taller than the G.P.O. tower). From the top you can see most of Montreal which has quite a few other high rise towers. To the south one can see the St Lawrence River which is now frozen over but is still very beautiful. Also one can see the Expo 67 site on St Helens Island with all the buildings representing all the countries of the world. Should be very interesting when it opens on April 28th. Everything has Expo stamped over it. On Sunday before we left Montreal we went to a place called Mount Royal, which is a big park. This was very beautiful with snow covered trees and the snow underfoot was about 1’ 6” deep, but it was frozen, so you could walk on it without sinking up to your knees. “Mount” was right, after climbing to the top we were exhausted. We came across some grey squirrels on our way down which seemed very tame and they even posed for us while we took some photos. Everybody here is so friendly and helpful with the most common phrase being “you’re welcome” which everyone says. On Saturday when we booked our trip to Toronto we also booked accommodation through the travel agent. The very helpful woman who booked our seats on the train and hotel rooms in a cheap hotel at minimum rate. However, when we arrived in Toronto we found that she had booked us in at the Royal York Hotel, the biggest in the Commonwealth, and the minimum rate was $19.50 (7 pounds) a night for two. The room was nice with TV, shower and bath. A bit too much for us, but this was all that was available at that time of night. In the morning we ordered breakfast in our room and when it arrived the waiter actually asked for a tip!. Of course we had to give him one otherwise he would probably have taken the breakfast away...Ha Ha...   Anyway, it turned out they had made a mistake with our bill and only charged us $19.50 for the lot. . We later found cheaper accommodation in a nice house in which we have two rooms, a bedroom and kitchen with use of a bathroom with shower. This is not bad at $24 a week with everything supplied, gas, electricity, linen, cups, and plates etc, even a telephone. It has been snowing for the past three days but now seems to have cleared and today is very nice and sunny and quite warm. We have spent a fair time in the supermarkets getting ourselves stocked up for the Easter period. The supermarkets here are terrific, meat is very cheap, about 6/- a pound for steak. Most other things are about the same as in England. When we arrived the snow was deep and very slushy, so we bought some over shoes, but now all the snow has thawed. Still, they will do for next winter. Will have to sign off now as Barry is cooking the dinner and requires my assistance. Guess what we are having...STEAK!  We now continue with Barry's narrative -

                                                                 Scenes of Montreal

                                                              St. Patrick's Day Parade


                                             Letter143 - TORONTO . Capital City of Ontario


Friday 24th(Good Friday) Toronto . We arrived in Toronto around 10pm Monday night, and found that the agency had booked us into the top hotel in Toronto.(and the closest to the station which was good) It was called the Royal York, and is the biggest hotel in the Commonwealth. It was built in 1929, and has 1,377 guest rooms. It is a joke between us now that somehow we seem to have shot up into the upper class life style of living with it's top class hotels, bell boys and tipping, French menus, high class night clubs and super fast trains with negro servants.....However, we are now grounded back into reality and we have got ourselves a little temporary flat in St Clair until we can get ourselves jobs (interview tomorrow), and then we will move to something better. It is where we are now, both writing beside the window where we can look out and see a snow covered garden and bare trees. It is a first for Roger to be writing home from a foreign country. When we arrived here on Tuesday, the beautiful little street was thick with snow. The trees all had snow on their branches and snow was still falling as we crunched up the pathway to the place that we had selected from the newspaper, to be our first home in Canada. We have taken it on a weekly basis, as we are not sure where, or if, we will be working here as yet..  One of the places we phoned, checking on jobs, was called Film House, and the guy there seemed very interested in us, especially when we said that we worked at Humphries in London, and he wants to see us both on Monday. Film House is a big lab, similar to Humphries, in the heart of Toronto. Another lab here that we are sure would grab us is Pathe- Humphries, but we are not going there unless we are desperate as it is linked with Fred Dobbs, and it may be a little embarrassing for all concerned. Besides, it could cause a diplomatic rift between London Humphries and Toronto Pathe/ Humphries/CineLab!!! If we can get jobs at Film House it will be best for all concerned. If we cannot get jobs here we think we will just head directly for Australia - so we may arrive on your doorstep, penniless, but thrilled. So far, we love Canada. The people are marvellous. Nothing is too much trouble. I would hate to do what we did with changing our plans in London. There they don't want to do anything, and can be downright rude. Here they go out of their way to help you.  All this politeness, takes a bit of getting used to. Getting our bank accounts fixed up at the Bank of Montreal in Toronto yesterday was unbelievable. Everyone seemed to go out of their way to help us, smiling as they explained the banking system here, and giving us the impression that we counted as people. In London, unless you drive up in a Rolls Royce, you get treated as common garbage! Roger and I have been on a shopping spree in the supermarkets now that we have our own place. The quality of everything is amazing. Steak is only around 7/- a pound($1). We drink milk by the half gallon container, have orange juice for breakfast every morning with the eggs and bacon or sausages. Roger said he has never eaten so well in his life. Friday evening  We have just come back from a walk from what they call "Uptown", which is not far from us. "Downtown" is the city heart. Since we have arrived here we have almost worn out our shoes from walking. We have also bought what they call "overshoes". They are waterproof outer shoes made of rubber that slip on over your normal shoes to keep them dry when walking through all the wet sludge that the snow leaves behind when it is thawing. A jolly good idea, that works really well. We also watched some of their colour T.V. but it did not look very good. Perhaps the sets were out of adjustment. Today we walked through the downtown area and finished up on the shores of Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes.( but it is more like an inland sea than a lake). It was a beautiful day today, sunny and mild - well the temperature was around 36 degrees(4 above freezing), but that's quite warm for here. All the snow is practically gone now. Toronto definitely is not as cold as Montreal. There the cold made one's teeth tend to ache, and it even hurt a little bit to breathe - after all, the temperature was minus 4 below freezing! Thank heavens for our fur coats. We have practically lived in them. Spring will soon be here anyway, and hopefully we can put them away for a few months. On Sunday we are off to see the Niagara Falls. They are not far from Toronto, and with luck we may be able to cross the border into the United States. We are going to pack a picnic lunch to eat at the falls. You can write now to the address on the envelope. Mrs Chantler is the landlady, and she thinks we are two "very nice boys". We now live on Walker Avenue, which she pronounces as Waarrkurr!.. I must drop a line to Desley and Jan soon. Desley drove us out to the Airport, which was very kind of her. Must go to bed now. It's been a very busy day.........

                                                      Letter 144 - Niagara Falls

                               
Thursday March 30th 1967  It's a marvellous sunny day here today again. I haven't seen so much sun since Italy. The snow and Ice has all melted and the temperature is 50 degrees. We even went out today without our furs. At the moment we are at our digs awaiting a phone call from Ottawa, 200 miles away  about jobs with Crawley Films, one of Canada's biggest film makers and laboratories. We have already had one call from Film House in Toronto offering us jobs as film inspectors for $75 (25pounds) a week, rising to $80 a week. They are very good jobs with a terrific modern Lab in the heart of Toronto, but it may mean Roger and I are working on different shifts, which will be very hard to take, and be rough on both of us as we  would not see each other until weekends. However if Crawley Film offers something better we are going to take that for a month or so, then return home. There is a ship leaving Vancouver on May 6th for Brisbane, so if we have to take Film House on split shifts, we will stick it out for a while until the ship departs, then we will be on it. We don't want to leave Canada so soon, as we like it here. If we could get shifts together it would be great. The people at Film House are going all out to help us, and in fact made these jobs for us. They said obviously we are valuable technicians and they do not want to lose us. Still, we are hoping Crawley Films will offer something better.  We have certainly seen quite a bit of Canada in the few weeks that we have been here. Last Sunday we went to Niagara Falls. How about that! It was quite exciting! The falls were thundering over, and all around them were great mountains of ice. The gorge at the bottom was deep in ice too. We took a picnic lunch and sat in the park facing the awesome sight of the falls, while eating our goodies. Later we went up in the Skylon, a tower made of reinforced concrete 520 feet high, which has lift cars that look like little yellow bugs, that carry passengers up to the top, via the outside of the tower. The view is terrific! One looks down on the American Falls, where the nearest city is Buffalo in New York state, and the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara, Ontario, Canada. Tourists can visit both via the Rainbow Bridge.We could have taken a boat ride to the bottom of the falls, but it would have been impossible to take pictures as the boat and passengers get drenched with spray.(raincoats have to be worn).  Thursday evening.  Just had a two hour game of chess with Rog. There wasn't much else to do as we don't have a T.V. and movies are expensive at 12/- a time - and our trunk hasn't arrived yet. We have decided to take the jobs at Film House, and start on Monday - together, but after a week we split up, with one of us on days, and the other on evening shift. They seem a very nice bunch there, so I hope we can work out something. We are going to give it a month and see how we go. A combined wage of 50 pounds a week will come in handy though. Tomorrow we are going off apartment hunting, as this place is very small and was only meant to be temporary anyway. You can still send mail to this address as Mrs Chantler will send it on. She is very nice and has taken to Roger and I, but she talks non-stop!. Fortunately, Toronto is well served by a subway which runs from one end of the city to the other along Yonge (pronounced Young) street, the main street. From where we are now it only takes us ten minutes to get to Film House. Toronto is very nice, big, but spacious, clean and with trees everywhere.(though at the moment they are all bare). It even has a couple of skyscrapers, and of course stands on the shores of Lake Ontario. Everyone talks with that real American twang, although the accent is supposed to be different. Both of us are very well, enjoying cooking and eating - and we have steak every second day!...........

                                                           Toronto & Niagara Falls Scenes

                                                       Letters 145, 146 & 147 - Film House

Thursday, April 6th. 1967. 144 Balmoral Avenue. Toronto 7. Ontario  Well lots to tell you again. Firstly, we have now moved, and secondly the first week in our new Lab is almost over. London seems far away now, and it seems ages since we left, but it is only a month ago. We found an apartment last Friday and moved in on Saturday. It’s just near where we were staying, and we are very pleased with it as we are still near the subway, only fifteen minutes from the lab, and it is big and roomy. It is a basement apartment, with a very large living room, big kitchen, entrance room, main bedroom, spare room, shower and toilet. We were told in Montreal to hunt for a basement apartment as they are very roomy and one does not have to sign a lease. The landlady lives upstairs and has other tenants in the floors above, but we have our own side entrance, which is good. It is well equipped, fully furnished with a very large fridge, huge stove and a washing machine - and of course is heated. No one uses the old electric radiators here, as all buildings are centrally heated. We get about in shorts inside, even though it is snowing outside. Honestly, I have never been so warm since I left home. The homes in England don't have central heating, except the newer, more expensive ones. In Canada everything is heated. Actually, since we arrived here, the weather has been great. All the snow is gone, and it's been sunny and warm. As soon as the snow cleared, all the lawns greened up, and now the trees are budding, so they will be covered in green leaves again soon. The transformation to Spring has begun. Each morning, walking down the street to the subway, we see a little squirrel. Gosh they are cute. Everyone keeps telling us that Toronto gets hot in the Summer - even into the nineties. Great!  Looking at the papers this week, we have seen that London is having much colder weather than Toronto. We started at Film House on Monday, and were surprised at how modern it is.(and how big it is!). They have just installed a fantastic new colour processing machine, that looks like something from "Dr Who". The Lab is all new and expanding rapidly to keep pace with colour television. Roger and I are in the Film Inspection Department, which means we have to check all the films going out of the Lab to the clients to make sure they have no faults, and are up to the required standard. It is quite a responsible job as the Lab's reputation rests with us. Fortunately for me, both Roger and Alan taught me something about it before we left Humphries, so I can now go and do the job knowing what's required. It's quite an interesting job, because one gets to see all the films coming out of the lab, and when a problem is found, you must be able to diagnose what caused it, and you must also know how to set it right. In other words I am being paid to watch movies - what better job is there!! This week we have been together learning the system and learning about colour, as before we were mainly involved in black and white. Our viewing theatre is quite plush, with a red carpet and walls hung with drapes, with an egg crate type white false ceiling that has concealed lighting. Our salary is in the region of 33pounds Aust. a week or 66 dollars Aust. The really good news is that tax is almost half of what we would pay in England, and I am paying about the same rent as I paid in London for what was one room, whereas here we get the equivalent of a complete house. All this means that together we should be really able to save quite a bit of money for our future travels. One thing has us worried though. As the Lab has two shifts, a day shift and an evening shift, they want to split us up with one on days and one on the evening shift. However, we are determined to give it a try as we want to make a go of it as we like Film House and Canada(so far). Roger and I have been getting along extremely well. It is really great! Roger is even learning to cook, and buys cake and pudding mixes and makes them up. His Mum wouldn't believe it if she knew. Of course, when we are on different shifts, he will have to look after himself. Our trunk should arrive this weekend, so when we get it we will have some fun unpacking it.  We also went out and hired ourselves a T.V. Set. and have the choice of about six channels, one of which is Buffalo, New York state........
Friday, April 14th 1967  At the moment we are, or were, unpacking our trunk. It was delivered today and we got a few hours off to come home for its delivery. John, the Lab manager, said it would be okay and to take as long as we needed. (without loss of pay!). Film House seems a very good firm to work for. Our trunk travelled by ship to Montreal, the by Canadian Pacific railways to Toronto. We were rather worried about the great big thing as it was full of all our important stuff, but the mighty German pre-war relic, built from the trees in the Black Forest, held solid and all our goods were in perfect condition.(we found the trunk in a little second shop near Humphries). As a favour to John we are working in the Lab over the weekend on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The films for screening have been piling up, as Film House has just got their new colour processing equipment up and running. I am doing okay as a film inspector now, and making my own decisions on whether a film is okay to send out or not. Sometimes we have clients in to see their films, so we actually get to meet the film makers themselves. It is all very interesting, but it can get rather hectic. This week, we had a communist Chinese Opera to screen. It was very noisy and full of propaganda. That was screened with sound and picture, but the "I Love Lucy" show is image only to be screened. Sometimes we will have two sets of images screening simultaneously on the full room width screen, so it can get a little crazy at times and it requires a lot of concentration. Fortunately, that's never been a problem for me. Mostly we handle T.V. commercials and documentaries, but, as this year is Canada's Centennial year, and World Expo year, there is a lot of material now coming in dealing with those subjects, and it is going to get busier. We banked all last weeks wages and half of this weeks as we still had some cash left over from our arrival fund. Both of us now have $90 dollars ( $80Aus.) in the bank that we earned in Canada, and after this weekend's overtime(yes, we do get paid for overtime at Film House!), we will have double that soon. I also received notice from the Bank of Montreal that 7 pounds had been sent from the Commonwealth Bank in London as the amount of my income tax rebate. So, at last my bank account is starting to look much healthier. - - We just had a laugh here!  The T.V. is on and a commercial came on that we had trouble with at the Lab, but as the client wanted it urgently, he was prepared to take it with the fault in it. He said it wouldn't show on television, but we just watched it and it did!.........Sunday p.m. We worked Sat & Sun mornings with Marie, the woman who is senior screener, to catch up on all the colour prints awaiting viewing and together we got almost all of it done. I must tell you here that all the lab personnel concerned, including the Lab Manager think were are "marvellous"! That's what they told us anyway. So it's their words, not mine. We seem to have surprised them with our knowledge and enthusiasm. I must say it is quite thrilling to be accepted into another Lab so readily. Gosh! it was a glorious day today. Sunny and warm! Toronto keeps reminding me of Brisbane. Though not quite as big, it  has wide straight streets,  clear blue skies, and trams rattling along. Except, of course, there is a big difference if it snows.! We went to the movies this afternoon and saw Robert Wise's "The Sand Pebbles", and then strolled home in the gorgeous evening atmosphere. Last Monday night we watched a live broadcast of the Oscar ceremony from Hollywood, via the T.V. station in Buffalo. "In the Heat of the Night" won best picture and best actor for Rod Steiger. Others nominated for best picture were "Bonny & Clyde", "Guess Who's Coming for Dinner", "The Graduate" and "Doctor Dolittle". It is good to be able to watch both American television and Canadian television.....I forgot to tell you about our last day at Humphries. We spent the whole afternoon saying Good-bye to everyone. I never realised that we had so many friends there. Gosh! they made a fuss over us. We must have shaken hands with and kissed just about everyone on the first, second and third floors. Bill, Roger's boss had tears in his eyes, and Alan, my boss was pretty upset too. It's really amazing! Everyone dubbed in and presented us with two beautiful  stainless steel mugs from the London Design Centre - the ultimate place to buy anything. After we left we had a drink with my two dearest friends Bob and Jerry. It was quite an emotional and exhausting day, but it is very gratifying to know that if things turned out not so good for us here or in Australia, we would always be welcomed back at Humphries. Both of us are well. Roger baked a cake last Monday night and it ended up as a trifle - which was very nice. We love our warm and cosy apartment, and I am the warmest I have ever been since leaving home............
Toronto. Saturday, April 22nd 1967.  Well! good news this week. We have both been put on the evening shift together, as that is the main shift for doing film inspection. It does not have the interruptions that the day shift has and it enables more work to be done. It is 1 a.m. in the morning and we have just arrived home from the Lab. We are actually early tonight. Outside there is a storm raging. We just managed to beat it home by running up the tree lined avenue, with the rain just starting to fall on us. Roger is watching a science fiction movie from Buffalo TV . Television seems to run all through the night here. It's been quite a busy week on our new shift, which starts at 4 pm and sometimes goes until 4 am or later. We just stay until we clear the work. One morning it was twenty to five! Fortunately it is not difficult to get home as there are buses running all through the night, and we have a bus stop just near the Lab. We go straight to bed when we get home, and get up about mid day, eating a good meal before we go into the Lab. Jack Budge, the night supervisor, has taken a liking to us and is quite a guy. His wife, Elizabeth, works on the evening shift too. They are always talking to us, and want us to come out and visit them. They have a big home on the outskirts of Toronto with a swimming pool, a bar, colour TV and a huge car. In other words a typical Canadian family, who have got everything they want by working hard for it. We got our pay today. It's the equivalent of 40 pounds Australian after tax. Already my new bank account started with the firm has 65 pounds Aust. in savings after only three weeks work. We are both elated at the rate of savings we can manage. If we worked at Film House for a year we should be able to save about a thousand pounds each. Our job entails working a fair bit of overtime because we are the last link in getting a film out of the Lab. If a film is rejected by us, we have to diagnose the problem, rectify it, and put the negative back into the system for a reprint. If it is urgent, we have to stay there until it is successfully reprinted and can be dispatched to the client. The evening shift is actually the most important shift to the Lab. That's why they put us on it, because the management knows they can depend on us. They pay us well for it, and we get to do the work we enjoy, so everybody is happy!...It is quite amazing how well things have worked out for us.... We have just come back from a trip downtown where we dined out in Chinatown. It was a very nice meal and now Roger is in the kitchen making pancakes, which we will have later with maple syrup for our dessert. For topping we will spray on whipped cream. Cream doesn’t come from a cow here, it comes from a spray can! As Roger likes to dabble in making cakes and sweet things, we now have a system where I handle the main course and Roger will often do something for dessert. It's good to be settling into the security of a  regular routine once again. Travelling from country to country is all very exciting, but it is also very exhausting both physically and emotionally, as one has to be constantly adapting to new surroundings. Although London is now far away, I still regard it as "home" also. Toronto, at the moment, is all very new and modern, and I wonder if I will feel the same way about it in the future, as I feel about London. Time will tell!. I am going to post home one of the newspapers from Toronto. They are huge and full of reading. After you have a look at it, you could pass it along to Claude. We have just changed our slide projector to 110 volts, and looked at some of the slides taken in Canada.(that is another big difference here in that the electrical system is 110 volts!). There is a terrific picture of the both of us on the frozen edge of the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara. They are the better of the two falls, and are in Canada. The boundary between Canada and the U.S.A. runs down the middle of the Niagara River. In the photo we are almost standing on top of the protective railing, which has ice practically up to its top, so that we could easily look down at the fast flowing water below us. Don't worry dear mother, we didn't fall over the edge!(although we could have!)...I will be sending that, and a few others home to you. It's nice to hear that Neil and Joyce have a son. I'll bet Neil is a proud father. I'm looking forward to seeing them soon. You said that Rick has a girlfriend - what is her name? The weather here is still mostly sunny, although cold at times. Must go now. I have to write a few post cards to send off to London........

Letters 148 & 149.             

.Toronto .April 28th Saturday 3am.  Now at the end of our fourth week at Film House. We got away on time tonight, as everyone likes to be able to get away earlier on Friday nights. - so we left at 12.30, came home, cooked ourselves tea, and now Roger is doing some plasticine modelling for our project. It's been an exciting week as Expo 67 opened yesterday, and the papers, radio and T.V. have been full of it. Montreal is now in the world spotlight and they expect millions of visitors. The fair was originally awarded to Russia, but for various reasons they decided to pull out, and it was then given to Canada. With only five years to organise and construct it, many said that it could not be done - but they did it!. Now it has opened to unanimous praise and everyone here is excited about it. The word is that it is the best World Fair ever! We plan to visit it later on towards the end of Summer. In the Lab we have been handling a lot of the advertising for it, some of it even going to Australia. It sounds tremendously exciting. Saturday. Just come back from doing the shopping. We try and buy enough  to last the week, now that we have a nice big fridge to put it in. Luckily, there are two big supermarkets not far from us, and we usually arrive at the checkout with an overflowing basket or trolley. You wouldn't believe it, but the canned pineapple and fruit salad that we buy is the Golden Circle brand from Queensland, Australia. Roger loves their Tropical Fruit Salad. We also bought Australian lamb this weekend. It only costs us about 4 pounds(Aust) to live a week each - which isn't bad for a country that is supposed to have a high cost of living. That is living pretty well too. We make up our own lunch to take in with us to the Lab, as it is too expensive to buy anything at the nearby restaurants. Our bank account is now at 84 pounds (Aust). or $204 Canadian after only a month working. It won't be long before we have 100 pounds.  Sunday  We are now at the laundromat doing the washing. It's a beautiful day again. Toronto keeps reminding me of Brisbane. It's hard to say why. Maybe its because some of the streets have tram lines just like Brisie or maybe the similar looking skies is what does it. Toronto certainly does not have the insipid, misty overcast skies that London has for most of the year. The trees, of course, are still bare, so it is nothing like Brisbane in the respect, and certainly, there are no eucalyptus trees about. Brisbane might have its possums, but we have squirrels, which are far cuter, and less destructive. I have noticed also lots of gardens about with flowering tulips and daffodils. The red tulips are very spectacular. Brisbane doesn't have any gardens like these either. I will try and grab some pictures. It’s funny to think that when we arrived here snow covered everything, but now there is not a sign of it or where it has been. All the lawns that it covered are now a lush green, and it won't be long before the trees are all green again. Sunday night We went downtown this afternoon, saw a movie, and then walked home afterwards. Usually we catch the Subway back, but it was such a beautiful evening that we strolled along, and finished up walking the couple of miles home. It was a very interesting walk and we walked through an area known as the village of Yorkville. It is a super trendy area noted for its bohemian culture, with boutique shops, restaurants and coffee shops, patronised by a mixture of mod, beatnik and hippie types. Many of those from London's Mod scene would be completely at home here. Roger has just baked a banana sponge and covered it with lovely white frosting. Last night we had pancakes with maple syrup again - Yum!...
 Sunday May 6th.We are very pleased to hear that the windmill has arrived safely. All you need to do is to get the plug changed on the end of it for the light to work, and to get it playing, you wind up the sails as it has a clockwork motor inside. It plays the tune "Windmills in Amsterdam". At the Lab now we are managing fine on the evening shift, and working about the same number of hours that we worked in England, and getting almost double the pay. This week my pay was $101,( $80 Aust or 33pounds English). I have never been one for saving money as you know quite well, but Roger is, so I go along with him. As mentioned previously, we work with a very nice lady called Marie. She must like us too, because she brings us fruit, or some other little treat every day. On Friday she had a great big strawberry cream cake for us. She is Italian/Canadian with a very dry sense of humour, and usually manages to get us laughing about one thing or another. The trees in Balmoral Avenue are all turning green again. I wonder if that means all the snow has gone. Snow is very nice to look at and great for pictures, but it is not so nice to trudge about in, particularly when it is melting. Included in this letter is a cutting from the newspaper showing Front Street, with Film House in the corner. It also shows Union Station where we leave the subway to walk down the road to the Lab.

                                                            Letters 150 & 151

Toronto. Sunday May 14th. 1967  That is not so good news about Rick getting his call up notice for Vietnam. It was damned unlucky for him to get selected. If it was only for a few months training on our own soil, like I did, it would do him the world of good. However, if he has to go off and fight in Vietnam that is not very good at all. I don't know much about this Vietnam business, but it sure isn't looking very good. Maybe they won't take him because of his ear problem. Did he fail the medical test outright, or is a decision pending? You said something about him seeing a specialist ? Is the Army sending him, or Ron? Let's hope he gets rejected. Just learning how to kill people gave me nightmares for years after my stint in National Service. Having to do it for real would be the ultimate nightmare... Today has been a nice day again, so we went down to Lakeshore for the afternoon. This is a big park and recreation area on the shores of Lake Ontario, right in Toronto. We went by subway, then caught a streetcar(tram) so it is easy to get to. It's very nice, with lush green grass and picnic tables set amid the trees, now all coming into leaf. On the lake you can watch the sailboats and seaplanes taking off and landing. Actually, the lake is so huge that it is like being at the beach, and when you look out across the surface only water is to be seen, with no faraway shore visible at all. On the opposite side of the lake from Toronto are the cites of Hamilton, and Niagara, and, of course the States. While at Lakeshore we were fortunate enough to see a boy's drum band rehearsing in the exhibition area there. In real North American style they marched about with banners flying, beating their drums and blowing their tin whistles, while the brass section blasted forth with cymbals clashing to accentuate music. All this while doing intricate marching manoeuvres on the field. It was very impressive, spectacular stuff. I guess they were rehearsing for some Centennial event. Everything here is either Centennial or Expo. One thing about the people on this continent, they certainly know how to put on a show. We did a lot of films for Expo this week. In fact, one night, all we did was films for screening in the Canadian Exhibition building. We also threw over a $1,000 worth of film into the trash box on Friday night. As it was faulty, we couldn't send it out, so it had to be junked. This week we had to reject quite a bit of colour footage. If we didn't, and sent it out, Film House would lose their customers. It's our job to see that it does not happen. The Expo films for showing to the world are quite fantastic. There's no voice over stuff, it's all audio/visual. We are going to try and get some copies ourselves to bring home to show you, and our friends. So a little bit of Expo '67 will be coming with us to Mount Morgan. We passed the 100 pounds in savings this week. Both of us are very pleased that we have been able to save such a large amount in such a short time. It would have taken me almost a year to save that in London. By the way, I now get double the salary that I was getting in Mount Morgan for being a Survey Draughtsman. Of course I have to work harder and longer hours, but its work that I really enjoy. I only hope we can keep it up and don't have a falling out with Film House. Somehow I don't see that happening as they know we want do a good job and help them all we can.............
Toronto. Sunday, May 19th  It is 8pm Sunday evening and we have just arrived home. It is very nice walking up Balmoral Avenue now as all the trees are green and have branches that spread themselves across the road. The houses beneath them display lush green lawns and many have beds of colourful tulips. It is absolutely amazing to think that just a few weeks ago all you saw was brown dirt or snow, and now it is a riot of colour. The florist on the corner, a very high class florist I might say, has masses of tulips and other beautiful flowers for sale. We took a look in his greenhouse yesterday, and I couldn't believe my eyes, and laughed out loud. Roger came over and asked what was so funny. I then pointed out a nice pot, with Lantana growing in it, for sale at an exorbitant price. I explained that where I come from it is considered an absolute pest, and farmers spend many thousands of dollars trying to get rid of it!.. This morning we helped Mrs Hollinger, the landlady, with the "storms". They are second windows that are placed over the normal windows each Fall(Autumn) and removed in the Spring. They make a double window and give protection against the cold winter months. It's quite a good idea actually. She had someone else doing them, but he had to leave before he did them all, so we finished the job and then stored them away for her. When we come home late night we are rather afraid of waking her when we begin cooking a meal, but apparently we don't bother her at all. She keeps saying what a nice family she has now with the girls upstairs and us in the basement. She also offered us the use of her back lawn and garden chairs anytime we wished. Actually, we  think she is rather funny and a real earbasher, but otherwise okay. She leaves us alone anyway, which is the main thing. Thanks for passing on Martina's letter. I was anxious to get news of her. She must have written it just before she flew off to New Zealand. You may get an occasional letter like that, from friends who wish to contact me and have only my home address. We got a letter from Des and Jan on Thursday. They are fine and are thinking of making a move in June. Gosh! we miss them. After all our terrific times together it's awful with them so far away. Never mind, we will have an exciting reunion when we all get back to Aussie land. I met a fellow Australian last week. She is a film producer and came to the theatre to get her film screened. I had seen her about before and heard the accent, so guessed she was an Aussie. When I got the opportunity to talk with her we had a great old chat. She comes from Sydney, and when she asked me where I came from, she said "That's near Rocky, isn't it, where the train runs down the main street!" We both had a good laugh at that and continued talking until she remembered the purpose of her visit, so we then ran her movie, which was for Expo. She said that when I get back to Australia to give her a call as she knows the film business there inside out.... Today we went to Pioneer Village at Black Creek, near Toronto. It is a small village that has been preserved and restored to how it was in the 1800's. We have been doing copies of a film about it at the Lab, and it aroused our curiosity, so we decided to go and see it for ourselves.(we also have a rejected copy of it to bring home with us). It was very interesting to see segments of life as it was over a hundred years ago. We watched things like shoes being hand made, raw wool being spun into thread, a blacksmith in operation and went into several homes and shops furnished as they would be in that pioneering period. It reminded me a bit of Mount Morgan!! No! only joking.(well, half joking anyway!). Tomorrow is Queen's birthday holiday and there's a big Centennial do on at old Fort York with Indians and marching soldiers, so we are going to see that too. The holiday is called  Victoria Day. Someone should tell them that there is a new Queen on the throne now.

                                                                  Spring Arrives                        

                                           Letters 152 & 153- Queen Victoria's Birthday
            
Toronto. Saturday May 27th 1967   I am glad all the photos arrived okay. Yes, it does look a very cold place, but those pictures were taken at the end of Winter, and now the weather is marvellous. It was good to catch that last blast of Winter as now we will know what to expect should we still be here for next Winter. Montreal is a particularly cold place, and, though it is an exciting city, we are very pleased that we ended up in Toronto. We are looking forward, though, to revisiting it for Expo and expect it to look vastly different from out first visit.  It is truly amazing how the seasons here change the look of the place. So, so different from Australia where there is almost no change from one season to the other. Our street here would be almost black and white in the winter with the only bits of colour coming from the house fronts. Now it has great canopies of vivid green above the street and front gardens, which are now awash with every imaginable colour from the tulips, hyacinths and daffodils that have pushed themselves up from the previously frozen earth. Unlike my home street in London, all the houses here are separate individual dwellings, with no front fences. The street also provides entertainment as little squirrels scamper about in the tree branches and gardens. Roger is, at the moment, making a Strawberry Mousse for our desert, while I have a Chicken Cacciatore cooking in our new electric frypan which we bought for about 3pounds. Next week we are going to buy an electric hand mixer for 4 pounds. Electric appliances are very cheap here and the range of gadgets is fantastic. You can buy an electrical gadget for almost any purpose - even for cleaning your teeth…....... Fort York was really great. We went there for Queen Victoria's birthday holiday last Monday, and were surprised at how interesting it all was. Toronto was originally called York, and was the capital of upper Canada. The name was eventually changed to Toronto which is a Huron Indian word meaning "meeting place".The fort was built on the shore of Lake Ontario for the defence of the old town of York. In 1813 the Americans invaded and there was a big battle in which the magazine was blown up by the defenders, killing the American General and 38 of his men. However the American soldiers continued the fighting and succeeded in capturing what was left of the fort and the town of York, which was then looted and burnt. The town and fort were rebuilt again, but this time the fort was constructed with bricks to make it stronger, so that when the American forces invaded again a year later, they were unsuccessful. Much of this old fort still stands today, and what was damaged has been restored. On Monday there were people wandering about dressed in the costumes of the time. There were frontiersmen firing muskets, Indians dancing their traditional dances, soldiers marching and firing canons with pioneering women making soap and doing other chores associated with life at the old fort. All very interesting and colourful stuff. We took many pictures, so let's hope they turn out okay. As we were leaving the fort one of the "traditional" Indians who performed one of the traditional dances was walking just ahead of us when he suddenly jumped into his non traditional red Ford Mustang sports car and roared off!!!.. Sunday  ..Last Sunday we made an amazing discovery. We found this big parkland near the bottom of our street, and said if the next weekend was sunny, we were going to go there to just lie in the sun. Well it is and here we are. It is a type of mountain park between two hills with a small stream at the bottom. The valley has been left in a natural state, and is accessed via a lush green park at the top, with picnic tables and park benches. To get there we just walk down Balmoral Avenue with its, now, beautiful blossoming trees, to Yonge Street, the main street, which we cross, and then walk along another beautiful avenue of blossoming trees and gardens, which gets us to the gorge where the park is... The letter you readdressed from London arrived okay. It was from Sylvia to tell me that she is packing up and going to Australia in July. That was surprising news to say the least.  Sylvia is just so English, and I can't see her being happy in Australia, and have told her so in the past. ....

 

Pioneer Village & Old Fort York Centennial Celebrations 1967

Friday, June 2nd  It is 2.45pm. We are at the park near St Clair beneath a clear blue sky, with a temperature of 84 degrees. We have taken off all we can and are lying in the glorious sunshine, sunning ourselves on the lush green grass surrounded by beautiful trees. Because of the excellent weather, each day this week we have left for work an hour earlier and strolled down to this park to get some sunbaking done in an attempt to lose our English paleness. Tomorrow we are going to hunt up a swimming pool. It is really marvellous! Canada may be cold in the Winter and covered in snow and ice, but the Summertime is great. Your letter arrived this morning. I related bits of it to Roger as I read it with the morning coffee. We both share each other's letters and read bits out loud to each other. The scene in Moller's  butcher shop tickled me with everyone looking at the photos. What did they say about our fur coats? I'll be coming home with enough slides and movies to do a dozen Rotary dinners. By the way, we were amused about you saying that you hoped we didn't get into any trouble for throwing so much film away. The fact is we would have got into trouble if we didn't, as the film was faulty, and the client would have screamed blue murder if they had have received a faulty film. It is our job to pick up any faults and have the film reprinted without the faults. We are like film detectives in a way as we have to recognise the problem, find out what has happened to cause the problem, and then what has to be done to put it right. We then have to organise the reprint and make sure that a satisfactory print is sent to the client as quickly as possible. The Lab is entirely dependant on our judgement as to what is acceptable, and what is not. Management seems quite pleased with us and is even asking us if we know if there are any others back in England who want jobs here. I guess we would not be asked that if our work was unsatisfactory. The guy in charge of the lab at night is Jack Budge. He is quite a nice guy who looks upon as his buddies. Through our diligence and hard work, we make his job much easier. He likes to come into the theatre and chat with us, and tell us all his troubles. Our work place has thick red carpeting, floor to ceiling drapes, concealed lighting and very comfortable swivel arm chairs. Fittings include four film projectors of various types, a work table and film racks, and of course a room width screen.  Others may work in squalid surroundings - but not us!......
 Saturday, June 3rd  Hot and sunny today and 81 degrees. Best weather since Italy, and reminding me of the weather at home. We visited a big new shopping centre today that just opened this week. It is not far away and contains the usual shops, including a large supermarket, all grouped around a central plaza that has a gushing fountain in the centre. It also has an open air restaurant with continental type tables and umbrellas. Later we went to the huge Eatons Department Store in Downtown Toronto. It is a bit like Harrods of London, where you can buy practically anything. It's an odd thing about Toronto, it seems to have only this one massive department store. The rest of the main street is cheap record shops, fast food eateries, junk shops and open car parks and nothing else. It really does not feel like a big city at all. I bought a pair of chukka boots for work, and a pair of light fawn Levi jeans. I needed some work clothes pretty badly, because I have been wearing my good clothes to work all the time. I must tell you about the York Trust on Friday! It is where our wages are banked and we go in each Friday to draw out what we need for the coming week. Almost every week it is around $30. On Friday the woman who always looks after us said "Say tell me, there's something bothering me about you guys. How on earth do you manage on this budget of yours? Every Friday I go home wondering how you do it! Now what's your secret?" We both laughed - in fact we thought it terribly funny that we had been worrying her like that. She picked me for an Aussie, and thought Roger was too. We explained that the money mostly goes in food, rent, fares and a movie a week. As we work the night shift we don't go out during the week, so that contains our spending somewhat. She still looked a little unconvinced. I guess she was hoping for some magic formula! We both have now saved the equivalent of $200(Aust)....Sunday June 4th   It's a clear blue sky today, with a temperature of 80 degrees, and we have just had a swim in a lovely open air swimming pool that we found, not far away at Eglington. Gosh! the weather is marvellous here. What a change from London. I must finish here. We are just going to stroll down to the Drugstore to buy a candy bar. Then we will stroll back to soak up some more sunshine.........
Toronto. Wednesday June 7th    I am starting this a bit earlier this week, taking advantage of more free time. Business has been a bit slack this week, and tonight we finished at our official time of 12 o'clock. First time ever I think. It's raining quite heavily as I write this, and is another reason for us being home early, as Jack(the boss!) drove us home. Not everybody can boast of having their boss as their chauffeur too!  Actually he is a very nice guy, and just likes to do things for us. We both enjoyed the drive home though, in his big white Dodge Polara - one of the nicest cars I have seen or been in. It just purred along neon lit Yonge street with the wipers making a gentle swish - swish, then turned at St Clair to cruise slowly up blossoming tree lined Balmoral Avenue to drop us right at our front gate. It's really been a marvellous week weather-wise, sunny and hot. Just the way I like it. We both now have respectable tans and are now able to get about in shorts. Even the rain tonight is warm. This is not the Canada I expected. Of course I didn't expect it to be covered in snow and ice all the time, but I certainly didn't expect it to be like Queensland! The Canadians laugh at the Americans who turn up here in Summer time with all their skis and snow gear expecting to go skiing. They also come up here for the hunting season and I am told the farmers have to hang big signs on their cows, with the word "cow" written in large letters, so their cows, hopefully, won't get shot! The yanks apparently don't know the difference between a moose and a cow.

                                                             Modes of Transport

 Sunday June 11th    Your letter came yesterday. So it's show time again in the Mount. I suppose the town was deserted on the Friday as everyone went shopping in Rocky. I am glad that the town now has a Museum. There are many interesting records and old photographs, some taken by Frank Hurley, that should be preserved and put on show. Does Noel Ward live in that house alone now, or has he sold it? If you see Noel again tell him that I too would also be interested in hearing from Noel Simonds myself. Perhaps he is married now. He said to me as he was leaving "Don't tell anyone in Mount Morgan, until I tell Mum and Dad myself" - meaning, I thought, that he wanted to get married first before he told anyone. There's all the business with her kids to be sorted out and, being Catholics, that would be a very complicated business. He did promise to keep in touch, but he never has. I am not surprised in the least. Noel uses the people who happen to suit his interests at that particular time. Once he moves on, he never to looks back!. Perhaps the clue to understanding his personality lies in the missing "m"............Today we went on a coach tour around Toronto for the afternoon. It was very interesting and we saw some beautiful areas. Toronto has a number of parks, some quite massive and for general use, but others are in what they call "ravines" that are left in their natural state - which is a jolly good idea. The tour took us past the University buildings and through the Campus, and also to a castle like mansion called "Casa Loma" built in 1811. What impresses us the most is the cleanliness and tidiness of the city. The homes in the newer sections are mostly brick bungalow type with trees and shrubs set amid lush green lawns without any fences. They have no problems with water as Toronto stands on one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world. Electricity is dirt cheap as it comes from the Hydro plant at Niagara Falls, so that explains the abundance of electrical gadgets here. One of the things we have wondered is how long Yonge (pronounced "Young") Street, the main street, is. The answer, we found out today, is 60 miles. It is apparently the longest street in the world, and from Toronto it goes straight ahead through various towns and villages to Lake Simcoe. In a few of our photographs you may have noticed a tall black tower. That is the Toronto Dominion Bank building, and is the World's second tallest building, beaten only by the Empire State in New York.. We had storms all week, but today is sunny and 85 degrees. Both of us are well and enjoying every minute of the heat and sunshine - and enjoying saying good-bye to our English pallor. Must go now. Time to watch something on the telly. We now have over seven channels to chose from. Two are from the  U.S.A

                                                                    Letters 154 & 155

..Sunday. June 17th   It's Sunday evening and we have just arrived home after spending the day outdoors. I received a terrific letter from Bette last Thursday. Really great it was! We both read it a couple of times. Bette dictated it at the General Office and Daphne took it down in shorthand and typed it out later. Gosh! Bette is still as nutty as ever. Roger is dying to meet her. He has been drawing cartoons of things Bette wrote about in her letter, like her and Marg Hickeys adventures in Sydney, the M.M.Amateur Players in Bajool and Jim Fogarty leading elephants under the Fitzroy River Bridge. I sent Bette a few photos and a fifteen page letter a few weeks back. It was great to hear from her. I must write to Alan and Stan next. Today we took the fifteen minute ferry ride out to Centre island. It is an island parkland totally for fun and recreation. On the beautiful green lawns there are signs saying "Please Walk on the Grass"!..We were quite amazed. It has acres and acres of lush green parklands, amusement areas, beaches and all sorts of other fantastic things. It has everything that Mr and Mrs Toronto, and their family would need for a day of fun and frolic. The return fare is only 25 cents and all prices on the island are kept low to suit family budgets. There are landscaped gardens, fountains, promenades, train rides, antique car rides, a puppet theatre, big paddle boat rides and one can hire row boats, canoes, bicycles and the small peddle boats. In fact nothing has been spared to make it an ideal place to get away from the city. At the beach they even have Lifeguards, and waves crash against the rocks on the shore. I find it difficult to think of it as a lake, as all one can see to the far off horizon is water. You even see big freighters sailing past on the horizon, just like being at the real beaches at home. Next time we go there we will pack a picnic lunch and go for the day. They even have barbecue facilities there should you wish to cook yourself a hot meal. We will soon have our 16mm movie camera operational as we now have magazines for it and can get movie film from the Lab. We are going to shoot off a few magazines on the island next time we go. The weather has been very hot and very humid, now it is more like Cairns in the Summer. Luckily the storms have cooled it down now. I was very pleased  to hear that M.M. had  a decent fall of rain too. Thanks for the birthday card. If you see Aunty Dine you could thank her for me too. She never forgets me!......

                                                                      Centre Island Park

                                                      The Adventurous Bette B. & Margaret H.

 Toronto. Sunday, June 25th.  Well, on this day three years ago, I was approaching Hong Kong. I just remembered that! We celebrated my birthday with champagne in Chinese waters, with a typhoon to follow. It sure seems a long time ago. I think I have changed more in those three years than I ever have before. I know that I am now more responsible and sensible about everything - in fact probably too serious minded now. Still, I had to take charge of my life and start acting my age sometime. Besides I am now doing something that I have always dreamt of doing, and that is working in movies. I have succeeded in turning my life around - something I could never have done had I stayed in Mount Morgan…No more walking about dreadful mines carrying theodolites for me now! .We had a nice afternoon over on the island today. This time we finally got the 16mm movie magazine loaded and fitted to the camera, and shot some footage with it. Previously we had only shot some tests in London, as we only had one magazine, but we found a store in Toronto where we could buy as many magazines as we wanted, so now we have plenty. A magazine shoots 500 feet at a time, and we can buy the film cheaply at the lab, and get our processing done for free. It will be good practice also for us to edit and neg cut it ourselves, and to get a final print done through the Lab. The guys here are always offering to do things for us. We have a new friend called Johnny, a little Greek fellow, who is the colour processor. When he hasn't anything to do he comes into the room to sit and chats with us. He proudly showed us pictures of his wife and two little girls last week. We worked at the Lab all night last Friday night and walked out into sunshine at 6.30 am Saturday morning. A big production company paid the overtime for all the staff needed to process and print 4,000ft of colour film by the morning. It was all location shooting in 35mm colour. Film House had just got their 35mm processor operational so we were rather worried that there may be problems with it. When it was done Jack, Johnny, and a couple of the printers sat with us in the theatre while we checked it. It was beautiful. No problems at all, and the quality of the print and colour was marvellous - so we all left that morning feeling very pleased with ourselves. Roger and I got home and cooked dinner/tea/breakfast at 7am in the morning and then went out and did the shopping. In the evening we saw the new James Bond film "You Only Live Twice". It was especially interesting to me as I had done some work on it in London. I actually saw some of the scenes before they were cut... I suppose, with winter now upon Mount Morgan, that things are getting a little chilly. Our heat wave seems to have lessened a bit. Today is cloudy with a cold wind and the lake was rather choppy. Out past the island it is just like the sea with large breakers smashing against the rocks. Toronto is actually protected by the islands which give ships a safe anchorage.  Well our washing is finished, so it is time to retrieve it from the machine and hop off to our rabbit burrow.....................

                                            Letters 156 & 157 - Centennial Day & Big News

Toronto. Saturday, July 1st 1967. Well today is Canada's birthday. The confederation of states is officially 100 years old, and all over the country big celebrations are under way. This morning Toronto staged a Centennial parade that took four hours to pass a given point. Canadian flags were everywhere, with the old Union Jack as rare as hen's teeth. In the cinemas now, the new National Anthem "O Canada" has replaced "God Save the Queen". At the lab this week we did 35mm copies of the new Anthem to run in all the Nation's cinemas from today onwards. Actually, we do not think much of their new Anthem as it sounds a bit like a funeral dirge. It was all happening today in Nathan Square, the huge plaza in front of the new ultra modern city hall. When we arrived there this afternoon the massed bands of the military struck up with "O' Canada"  as if to welcome us. We laughed a bit because we had been hearing it all week as we checked the prints out, and we were rather fed up with it. It's all part of Canada's struggle for individuality and unity, with French Quebec being like a thorn in the side of the federation. Being in the shadow of the U.S.A. doesn't help at all either, as they get swamped by all things American. They say "If America sneezes, we catch a cold!". Canadians traveling away from their country are mostly always perceived to be Americans. We can now tell the differences in their accents, and true Canadians are more laid back than the yanks. Probably they are more like Aussies. The worst Canadians are the English people who have immigrated here. They have this compulsion to boast endlessly about what they have, and what they have achieved, as if they are not sure they made the right move and are constantly trying to justify it. Queen Elizabeth and the Duke are here, but everyone knows it could be the last time as Sovereign of their Nation. I must say it is an interesting time to be in Canada and be part of their struggle for a National identity....Now for the BIG news! Something that you may have been waiting to hear for some time. This week we booked our passage to Australia. On March 30th 1968, I shall step ashore on Australian soil again as we disembark from the P & O liner "Canberra", the Queen of the P & O fleet. We discovered that it was on a Pacific cruise from Sydney to the West coast of Canada and  the U.S.A. calling in at Japan and Hong Kong on the way back. It sounds ideal, so we have booked our passage, and paid our deposit. We are trying to get our own cabin, and if we can, the trip home will be really something, as the "Canberra" is the most modern and largest of the ocean liners. We call in at Honolulu and have three days in Japan, and three in Hong Kong. I have always wanted to see Japan, so now, if all goes well, I shall. The journey will take over a month, and leaves from Vancouver, calling in at San Francisco and Los Angeles. It means we will spend the Winter here and catch the end of Summer in Australia. However, there is still a fair amount of time and we can always change our minds if circumstances change, and just fly home. However, return by ship would be by far the best way to return home as it gives us the opportunity to see more of the world - which was one of my reasons for leaving home in the first place. It also means that we have no luggage problems as we can carry as much as we like with us. The later departure date also gives us time to build up some capital. It would be great to be able to buy a new car in Sydney and drive it home. So, there you are then - the plans as they are now. Home next April.....Sunday.  Big storm this morning! Actually, there have been storms all week. We are going down to the City Hall for the afternoon to grab some pictures, so I hope no more storms hit. There is a display of modern sculpture there, and it looks pretty weird, so we are going to check it out. Hope you approve of the news. I may know more about it next week......

                                                       Art Exhibition at Toronto City Hall

Saturday 8th July.    It is a hot, humid Saturday morning at 3am. We have eaten, and just finished watching television from Buffalo, New York state. We had a very busy week at the Lab with a couple of mornings working until 4am. There has been a bit of trouble with the processing machine and as we are the Lab fault finders, we are in the thick of things. Roger, especially, is extremely efficient at getting at the trouble, and Jack depends on him a lot. We both work well together and know the Lab thinks highly of us, so much so, that the Lab president, Fin Quinn has been over in London trying to recruit more Englishmen. Did I tell you that everyone at the Lab thinks I am English, except my closest friends. Tom, one of the colour graders just this week said to me " Are your folks in London, Barry?" When I told him I was from Down Under, he said "Geeze, I would never have known. You talk like an Englishman!". I was a bit put out by that and asked Roger if I sounded like an pommie. He said "yes!" and that my Aussie accent is only detectable at times. This surprised me as I have never made any conscious effort to lose it. So, I guess it is about time I returned!.. Sunday  It was Roger's birthday on Friday. He is twenty four and seems to be getting along fine away from home. I have not detected any signs at all of him being homesick. Quite the reverse, as he seems to be enjoying his new independence. Like me he writes to his Mum every week, and we both look forward to letters from home. Have you heard anything about the girls returning home yet? I know Isobel will only travel on the "Oriana" or the "Canberra". I think the "Oriana" is leaving in October. I wrote to Des and Jan some time back, but haven't heard anything from them yet. I don't want them to travel home via the Middle East, and told them so. I want them to return this way, but they have all these romantic ideas about India and are determined to go there. Trust them to only see the good in people, and ignore the rest...Sunday evening. Now at the Laundromat with the machines doing our washing. We had planned to go swimming but the sky was rather cloudy so we went walking over to Casa Loma, the huge castle built in the 1800's, but now is a big tourist attraction. While wandering around the grounds a huge storm came up and we took shelter in a stone patio. Gosh! it poured, and had great flashes of fork lightning. It was the severest storm I have seen since I left AussieLand. London never had storms much and really heavy rain was rare, which is fortunate because their drainage system just cannot cope. It is a gentle country in all ways. Here it is quite different, and one can expect the unexpected. Not long after we arrived in Canada, Chicago had multiple tornados that caused heavy damage and killed a lot of people. Hope nothing like that happens here. In the car park at Casa Loma there were cars from all over the states and Canada. It was quite interesting walking around and reading the number plates. I wish you could see the beautiful homes and streets around where we live. There are trees of all descriptions in the streets, and many are covered with flowers. All the beautiful homes have more trees, and colourful gardens. It's rather hilly too, and again reminds me of the poshy areas of Brisbane.....

                                        Letters 158 & 159 -  Encounter With the Law!


Toronto. Sunday, July 16th 1967. Your letter arrived yesterday. I am very pleased that your hand is a lot better. You had me worried for a while. How fortunate you are to have such an understanding doctor, and to live where medical attention is easy to get and free. A friend of ours here wanted to see her doctor because she was ill and was told that he couldn't see her until August 20th, over a month away. Then if you go to hospital, you pay for your stay there , pay for your doctor and pay for your treatment - all this could cost hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands. No ambulance will touch an injured person if they can't pay. Of course, you can get insurance against being injured and the costs of illness, something we have both done. Life here on the North American continent, is far more complicated than life in Australia, and Britain. We have to carry an identity card at all times, and you must have a security number. Cops are on the prowl everywhere in their big cars , especially at night, and carry their guns on them at all times...... At this point Barry omits to relate to his mother the details of their encounter with the forces of the law. Working the evening shift at the Lab meant that we would be getting home at all hours of the night or early morning. It was our practice to catch the bus up Yonge Street to the stop at St Clair, then walk along Balmoral Avenue to number 144. It was about a ten minute walk along our very quiet suburban street. This particular night we had taken our cut lunch as usual, but added a couple of oranges and a knife to peel them. As we were walking up the street, and carrying the knife in a brown paper bag, a police car came cruising along and at the sight of us it halted and two very large policeman emerged and came over to us. ".I.D's please!" one said. When these were produced and handed over to them they questioned us on what we were doing walking along the street so late at night.(one presumes if we had have been driving it would not have been a problem). We explained that we worked the late shift and we going home. "What have you got there?" said one spotting the brown paper bag that I was trying to hide behind my thigh. "A -a - knife , sir!" said I turning pale and just managing to squeeze the words out of a voice box constricted in terror. Needless to say we got the third degree then!. I was expecting them to take us to the police station, read us our rights like they do in the movies, and then say "Book 'em!" However I explained it was to peel the oranges that we took in for our dinner. Of course the knife was handed over to them for inspection, and, fortunately, I had not washed it and it reeked of fresh orange juice, not blood!...After a murmured discussion with each other they agreed to allow us to proceed on our way. After that we always carried a letter from the Lab to say that we were employed by them to work the late shift and therefore would be returning home at all hours of the night...........There is no such thing here as the friendly "Bobby on the Beat" that I often used to see strolling alone, along Greencoft Gardens, carrying nothing more than his baton. Murders occur here almost daily and are so common that the report is often buried in the inner pages, not front page news as it would be in London. Just across the border negroes are rioting and burning city neighbourhoods, and the riots have now spread to nearby Buffalo. Violence seems to be too much a part of everyday life here… I received a letter from Stan last week with photos of Peter and Karan. Gosh! Peter is growing fast, and Karan looks a lovely baby. It was great to hear from Stan. He sounds just the same. Trouble now is finding the time to answer his letter. I already owe Bette one. Stan didn't say anything at all about Allan Jones. I wonder how he is. I guess I will have a lot of catching up to do when I return home. Everyone who writes keeps asking me about Noel - what has happened to him etc, etc. I guess I will have to think up some answers for when I return. Roger is at the moment sorting out our slides - some of the many taken in Italy, Paris, Holland and England. Now we are getting some new ones taken in Canada. I think it may take weeks to show you all our slides. We are planning on going to New York in September and Expo in early October, so that, hopefully will mean more slides to sort out. Our New York trip will be organised this week. It is a choice between flying there or traveling by coach. I think it will be the latter, because it gives us the opportunity to see more of the country.  Chicago is not that far away, so I should take a trip there to see Esther before I leave this part of the world.
Sunday. July 22nd It's a hot sultry afternoon in the Canadian city of Toronto, but it just feels like a hot sticky summer's day at home. The weather fouled us up again today as we planned to go swimming and sunbaking, but it stormed up until afternoon and the sun has only just appeared, now it's too late to do anything. Yesterday was hot and sunny all day. However, we are now doing something constructive instead, by doing the washing at the Laundromat. Ironing is not a problem as we don't do any. All our shirts are drip dry, and the rest doesn't need ironing. We did have a nice walk this afternoon as we went out and explored a bit more of the area in which we live. There are some really beautiful homes about here and the streets are the same. The end of Balmoral Avenue leads into a very rich, elegant area where the large homes are two to three story and of brick construction, many covered in ivy. They have long driveways through front gardens full of trees, shrubs and flower beds. Many homes look very English, some even being of Tudor design. To stand and look at them you would think you were in the heart of Surrey in England. All the streets needed to complete the illusion was a thatched cottage or two. Ontario is the big English province, with Toronto being the English capital. It seems as if there are a lot of Scottish people too. The neighbouring province of Quebec is French and there are many there who want it to be an independent French state, separate from Canada. Oh well! there is always someone wanting to make things more difficult..... I was pleased to read in your last letter that Rick has been passed over for National Service. So all the girls will be home by Xmas. Are Des and Jan going all the way by ship, or still traveling part of the way overland? They owe me a letter but I have given up hope of hearing from them. I also received a letter post marked "Genova, Italy" on Friday which had me puzzled until I opened it. It was from Sylvia on her way to Australia. I tried to discourage her from going, but she is a very determined young lady and knows what she wants or thinks she wants. The trouble is the film industry is a very small world. It would be funny if Syl, Mike Flynn, Roger and I ended up working at the same Lab in Sydney. It would be like Humphries all over again. We worked all Friday night again this week on an urgent colour job and did not get home until 6 am - so we didn't get to bed until Saturday night. The manager came into our department one day last week and told us what a good job we were doing, and to thank us. We were also told that we were getting an increase in our pay from next Monday. Now that will be very handy indeed, with our planned trips to Expo and New York. Now if we could get a guarantee of our own cabin on the "Canberra" everything would be perfect........

                                    Toronto Homes(and some local residents) & Domestic Chores

                                                     Letters 160 & 161 (Moving Time)

Toronto, Sunday July 30th 1967   It has been a troubled week here on the North American continent. Just over the border the city of Detroit was set ablaze by rioting negroes. The rioting spread almost as far as the downtown area with much burning and looting and many deaths. Violence seem to be so much a part of the American way of life. They are always killing someone. The colour problem doesn't seem to be anywhere near as bad here as it is in the U.S.A... Canada, to my observations, seems to have a mix of all Nationalities, who interact with one another without any problems. Still, Toronto is a little uneasy with all this violence happening just over the border. The biggest problem here are the French people. There was a bit of trouble with De Gaulle just this week. The miserable bum came over as a guest of Expo and then proceeded to stir things up with the extreme French separatists in Quebec. Just when Canada is celebrating its one hundred years of federation he comes over and says that Quebec should fight for its independence. What an idiot!. Already Montreal authorities have found one bomb planted by the separatists. There was such an outcry against him that he packed up and left the country. The senile old fool doesn't know what he is doing or saying. He should be locked up where he can do no more harm.. We went swimming this morning and were going to go over to  the island for the afternoon, but there were too many people crowding on to the ferries, so we didn't go. There was a big storm coming anyway.(another thing Toronto has in common with Brisbane - violent storms!). Instead we had a walk around the docks and sat on a jetty and watched the assortment of craft on Lake Ontario. While we sat there many yachts and sail boats skimmed by, with a few speed boats as well, and even a large cargo boat cruised past. Down the lake a short distance we could see the island ferries travelling to and fro, while above this scene one light aeroplane after another took off or landed on the strip that runs out into the harbour. Moored near the light plane strip were a few seaplanes looking quite exciting and adventurous, resting on their big floats. I love to watch them land and take off. I imagine them going to some picturesque lake somewhere in the vast Canadian interior. Seaplanes are very common here and play an important part in making the wilderness accessible. I wish that Queensland had the forests and lakes that Canada has. If we had a fraction of the Canadian lakes our water problems would be solved. They must laugh themselves silly when they travel to Australia and see what we call lakes. "Dontcha know that lakes are supposed to have water in 'em!" they would say.... So, Isobel will be home by September. I wouldn't be surprised if she turns around again and heads back to London. She seemed to fit into the London scene very well.  I received a note from Desley this week to apologise for not writing. That is all she said - apart from the fact that she will write soon. Bette told me about the Past Pupils walk to Rocky when she wrote recently. I wonder what crazy thing she will think up next to do. I will always remember our hike through the bush at Struck Oil to the Bouldie Falls, when we copped a storm on the way back and everyone got saturated. (It gave us a good laugh though).  We got our increases this week of an extra five bucks a week. It will come in handy!.. Now for the main news! Within the next two weeks we shall be moving, due to a row with our landlady. We have been suspicious for some time that she has been coming down and snooping around, and going through our things while we are at work. Unfortunately there is no lock on the door between our basement flat and her living area. Anyway, we set a trap for her by draping a piece of cotton between the two curtains leading into our living area. On arrival home from work we found the cotton detached from the curtains and trailed across the room - an obvious sign that she had been down snooping around in our things. We confronted her on the issue and in the ensuing row it was mutually agreed that we leave within the next two weeks. She is an amazingly ignorant women and says "You English people have nothing. That's why you come over here!". When I told her I was from Australia she had no idea where that was. She thought it was "a little country in Europe" (Austria). Here is a sample of her rules.- NO ENTERTAINING. NO VISITORS & NO BEER. We used to bring our beer in, in brown paper supermarket bags which worked okay until one wet bottle fell through the paper bag and smashed on her front path. We worked like mad to clean it all up before she noticed it. The other rules didn't bother us as we didn't wish to have visitors or entertain anyway. Roger told her exactly what he thought of her and her rules, and what she could do with her basement, so we now have two weeks to find another place. The big advantage of this place was that it was convenient, so we hope to find one somewhere else just as convenient - so hold off the letters from now on until I notify you of our new address. Actually we are rather fed up with the people of Canada. The only thing worse than a loud mouthed Canadian, is a loud mouthed Yank. They are continually shooting off their big mouths about how much they have and how much they know. And they know nothing! For some strange reason they are compulsive liars. They exaggerate everything so much that they lose all idea of the truth. Perhaps that's how they are in this part of the world - all outward show, with nothing substantial behind the facade. Marie told us once that she liked us immediately because we weren't loud mouthed knowalls like everybody else. We like her for the same reason. Marie tends to be a little bit cynical about the rest of her workmates, and has a very dry sense of humour which we both like. Sometimes she will say something, and it will hit you a while later that she made a very sly little joke. She is a very attractive lady too, and it is an in joke between us about the Lab guys always making passes at her.
 Monday August 7th  Today was a marvellous day, sunny and hot and also a public holiday, so we went on a long 7 mile hike. First we went through a very large park called High Park, with lots of gardens full of flowers, then along  the Humber River which borders the city, to the borough of Etobicoke. We then walked back along the lake shore to the city again, enjoying a couple of ice-creams along the way. Later we climbed up to another flower filled park that overlooks the lake. The lake looked particularly nice today with dozens of sail boats gliding about on its deep blue/green water. We were going over to the island today, but we got up late. It's probably just as well we changed our minds as we heard on the T.V. that over 40,000 people took the ferries over to the island today, and that there were long queues to board the ferries. Our hotel for Expo in Montreal is all booked. We decided to go back to the same place that we stayed in before, even though the cost for a room has now doubled for Expo...........

                                                  
                                                   Letters 162, 163 & 164 - (On To Yorkville)

Toronto. Saturday, August 11th 1967. .....Apartment 1004. Yorkville Towers.  11 Yorkville Avenue. Toronto 5.   Exciting news! Note the new address. Remember I once told you about a fascinating area in Toronto called "Yorkville" - well we are now living there on the top floor of a tower that looks down on the trendy village and across the city to the faraway shore of Lake Ontario. You pull open the full width floor to ceiling drapes and there is this magnificent view, with no other high rise blocks to spoil it. We searched all week, knowing what we wanted, and eventually found it. It is a fully furnished bedsitter type apartment with a fully equipped kitchen and bathroom. Though not as big as the other place, this will suit us just fine. At night we can dine and gaze out at the glittering lights of Toronto and we even can see Casa Loma all lit up on the hill. Roger is quite excited, and is at the moment fixing up our T.V. set. Everything is very modern and quite elegant looking. Our luggage is everywhere and already we have started the "where's the ??."Naturally we have quite a bit of luggage, but managed it all okay with the help of a Scottish removal guy. It only cost us $10 and this time we had the T.V. and our trunk to move. The old landlady wanted an extra $30, but Roger told her where to get off. We gave her an extra days rent for the Saturday, because she said we had to go by Friday midnight.. Yesterday she gave us a good laugh. We had just finished cleaning up and I was washing a few dishes and had just got down to the last glass when she came down the stairs calling out as she always does "I'm coming down!".I got such a fright that I dropped the glass and broke it. We didn't know what to do, so while I cleaned it up, Roger diverted her to another room and had to suffer another earbashing from her. She went on talking about herself for what seemed like hours, so with the breakage cleaned up and hidden we sneaked out into the garden to sit in the sun and she didn't even realise that we had gone. There she was talking to nobody but herself.. Sunday  Well we certainly have gone from one extreme to the other. From a basement flat that had windows at grass level where all we saw were people's feet to the top floor of a 10 story tower, where we now look down on people's heads. Last night as we dined we gazed out at the twinkling city lights. It is great that we can have the drapes wide open, but still have our privacy because all the other nearby buildings are well below us. Roger is busy spraying our window wall with window detergent to get it spotlessly clean - after all, it is now our "window to the world". While cooking diner last night we watched the sun set behind the distant towers of Casa Loma, outlining it in red and gold. As the night progressed we could also see the hippies, trendies and sightseers pouring into the "arty" Yorkville scene. It is the only street in Toronto with any real character, and is considered to be a refuge from the staid, conservative, puritanical Toronto. Because of the ultra conservative nature of Ontario you cannot buy liquor anywhere else but at the government warehouses. There you must fill out an application form with all your personal details on it(including your I.D. number), then if you check out okay, you are allowed to purchase the liquor. You must buy beer by the carton, and if it is unopened you are allowed to carry it on public transport. If the box is opened you are not! Beer commercials are allowed on television as long as "beer" is not mentioned, no beer bottle is shown and no beer is to be seen in any glasses. Consequently we have beer commercials with a lot of people standing around talking about the weather, while a label for something or other beer appears in the corner! In some provinces of Canada alcohol is completely banned. Any wonder that there is a rebellious element in the younger people of Toronto. Anyway, Yorkville is where we are now. I am sure that the wicked witch landlady that we left behind us would thoroughly disapprove of our new address. She would probably label Yorkville as "sinful". That is why we love it! Sure we had to pay a little bit more for it, but we figure it was worth it. Unfortunately, for the next couple of weeks we are going to be split up, because Marie is going on holiday for two weeks. It will be a bit of a nuisance, but we will manage. I will be on days, and Roger will keep on nights. I am quickly giving him cooking lessons so he can look after himself for the couple of weeks. One big plus for living here, too, is that there is a large supermarket almost opposite our tower - so shopping will be so very easy ...

 Sunday 20th August Yorkville Towers  It is a nice day here in Toronto. The humidity has dropped and it feels cooler - a nice change as we have had a lot of awful hot sticky weather. The big Canadian National Exhibition has just opened in Toronto ..there was a pause in the letter here as we looked out of our big window and saw an airship floating over the city. It is the Good Year Blimp and is taking people who dare on flights over the city. It's quite odd to see such a relic of the past as an airship - or dirigible to give it its correct name, gliding over the modern city of Toronto. It reminds me of the saying "everything old is new again".I guess it is here for the C.N.Exhibition .. Before I was interrupted by the airship in our window, I was about to say we went out to the Exhibition this afternoon and wandered about. It is the world's biggest annual fair - so the ads tell us.(Well of course it would be. Everything is the BIGGEST and the BEST here!) Most of it was the usual fun fair stuff with thousands of hamburger stalls, but what really grabbed our attention was the Ontario Pavilion, which had live fish and animals found in Ontario on display. They had a pool with small trees and a waterfall where a pair of Otters were on display. Talk about playing to an audience! They romped about continually, showing off their aquatic skills and playfulness to a delighted crowd. It was as if they knew they were being watched and decided to "ham it up" for the audience. Otters are very intelligent and delightful creatures. There were also two beavers in another pool, but they just sat under a pine tree and sleepily nibbled a stick. The midway was mind boggling with all types of crazy rides to be had. Most of them I hadn't seen before and it sure made the Mount Morgan Annual Show rather insignificant. As neither of us are the types who like to be spun around and around, we gave all the rides a miss. We would have had a ride on the cable car which goes from one end of the fair to the other, but the queues to board it were too long, so we didn't bother. The car section was interesting with one car on display that was driven completely by a computer.(yes, but can it get out and wash the car as well!!) Colour television was on display but I'm afraid we were not impressed. Television here is quite inferior to British and Australian T.V. as it uses the N.T.S.C format, not the Pal system that our countries use, which is vastly superior. Television is one thing that they don't have that is the biggest and the best!. I had an extremely busy week at the Lab as I am now on the day shift. This week Rog and I split, with me working 8am to 7pm, and him 6.30 pm to 6am until Marie comes back. With a bit of overtime tossed in we give the Lab 24 hour coverage. It is just as well it's work we like, otherwise we couldn't do it. His arrival home in the morning wakes me up for my day. To make things worse for me, a new chap arrived from England to work in our department. He said he worked as a screener for Technicolour, but I have a feeling that he was just a projectionist, as he doesn't seem to know film at all, and certainly knows nothing about negative. So this has made my work so much more difficult as I have to check everything that he does, and certainly can't allow him to touch anything important. Anyway, Marie(bless her) will be back after next week, and with one week behind us, the next, hopefully, will be easier. Poor old Rog has been a bit discouraged with the cooking as it hasn't been going too well. Both of us will be pleased to return to our normal system. Jack, our night supervisor, is also on holidays so things are pretty rough all round. Never mind, the weekend after next, the start of September, we will be in New York. How about that Mother - the last of the world's leading cities. I have seen Hong Kong, Paris, Rome, London and next New York. Hopefully, by the time I arrive home a few more cities will be added to that list, including Tokyo. I am quite excited about New York as it is really one city I have always wanted to go to.. Sunday evening  Tonight is a warm sunny evening and we have just dined on Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding as the lights of Toronto twinkled around us. We were though, somewhat startled, when in the middle of our meal, the Goodyear Blimp all lit up, cruised past our window. It had a running neon sign which ran around its centre advertising the C.N. exhibition. Both of us think it is quite bizarre to have an antique airship cruise by our window! We went to the movies this afternoon(we choose to go to the afternoon sessions as the queues are too long for the night sessions) and saw the thoroughly delightful "Thoroughly Modern Milly” starring the talented Julie Andrews.....
.Saturday August 26th  Hot and sultry here today and I have just had my second cold shower. We have just had tea and toasted canapes - which didn't help us cool off!. It's funny, in England I drank only coffee, and when we came here we drank only coffee. However, suddenly we got sick of coffee and went out and bought ourselves a teapot and some tea, and now really enjoy our cup of tea. You asked about how we get to our 10th floor - by lift. Gee, it's great here. Before we would spend a lot of time walking to and fro from the shops with armfuls of groceries. Now we just take the lift down to the foyer, step across the road to the huge, and very good, Pickering Farms supermarket and return, all in about half an hour. If we have forgotten something we just duck across the road and get it. It is even open till late at night. We are two stations nearer to the Lab, and can easily walk there and back if we wish. We just can't get over our luck to get a place like this. At night it is fascinating. Casa Loma looks like a fairy tale castle with its floodlighting and orange lit towers standing above the trees in the distance. There will be no more trips to the Laundromat as we have our own in the basement, with its own washers and dryers. All this for an extra quid a week each. Yorkville, itself has been in the news this week as the people who live there, and go there, want the street closed off to stop the constant stream of cars full of gawkers, who they say present a danger to pedestrians. The council controller has agreed to talk to them, but he is dead set against hippies, so the other night all the hippies just sat down in the middle of the road and blocked it in a peaceful protest. Of course the cops arrived on the scene and started to drag away the protesters, but then more would sit down. I was there for a while but could see things getting out of hand, and violence occurring - especially when I noticed that some of the protesters had what looked like long needles to prod the police horses with. So much for a "peaceful demonstration! I quickly left. I don't know what the outcome was, but certainly attacking the police horses was the wrong way to go about it...... I return to nights next week with Roger which is fine by me as the day shift has too many interruptions. We are celebrating the return to normality with a special Oriental dinner at home tonight as we watch the C.N.E fireworks display from our big window to the world. Next weekend we are off to New York by coach for a few days to take advantage of the holiday weekend. We leave Friday and return Tuesday.......

                                                                 Yorkville Living

                                                            Letter 165. The Big Apple

Toronto. Sunday Sept.10th 1967.  Well, this is the first letter for two weeks. I hope you received the card from New York. I sent quite a few from there to friends in England and Australia. It was amazing that we found time to write them. So now, where do I start to tell you about our exciting few days in the U.S.A. and New York - a place that I have always dreamed of visiting. We left by Greyhound coach from the Toronto terminal at 9.45am. and travelled express with only two stops, one at Buffalo and another at a service centre on the throughway. At Buffalo we had time to have a walk about the city area, but everywhere we looked there were black people and it all looked rather run down, so we quickly returned to the coach terminal. Even driving out of Buffalo all were saw were black people in what appeared to be derelict neighborhoods. It was interesting though to note that outside almost every derelict house could be seen a flashy car. From Buffalo to New York, a distance of 400 miles on the throughway,  the vehicles go non stop, with no intersections, no traffic lights, no anything that will slow the pace of the traffic. Our coach kept a steady 60mph the whole way and the weather could only be described as perfect. We sat in the front seat of the upper deck - an observation deck, and had an excellent view of the American countryside and reached New York, via the New Jersey turnpike around 7.30pm. As we came in from the New Jersey side the skyline of New York became visible on the other side of the Hudson River. It was a terrifically exciting moment to see the famous skyline there before us across the water. I've seen other famous scenes like the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, London Bridge, Tower of Pisa, the Forum, the Coliseum, but the New York skyline at sunset, all glittering lights against a pink wash of sky, was one of the most magical,exciting sights of all. It's referred to as the "Big Apple", but to me it looked more like the "Emerald City"!. One of the odd things about it was that the Empire State building was visible long before anything else was. We could see the top of it while driving through the New Jersey countryside. As you may know New York City is on the island of Manhattan and was bought from the Indians in 1626 for a few beads and trinkets.(It was originally called New Amsterdam). Access to the city is by way of one of the numerous bridges and tunnels. Our coach drove beneath the Hudson River by way of the Lincoln Tunnel, and in a short time we were in the coach station complex. The coach stations are just like railway stations with all the same amenities, including shops and restaurants. We grabbed our bags, cameras etc and made for the exit, and found ourselves on 42nd Street. I couldn't believe it. "Forty Second Street"!!.. I half expected another sign to say "Yellow Brick Road - This Way ->"  Though plonked down in a new city, I knew exactly where I was. I said to Rog if we follow this street it will lead us right into Broadway and our hotel will be nearby opposite Madison Square Garden. We could walk it easy!  "um don't you think it would be wiser to get a taxi?" said Roger. "Wiser - definitely! But not as much fun. Let's walk!" I said. So, as we didn't really have that much to carry, we set forth with my mind singing "Hear the beat, of dancing feet.....On the most exciting thoroughfare - Forty Second Street"... Well, there weren't too many dancing feet to be seen , except perhaps my couple of furtive shuffle steps, and it only would have been exciting if we had have been mugged. In all, it looked rather sleazy and run down. There was an abundance of X rated cinemas and strip joints, and shops selling explicit magazines, but only a couple of live theatres. However there were many restaurants with good food at very reasonable prices, which we noted for future dining. Broadway, itself was much the same, although there were more live theatres to be seen. One big plus for New York though, is it is easy to find your way around as all the cross streets and avenues carry numbers instead of names. Our hotel the, Penn Garden, was situated at 7th Avenue and  31st Street so we walked there by counting the street numbers and gazing at everything - the people, the buildings, shops - everything. The hotel was rather plush and very nice, and welcomed us with a huge thick carpeted foyer, with a ballroom on one side and a couple of expensive shops on the other. Our room was on the 17th floor and was fully equipped with bathroom,T.V. air conditioning, etc. and overlooked the new Madison Square Garden Centre, now almost complete. That night, after we dined, we had intended to have an early night, but thought we would have a wander up Broadway, just a few blocks away. We didn't get to bed until 2am. There was so much to see and poke our curious noses into, that the time just flew. At the junction of 42nd and Broadway one needed to wear dark glasses as the glare from all the neon signs was so bright. On Saturday we had about the most busiest and most full day that I think I have ever had. We walked up Fifth Avenue, dropping in at the Empire State on the way, but the queues were too long, and we had that scheduled for tomorrow anyway. We then went to the Rockefeller Centre and took the lift up to the top of the R.C.A. building. Here we had a complete view of all New York . Thanks to the perfect weather and the fact that it was a holiday weekend, the air was very clear, with little pollution, so everything was crisp and clear. We could look across to the Empire State Building in the south,and to the north, spread out below for a considerable distance, was Central Park. After that, and a bite to eat, we walked through the theatre district to the piers, as we had a three hour boat trip booked for the afternoon, which would take us right around Manhattan Island. This was really great as we passed Brooklyn, the Bronx, all the bridges, the Statue of Liberty, Spanish Harlem and the West Side Apartments of famous people where Frank Sinatra has his penthouse which overlooks the East River. On the East River frontage also lies the United Nations building. In the evening, after the boat trip, and another quick bite to eat at Tads Steak House we dashed off to the Radio City Music Hall - the biggest theatre in the world.(That's what the brochure said!). Here we had a symphony orchestra play the last movement of Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony, the Ballet danced "The Dance of the Hours", a campus choir sang, jugglers came out and did fantastic things and the grand finale was a Follies Bergere type spectacle with beautiful ladies and dazzling costumes, finishing with the high stepping Rockettes chorus line. After all this they showed the movie "Up the Down Staircase" starring Sandy Dennis and directed by Robert Mulligan who directed and won the Oscar for "To Kill a Mockingbird". We finally got to bed around 1am. On Sunday we had a coach tour lined up that covered everything there was to see and lasted all day. Fortunately we had made our bookings for everything in the Travel Agents in Toronto, for, as it was a holiday weekend, we would have to have joined long queues for everything. On this trip we saw again, but closer up, the West Side, Harlem, Grants Tomb, the unfinished Cathedral of St John the Devine, Lincoln Centre(which we returned to later), Fifth Avenue and the Empire State Building (all 102 stories and 1,470 feet of it) It took three lifts for us to get to the top(queueing at each lift!), but we finally made it. Again the clarity of the air was amazing. It reminded me of the title song from a new show called "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever". Well from the top of the Empire State that is exactly the feeling you get. We sure picked the right weekend to visit New York! There before us was a birds eye view of all Manhattan and the various suburbs that make up New York all around us. What particularly stood out was the golden Art Deco grandeur of the Chrysler Building, and then across from that stood the Pan Am building where helicopters could be seen ferrying passengers to and from Kennedy Airport. After that we boarded the bus again and went to Greenwich Village, Chinatown and the Bowery. Here derelicts can be seen lying about the sidewalks and in doorways which they are allowed to do, as long as they do not venture out of this area. It is also known as "Skid Row". If they do venture out of this area they are arrested and jailed. Later we had a boat trip across the bay from lower Manhattan, to the small island where the Statue of Liberty stands. On the way to the boat pier we drove through the awesome man made canyons of Wall Street, the financial centre. After the visit to the Statue of Liberty, we were driven up Fifth Avenue for a stop over at Central Park, then it was on to the United Nations Building. All the U.N. buildings are in International territory, and, when walking inside and around these buildings, we were no longer in the United States. On Monday we walked up the Avenue of the Americas to Fifth Avenue(past Tiffany's) to revisit, and walk through Central Park. This park is absolutely amazing. It is so huge(843acres) that you feel as if you are walking in the countryside. It is actually 2 miles long and 1 mile wide, with a zoo and a couple of lakes. There is no sense of being in a formal city park at all. From here we found our way to Columbus Circle and the new, fantastic, Lincoln Centre, New York's home of the performing arts. I had seen pictures of it when it opened, but up close, and for real, the modernistic beauty of this cultural centre is indescribable. The interior of the opera house is fantastic and makes one realise that all the architectural beauty is not in the old world of Europe. The Lincoln Centre with its State Theatre, Opera House and Philharmonic Hall(Leonard Bernstien conductor) grouped around a central fountain, represents Twentieth Century architecture at its best. Later we caught the subway(an eye opener!) to Times Square for an Italian lunch and a Broadway show called "Hallelujah Baby". I had heard a bit of the music from it and thought it was quite good, and, as it was one of the few Broadway shows that had tickets available, we thought we would give it a go. We bought tickets for the upstairs dress circle and when we were shown to our seats we found that we were the only white people there. All around us were black people - and they all seemed to be looking at us. I knew that the theme of the show was about the struggle by black people for equality through the ages, but I certainly didn't think the show would draw an exclusively black audience. We didn't know whether we should stay of flee - some of those black faces didn't look at all friendly. However, we paid to see the show, so see it we would. It had some great dancing- the type that Americans do so well, good songs and colourful costumes, and, of course Leslie Uggams, the star of the show, was very, very good. After it was over we walked out of the theatre with all our new black friends (the nice lady beside me gave us some lollies) into the dazzling lights of Broadway. I looked for Gene Kelly. He's gotta be here somewhere crying out "gotta dance, gotta dance!".....But he wasn't, so we went and had a few quiet beers to discuss the day's events.. After eating we had one last stroll down Broadway and along 42nd Street. (this time I was pretty sure I heard those "dancin' feet!"!).We took a few more final pictures, and left for Canada the next morning..........So that's it! Barry and Roger's visit to the Big Apple. We both agreed that it was an exciting place to visit, with lots to see, but as for living there, well, er - Their subway is a bit of a worry for starters!! However, we had a great time. We walked so much that at night we must have looked like lost explorers as we staggered, exhausted, across the hotel lobby to the elevators. Now it's back to the daily routine until the 23rd, when we dash off to Montreal for Expo.

                                                           Scenes of NEW YORK

 

                                                       Letter 166 - Invitation to Dinner.

Toronto. Sunday 17th Sept. 1967  It is midnight Sunday night. We had a late supper after going over to the Island this afternoon, and have just watched television from Buffalo. They screened "The Greatest Show on Earth" which Roger had never seen, so we watched it together.(me for the fourth time). Next week is "Mutiny on the Bounty" with Marlon Brando, but we shall be away in Montreal. All the Fall shows are opening up now and the television networks from all over the States and Canada are sporting new shows to go after the ratings for the all important Winter ratings season. No doubt they will be passed on to Australia after their run here. There is nothing worth getting excited about though. All we ever watch is the occasional movie and the "Tarzan" series. Technically television is well below the standards of Britain and Australia. Everyone thinks America has the best of everything, and leads the world in technical achievement - but they sure are way behind in television! We had our first social outing in Canada last night. Making friends here is something that, while not avoiding it, we have not really pursued. I guess it is because we have not met anyone we really liked, with the exception of Marie. It seems as if almost everyone is a loud mouthed extrovert type trying to impress us, and taking us for fools. Maybe it's because a large proportion of the population of Toronto comes from somewhere else, and the chances of meeting a true Canadian are pretty rare. However one of the guys at the Lab that is an okay guy is called Ted, and is a true Canadian and a genuine normal person. He has been asking us over to his place for some time, and, this time, when he issued an invitation for dinner last night, we accepted. He shares an apartment, not far from us, with another guy called Chuck. It is on the 11th floor of a large tower and I must say that I never thought that a modest guy like Ted would have such a fantastic apartment. The building is approached through a terraced garden, and it had a big, long awning out front leading to the main door, which had automatic locking. You announce who you are to the owner by way of an intercom in the wall, and then, he can, if he wishes, open the door for you. Once inside, a huge chandelier greets you in the foyer, which has a thick red carpet and is offset with gold and white wallpapered walls. The guy's apartment was equally fantastic. They furnished it themselves, and it showed great style and ambience, with thick carpets and indirect lighting. The furniture could be described as modern, but elegant.(and expensive). They had lots of indoor plants and a great hi-fi system, plus an extensive book and record library. From the living room, one steps out on to a large balcony that overlooks all downtown Toronto. To say that we were impressed would be a massive understatement! It sure made our little place look sick! That is something that we would do if we intended to remain here - lease an apartment like that and furnish it ourselves, as furniture is cheap here. A whole apartment can be furnished for around one hundred pounds. Much less if the shopping is done at a place called "Honest Ed's. We visited there recently and were amazed at the range of things and low prices of everything on display. Somehow, though, I don't think that Ted or Chuck did their shopping at "Honest Ed's"..Their dinner was unexpected too! We had Cornish Game Cock,(one per plate as they were like tiny chooks!). Idaho potatoes, side vegetable dish and seedless grapes. All eaten together and very nice, washed down with a red rose wine. Afterwards we had chocolate eclairs, coffee and liqueurs. We then played records,(mostly movie soundtracks) and chatted until the early hours. It was a pleasant walk back to our modest digs, and on the way we agreed that there were at least two very nice Canadians in Toronto (four counting Marie and Jack).. Next weekend we will be taking the train to Montreal for Expo 67.  It will be much easier for us this time as we know our way around. We are both looking forward to seeing Montreal in the Summertime, as last time we were there it was covered in snow.

                                                    Letter 167.  Expo '67:  Montreal

Toronto. Sunday, October 1st 1967. Gee! October already. How about that! It will soon be Xmas and then time for our departure for the Great South Land. Right now we are settling back into our normal weekends at home routine after our extremely hectic four days in the asphalt jungle of New York and the exciting International world of Expo '67. I hope you received our cards from Montreal. I think mine contains a pretty garbled report of first impressions of Expo, but now I can tell you more about it in detail. We were rather worried about it at first as Montreal Transit was on strike - meaning no buses or subway for transportation. However, our hotel, though well out in the suburbs, was only a short walk from the Canadian National Railway's commuter train which ran into Central Station on the hour. From there we could catch another special C.N. train to take us close to the Expo site. Expo is built upon two islands in the St Lawrence River and portion of the mainland, almost in the middle of Montreal. From "La Place d'Accuell" (the entrance area) one boards the completely automatic Expo Express and is whizzed, driverless, to any one of the five stations within Expo. We were quite amazed that, after paying the initial entrance fee, everything then is free, except for the amusement park, a few special rides, and of course food. You actually buy a passport on entering, which is then stamped at each foreign pavilion that you visit, just as if you are, indeed, entering the country. By means of the dark, silver/blue express, one can change islands in a matter of minutes. Also, if one wishes, for the price of a couple of dollars there is transport to the main centre by hovercraft or helicopter. Because the site is so large and is actually a little Venice it is possible to cruise all around the area in various boats, and even a motor powered gondola. However the best way we found to get about was by the Expo Mini Rail. This is an elevated mono-rail train that winds its way through the entire fair, travelling past all the pavilions, under a waterfall, through the Ontario display, and right through the giant geodesic dome that houses the American exhibit. It is also completely automatic with the "driver" being an electronic brain. We were luckier than most as we got to see most of the major pavilions without queuing, by going to see them an hour or so before they closed. This way we saw the U.S.A., Russia, Britain, Italy, France, as well as Canada,Ontario,Quebec,Greece,Japan,Mexico,Australia,Israel,Germany and India. Of all of them, I would award the British one first prize. It was very dramatic. One entered it at the bottom, and by means of a slowly moving platform you were carried gently past the exhibits. The first sight to greet the eyes was a rocky coastline where water lapped at the base of rocks and mist drifted past. As you approached the rocks, images with sound appeared within the rocks themselves to tell you about Britain's past history. It was as if the rocks had been made the custodians of Britain's past!. At any time you could step off the moving platform for a closer look. We both found it fascinating to be viewing segments of Britain's history as mist drifted past these amazing talking rocks. In one rock the figure of a Roman soldier came striding towards the viewer, in another the head of a Viking warrior would appear, then people's faces and swords, and cries of anguish. The land was speaking, and giving up its secrets. The theme of the exhibit was "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" and takes the visitor through 3,000years of British history. When the platform carried us to Britain "Today" we were plunged into a culture that was  both swinging, but dignified, arty and intellectual, colourful and fun. The "Tomorrow" part was about what Britain's technical achievements could bring to the world of tomorrow, and featured an intriguing artistic sculpture called "The Family of Man"..The Russian exhibit treated the people like adults too, but the American exhibit, housed in its huge Geodesic Dome, seemed to think all people were mindless, bubble gum chewing kids, for its display was very flashy with pop poster art, neon signs, and a movie section, that  left one with the thought that if Hollywood was taken away, there would be nothing else left in the U.S.A. except Cape Kennedy. Their space exhibit, however, was good, as it showed the space capsule coming down with its three parachutes, about to land on a reconstruction on the moon's surface, where they also had a depiction of what the scene might look like when the astronauts finally do get to land on the surface of the moon. Though being too much on the Pop Art side, the pavilion itself was tremendously impressive because of its construction and vastness inside where people travel on an escalator which is as high as a six story building. The spherical shaped building itself is 20 stories high and was designed by Buckminster Fuller. In Russia they paraded all their scientific achievements and culture, and even had a special chamber where visitors could experience weightlessness as in space. We gave that a miss (A) because of the queue and (B) we wanted to keep our dinner. In all the pavilions the emphasis was on the screening of movies. Many pushed the technical frontiers even further. The absolute standout sensation of these, was Ontario's own movie called "A Place to Stand" that screened on a massive screen in the Ontario Pavilion. Our lab did most of the other films screening around the Ontario pavilion, but this one was state of the art multiple image in 70mm. This means that the audience watched many images at once on the giant screen. Sometimes it was only one image up there, then it would a dozen. It actually portrayed, very well, what it was like to live in Ontario Province, all set to a specially written song called "A Place to Stand". The song is really great and we have been singing it for weeks, as it has become almost a national anthem here. They should throw out boring "Oh Canada" and replace it with "A Place to Stand". The sound for the movie was really terrific too. It made us feel very proud to be in the film industry in Ontario. Naturally the Canadian, and other province displays were very elaborate too. The Canada pavilion was marked by an upside down pyramid called a "Katimavik", and the "People Tree" a huge orange/red globe covered in pictures of people of all ethnic groups that make up the population of Canada. The oddest of all the province displays was the Quebec exhibit which had everything represented in an abstract way with electronic music and lighting effects. The most impressive thing here was the elevator ride to the top where the sides of the cylindrical lift become transparent and one gazes at an abstract representation of the changing seasons - all done with weird lighting and colours. It was this elevator ride that brought home the fact that to be in Expo'67 was like being in the world of tomorrow. The buildings seemed to have no conventional shapes, with the only limits facing them being the limits of the architect's imagination. With the exception of the theme pavilions, no two buildings were alike. Transport was automated and driverless. People could ride about on the water in a craft that wasn't a boat, but more a helicopter and watch a movie on a 66ft x 30 ft screen that could show 15 images at the same time with six track stereo surround sound. In effect "A Place to Stand" is what would have been a one and a half hour movie if it was shown conventionally, but we saw it in 18 minutes with the new multiple screen technique. The theme of Expo was "Man and his World", and Canada, as host country, provided several pavilions on the subject. There was "Man the Creator","Man the Explorer", "Man and the Oceans", "Man the Scientist",etc,etc. These were very interesting and one could spend hours in each one of them. In one we actually saw the vapour trails of disintegrating radio active particles in common objects - and in another stood inside a replica of a living cell. Another called "Man and his Machines" had a completely automated factory that produced T.V. sets and movie projectors without any humans at all. There is just so much I could write about these pavilions and how they left one with a lot to think about, and, indeed to worry about, as in the last one mentioned. The completely automated "Man and his Machines" made me feel distinctly uneasy, until I noticed that one of the escalators had broken down and that it would need the services of a human to fix it!! Another pavilion that I think had one up on all the others was our very own Australian Pavilion. Now in all the others the emphasis is on the screening of movies and colour slides - and walking! Naturally after a while everyone just walks past all the movies and colour slide globes and capsules, as the feet become so, so tired and the mind has gone into overload phase and can't absorb any more. Consequently the fatigued visitors learn nothing about the country at all. So then we come to the Australian Pavilion, a conservative modern glass structure, with our coat of arms on the front and gum trees and wattle trees in the forecourt. One ascends to the main floor by means of a thick carpeted ramp and is then confronted by what seems to be hundreds of high backed green chairs grouped around various displays. Seeing the great soft comfortable armchairs, all the weary walkers want to do is to sit down. Then as you sink so comfortably into the wonderful chair with its high back, a cheery voice near your ear says "Hello!". The chair begins talking to you about an aspect of Australian life, represented by the display and images in front of you. All the chairs have different things to say, and to show the visitors. It's like playing a game of musical chairs, only this time you are learning different things about Australia. The people at Expo love it, and to make it even more fascinating the Pavilion even has live kangaroos and wallabies on display. Animals that few Expo visitors have seen. Ted and Chuck said that they spent half an hour at the Kangaroo enclosure just watching them. The weather wasn't the best on the Saturday and Sunday, but we spent most of the time in the various pavilions. The scope of Expo was amazing with Opera and Ballet companies performing, and all the arts were represented. Throughout the fair were many band shells where various orchestras, bands and choirs entertained the audience. Of course there is just so much to see and do at Expo, that we couldn't possibly see everything in a few days. One would need about a month here to really appreciate it. However we did our best within the limited time that we had available. Montreal, itself is a fascinating city, with a large harbour  that is part of the St. Lawrence Seaway. While we were there the harbour was host to a couple of glittering cruise liners, many luxury yachts that looked like they came from the South of France, and an old sailing ship from Denmark come gliding majestically into the harbour. The sky above the city was filled with planes of all types from executive jets to Russian T.U. 104's. In all, Montreal is about the most exciting place on planet Earth at this present time. We took quite a few colour slides so hopefully we will be able to show you something of it when we arrive home. I wish Des and Jan had have been with us. It was the sort of event that would have been right up their alley. The next World Fair is in Japan in 1970. It would be really great to see that one!. Our weather is now becoming cooler, and the trees are already getting their Autumn colours. Our building has just had the heating turned on so I guess that means that winter is not far away now. We are wondering just how cold it is going to get!!!!!

                                                             Expo '67 Montreal. Canada

                                                                Letters 168, 169 & 170

Toronto. Sunday, October 7th 1967. This is Thanksgiving weekend. I think that tomorrow, Monday, is the special day. The only thing that concerns us is that tomorrow is a holiday. There have been turkeys everywhere in the supermarkets and meat halls - and pumpkin things too! I haven't figured out the significance of the pumpkin yet. Maybe it's traditional to eat the turkey with pumpkin - or maybe, I suspect it may have something to do with Halloween, which is sometime around now, I think. The shops have been full of spooky Halloween masks and weird costumes. All we need now is a few Santa Clauses racing around singing "Jingle Bells" to really confuse things! By the way, they call pumpkin "squash", when it is for eating, sweet potato is called "yams" and capsicums are called "peppers". Surprisingly shallots are called "shallots", but over the border they are called "scallions" and in England they are called "spring onions". I often just point to item and say something like "some of them, please" or "one of those".....The confusion doesn't end there however, because when you see a price marked on an item in a shop, that does not mean that is what it will cost you. The actual price on, say an item marked $5, will be $5 and 25cents, because you have to add on a provincial sales tax of 5%. We get caught with it all the time and just hand over the correct money for the item as marked. Then you get a look from the salesperson as if you are a criminal trying to rob them!. I could go on for hours about the confusion of shopping around the world - and I have not even mentioned weights and measures yet!  Actually I have shopping on my mind as I have just had to duck out to look for a shop that was open to get something we overlooked yesterday. I had a nice walk through Yorkville Village with its art shops, galleries, coffee bars, restaurants and knick knack shops, all with their scattered clientele of hippies and artists. The street has a graffiti notice board where anyone can write their thoughts. One message I chuckled at said "Due to a lack of interest, tomorrow is cancelled"....As I walked back with my half dozen eggs, I noticed that the trees in the street are now shedding their yellow/brown leaves which are falling to the pavement to mix with scattered acorn shells, dropped, I guess by the squirrels who are busy building up their supplies for the winter ahead. We had thoughts of going up to Lake Simcoe for the long weekend to wander about in the Autumn countryside, but it's been cold and raining, so we cancelled our visit, preferring instead our warm, comfortable apartment to the cold, wet outdoors. Yesterday was very cold, with northern Ontario being down to 23 degrees. Here, however, it was much "warmer" and only hit 42 degrees.(10 degrees above freezing). We are hoping for an Indian summer to enable us to get out and about to grab a few more Autumn colour shots, before it all disappears. Winter is not that far away now, and already, on the northern prairies, they have recorded 4 inches of snow. Princess Margaret and Tony were here the last few days for the start of British Week. There is a British Trade Fair and all the shops are sporting Union Jacks and pictures of Britain. It gave me a touch of melancholy for my second homeland. (Yes, I know that I said it was an economic mess, but I still love it!).. This weekend Margaret and Tony are in Montreal for Expo, as well as Jackie Kennedy with masses of  F.B.I. men and three thousand eight hundred other people. We are sure glad we went when we did. It was crowded, but not that crowded! Since we have come back from Montreal we have been getting about Toronto a bit with visits to the fabulous modern City Hall and up to the top of the newly opened Dominion Tower. It is 55 stories high and the view from the top was fantastic. One could look right down on the islands and harbour, and on a clear day it is possible to look right across Lake Ontario and see the town of Niagara Falls, 60 miles away. Sunday evening. Today  we had a walk about in one of the many natural parks that abound in Toronto. This one, called Wilkett Creek Park, was reached by bus and is on the outskirts of the city. It is situated in a valley with a stream flowing through it and all down the sides of the valley were trees in their Autumn colours and it looked very beautiful. We left the main path and headed up into the hills so we could walk through the Autumn trees. Everything was a bit damp and misty and not terribly good for taking pictures, but it was fun and reminded us of the year before when we camped in the New Forest with the girls. The difference here, however is that the maple trees turn a bright red - and they have chipmunks! We were even lucky enough to see one scampering about. They are very, very cute. I would love to bring a couple home with me! I guess this will be my last spectacular Autumn for quite some time. As well as the chipmunks, I would like to bring all the Autumn trees home with me too...I received your letter last Tuesday. A bit later this time. So Isobel is home now. I wonder how she is?.. I wish I could hear something of Des and Jan. I have sent them two postcards, but, so far, no answer. They may be on their overland trip to India. I hope not!..

                                                                    Toronto Autumn
  
Sunday October 15th   To answer your question, yes, we are definitely returning on the "Canberra" and will arrive home sometime in March. The only unanswered question is whether we will have our own cabin or not. Either way will be on the "Canberra" as it is all booked. We had planned to go down to the P&O head office in Toronto tomorrow to stir things up, but we have a problem with some of our Expo colour slides, so we are going to the Agfa Lab tomorrow to stir them up instead. Actually we both feel a little easier about waiting until February now as things at the lab are better. The president ,Finn Quinn, has been wanting to juggle us about a bit and put Roger in charge of his own department on the day shift, but Roger refused. If things had have come to a head and we got split up, we would have resigned and got other jobs here, or just flown home to Australia. However another guy is being made Lab Manager and he is very friendly with us. He thinks Roger is the ants pants, and actually asks us our advice. He says that our quality control department is the only one that runs smoothly and the only Lab department that they have full confidence in. So much so, that they have backed us in some trouble with one of their biggest customers. When it came to a showdown between us and them, they admitted that it was actually their fault, not ours. It was quite courageous of Film House to back us against their biggest customer (and great to call their bluff, and have them admit they were wrong!). While we like the work, it is a lot of responsibility to carry, and we are working 11 to 12 hours a night acting as filters for the work of the Lab, deciding what we can ship out, what we can't allow to go out and why. We put troubles right, notifying the departments that have problems and sometimes fix them up our selves. In other words, the reputation of Film House is in our hands. Anyway with Bill in charge from next Tuesday, we don't think they will try to split us up. Our main priority now is to get as much money together as possible before we leave. This week our savings passed the $1,000 mark - about $900 Aust, and now that our tripping around has finished, we will be able to save faster. It is going to cost us a lot of money to get home. The fare alone could be as high as $800 Aust. You said that you heard that Isobel was tired after her trip. I hope she is okay and not the anaemia coming back again. We have to cross Canada in wintertime, have a month or more at sea, negotiate to get a car somehow when we land, and then drive home to M.M. - so we will be very  tired too I guess. After touring through cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney, Mount Morgan will do just fine for some relaxation. Please don't worry about our big city boy Roger, as he knows just what to expect in Mount Morgan.(He has even started referring to the toilet as the "dunny"!). We had a pause here for afternoon tea and savouries, as we have been enjoying a day at home today, which is most unusual for us. It's been a bit foggy today, and we did actually go out once to try and grab some last shots of Autumn trees, but it began to drizzle so we came home again. It is so nice here in our apartment with its sweeping views of the city. Roger is sitting beside the window, sketching the funny little Yorkville Fire Station down below us. It is "quaint" like the rest of Yorkville. When we walked out earlier we found Yorkville full of "Flower People" and other weirdos with long hair, wearing sacks, bags and old uniforms. Actually the Flower People themselves are usually dressed nicely with long dresses and floppy hats for the ladies, and wide bottom jeans for the guys with waistcoats and beads on top. Toronto is a mass of Union Jacks now. Everywhere you look there is a British flag flying. If anyone doubted that Toronto is the most British city on this continent then they will doubt no longer. I guess, too, that it is their way of hitting back at Montreal which is the biggest French city. We dropped in to check out the big British Trade Fair that has taken over the C.N.E. showgrounds. What took our eye was a traditional English pub that they had constructed there, complete with thatched roof. It was called "The Lion & The Unicorn" and we wanted to go in and have some typical English beer, but the queue was too long. There was even a British double decker bus taking people from the City Hall to the showgrounds and back. The latest British visitors to drop in were Princess Alexandra and husband Angus. Poor old Britain needs all the help it can get...........
 Sunday 22nd October  In your last letter you said the girls will be home in January. Do you know when they will be leaving England? I suspect they have already left as we have received no answers to the post cards that we have sent. They are probably on the road somewhere between England and India. I only hope they get home safely. The trouble with that pair is that they are quick to see the good in people, but tend to overlook the not so good. I think I will drop Bette a line or two to see if she knows where they are, and what they are doing. We went into the P&O offices on Monday, and were told that there were no two berth cabins available, but they had us in one of the best four berth cabins which has its own shower and toilet. However, should a two berth become available we are top of the list to get it. Originally we were not going to go by sea if we couldn't get a cabin to ourselves, but we have now talked ourselves into it and accepted the four berth. So the answer to the question of whether we will be returning on the "Canberra", is a definite "Yes!".......October's coming to a close. It's American Thanksgiving Day next weekend. Also Expo 67 closes. Imagine that great spectacle closing. The Mayor of Montreal wants to keep part of it as a summer fair and continue with the same theme of  "Man and His World". A lot of the pavilions have already been donated to Montreal. However it is causing a row with Toronto, as the Mayor of Toronto, and the controller, a twit named Alan Lamport, are saying that it will spoil Toronto's Canadian National Exhibition. All it is about really is the old French versus English fight. Anyway we are hoping that at least  part of the wonderful "Man and His World" exhibition will continue. Thus with the curtain falling on this great event, and Autumn winding up as well, all we can now look forward to is Winter and wonder just how cold it is going to get!! The trees are all bare now, with piles of leaves all over the place. They say that snow doesn't normally come until around Xmas time.

                                                       Letter 171- Another Dinner Date

Sunday,October 28th   I am very pleased that you are going to Brisbane. It has been a long time since you have seen your sisters. You should enjoy the coach trip and see all the changes in the road. Remember our first overland trip to Brisbane in the Hillman Minx, when the road was a mass of bogs. We even towed another car out of a bog, if I remember. Give my regards to everyone, with special kisses to Millie, Dora and Ivy. It is nostalgia Sunday here today, for it is the day Expo '67 closes, and there is a feeling of loss in the air as this greatest World Fair ever ends. It was a fair that was more than a fair. It was a story of man and his creations. We just had the Ontario theme song "A Place to Stand" playing on the wireless. It was the music written for the wonderful multi-image movie in the Ontario Pavilion. The announcer was close to tears as he described how, when he saw the movie, the audience, composed of people from all over the world, burst into spontaneous applause at the movie's end. He said that it was the proudest moment of his life. We had the same feeling about it when we were there. It was tremendously exciting, and made us too, feel proud to be living in Ontario…. (This movie went on to win the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 1967 Oscar’s ceremony. In 2012 I discovered that it has been uploaded to YouTube in two parts. Although a mere shadow of what it was when screened in 70mm on the huge screen at Expo 67 , it still makes an enjoyable watch.)…. The wireless is playing all the Expo and Montreal songs. We are so pleased that we were fortunate enough to be able to visit the magic islands of Expo. Tonight we have been invited out to dinner again. Jack Budge, the Lab manager (nights) has invited us to his home in Brampton, an outer city township about 25 miles away. He is coming in to get us in his big Dodge car, and then with his wife Liz and two little girls, is taking us for a drive around the area first. It should be very nice. Jack is supposed to have a home worth $30,000 with every conceivable gadget, so we are very interested in seeing it. He is a nice guy and treats us very well. Of course we do all we can to help him and keep him out of trouble. I guess you could say that he is not a very good Lab manager as he does not like to upset anyone. (He leaves it to Roger to stir things up when necessary)..Monday morning.  I didn't get much more done yesterday as Jack arrived to pick us up exactly on time. Liz and the girls were in the car with him and we had a nice drive to their home in Brampton. Well, their home is fantastic! It's in four levels with the lower, basement level containing a fully equipped bar, which looks just like a cocktail bar of an elegant hotel. The large fully furnished area that it occupies would make a perfect place for parties.(which it will undoubtedly be used for when the girls grow up a bit).The main lounge on level three is more formal looking with its French provincial furniture, thick carpet, indoor plants, hi-fi set and many other things to give it an air of rich elegance. Level 2, which is really a sub-level of 3, contains another lounge, is more informal and has the colour T.V.set.(one of 3 in the house).The kitchen and the garage are also part of this level. The bedrooms and big main bathroom are all on the top level. In the big kitchen on level 3 almost everything is automatic, with food being supplied from the huge deep freezer in the basement, even bread. Liz bakes a lot of her own, especially dinner rolls, which she does a lot of, then just stores them in the freezer until required. She gave us some to take home with us. I must tell you about their dog, well, puppy actually. He is a rare breed called a "Papillon". They are in the toy dog class. Jack says their nickname is the "Butterfly Dog", because of their large pointed ears, and another feature of them is their long tail which curls around the body. However, "Peppi" is just like any other puppy at nine weeks, only cuter, and both Rog and I fell in love with him. Roger has always wanted a dog but was never allowed to own one in London. I said when we get to Australia we will get one. He loves to hear the stories about the dogs that we had. Anyway, we had a lovely evening. Liz just got a large bucket of Kentucky fried chicken and scattered the table with various vegetables to go with it. It was the first time we tasted Kentucky fried chicken and it was very nice. With cakes and cookies to follow, we left hours later feeling pretty full. They actually want us to go back again for the weekend when the snow comes. Jack said "We can all go tobogganing!" At the back of Jack's place is a large area of sloping ground which would be ideal for it. Winter is almost here now and we have had a few very cold days. Fortunately what's happening outside makes no difference to us in the apartment as it keeps a constant warm temperature. The only problem is what to wear when we go out as we don't really know how cold it is until we step outside the front door, or listen for the weather reports on the wireless. Some areas have had snow, mostly in the States, or out in the prairies. Our turn is coming! Last Tuesday night was Halloween when all the kids, wearing masks and dressed up in various spooky costumes, go around knocking on people's doors saying "trick or treat!". If the householder says "trick" they have to do something, like sing a song. The "treat" comes in the way of candy bars or lollies that are handed out to them afterwards. They all carry bags for the householders to drop their "treats" into. If the householder refuses to give them anything they soap up their windows.(that's one way of getting the windows cleaned I suppose). Many homes have big yellow pumpkins, with faces carved into them, hanging in the windows as a witch's sign. It sounds more fun than our Guy Fawkes Night, although they don't have any bonfires like we do.

                                                                  Happy Halloween

                                                               Letters . 172  &  173

  Saturday, November 11th  Today is a rather awful day, with light rain and it is very dark so I am writing with the table lamp on. Even with the drapes opened fully it is just too dark out there to give the place any light. Usually by this time of the afternoon (3pm) the sunlight is pouring in. We can't see the lake at all, nor even downtown Toronto. We are just back from doing the shopping and had ourselves a bit of a laugh. Why? - because the fashionable London mini-skirt has finally hit Toronto. We were in the supermarket when a girl wearing a mini-skirt walked in. She caused two shopping trolleys to collide head on, another man stacking a display of goods had them all fall down when his eyes were elsewhere, and our male checkout operator started to pack our bags with another shopper's goods saying "Wow! Did you see that?". We really can't see it catching on here as it will be rather draughty and cold in the winter. In London I noticed that it seemed to be always short fat girls that wore them, the very ones that shouldn't, for when they bend over one's eyes are confronted with a sight that is far from elegant. Prince Phillip flew in yesterday to open the Winter C.N.E. Fair. . Sunday Nov 12th 1967  Another pretty awful day today, with rain falling from a grey overcast sky. It cleared up for a while after mid-day and we went for a stroll. Yorkville village was very quiet with almost a total absence of hippies and flower people. Maybe they hibernate for the winter like the bears. More likely they have drifted on to a warmer place. Except for few figures carved out of tree trunks, or similar thick wood standing on the sidewalk near an art gallery, the village looked almost ordinary. The Art Galleries around us have all been displaying some rather odd creations lately. One has a show of plastic art which consists of great Perspex globe things, all identical, and scattered about the floor. I failed to see anything "artistic" in them, but rated them as extremely dangerous and likely to cause injury to a person or persons falling over them. Another Gallery has great chunks of metal everywhere that appear to have been confiscated from a junkyard. One even has paintings hanging up that look like homework from a geometry class. We are wondering what they are going to display next and call "Art". With Winter almost here, we are planning on spending more time indoors and are trying to get back into our animation again. We were going to do some animation experiments with dinosaur Rex and a new model this afternoon, but by the time we got them all ready, the light had gone. Poor old Rex was looking a bit worse for wear, as Roger used him to try and cast another one, but it didn't work out, so I worked on Rex a bit and tried to clean him up for filming. I guess we should buy some lights, but that would mean more stuff to carry with us when we leave. Yesterday we went to the movies to see the latest Jack Clayton movie called "Our Mother's House". It was an eerie story about children living alone in a big house in South London. It was marvellous, but a little bit at the end sent pangs of nostalgia through us. On the end credits it said "Processed by Humphries Film Laboratories". Actually, we knew that Humps were doing it before we left, as Jack Clayton had been talking about it with Fred Harris - one of the execs. We miss Humphries, and I miss my friends there. Film House is like a bunch of amateurs trying to play professionals, and with the best equipment too! Our department is the most efficient in the whole Lab - mainly because we know what we are doing. We have just reorganised the screening room and the Manager even brings in the clients to see it. The trouble is that so many people here are just stupid and loud mouthed. They are always carrying on about how much they know, but it is rather obvious to us that they know nothing! The English people we worked with at Humphries weren't like that at all. They just liked to socialise with one another and laugh a lot. At Humphries I liked almost everyone. Here it is only a couple that I have any time for - like Marie our co-worker who agrees with us on our opinion of the others. We try to remain aloof from them, and just do the job we are paid to do. There is no such thing as an intellectual here! To be one requires thinking - and no one thinks here. Also, everything has to be instant! Instant meals, instant lawns, instant gardens, instant loans, instant happiness(drugs), instant everything - except thinking! Thinking takes time, so nobody does it. I hope Australia does not end up like this side of the world. Hopefully it will steer a path midway between the old world of Britain and the new world of the North American continent. We saw an episode of an Australian television series last night called "Homicide". It was filmed in Victoria, and is shown every Friday and Saturday night around 1.30 am. It's the last show from Channel I I in Buffalo before they close. It is not too bad at all. I loved seeing all the Holden cars driving about, and we laughed at the Aussie accents.

Sunday, Nov 26th  For a change it is nice and sunny today. I usually write these letters sitting in the lounge, but the sunlight is pouring in on that section, so I have moved over to the dining table as it was too hot where I was. I could pull the drapes across but that would spoil it. Roger said he is going to stay there and get a suntan. The temperature outside is 44 degrees(quite warm for this time of year), but there is a cold wind blowing. It's very deceiving in these lovely heated apartments where we can walk about in shorts and bare feet. You just have to remember to pile on the warm clothing if going outside the front door. We were out walking earlier when we went along Bloom street looking for a magazine store, but we kept on walking and finished up almost at Casa Loma, the old castle. The area about Bloom is being redeveloped and there area lot of new apartment towers going up. Some are already built and are in stark contrast to the remaining old Toronto houses. One thing I do not like about Toronto is that they have strict laws governing residential areas and business areas. This sounds quite logical, except there is no such thing as "the shop on the corner" where one can duck out and buy a newspaper, or some sugar or milk if you run out. If this happens you have to get a bus, taxi or walk to the nearest zoned business area. Fortunately Yorkville is a mixed area and we have a supermarket across the road, but out in the suburbs a car is essential to drive between the business and residential areas which can be miles apart. You should see the streets now. All the trees are standing in rows, all bare and dead looking. Not so long ago they were a riot of colour, exploding in vivid reds, bright yellows and glowing orange. It all seems pretty weird. What a contrast from our Australian trees which are just green all the year round. We are now making our arrangements to cross Canada, and booking accommodation in Vancouver and Sydney. We are highly amused at the type of accommodation we have on the Trans Canada Express train - it is called a "bedroom". We could have had a "drawing room" too, but that was a bit much. So part of our journey home will be in a "bedroom" speeding across the Canadian prairies.(it does have seats and a fold out table though). A complication has arisen as we find that Roger has to fill out immigration papers to enter Australia - at least we think so, and he has written to the Australian Consulate in Ottawa to find out. Did you know that there was an item on the Mount Morgan Amateur Dramatic group on Rockhampton television?. I had a letter from Bette, who is now publicity officer for the group, and she said that she was interviewed by them. They were interested in the history of the group, and Bet said that she gave me a good build up as their first stage manager, and added that I was now in Canada. We have been painting and drawing all day today, with our animation movie in its first stages. Our tests came out well, and Jack happened to see the film when we were screening it last week, and was very impressed. He wants us to do animation films for the American market. We couldn't tell him that we intend leaving soon. Apparently he is in the T.V. commercial business on the side, and has his own agency. It is now Sunday night. We are in our Canadian apartment watching American television which is screening a British programme about Thailand. All we need is an advertisement for Australian canned pineapple to make it a truly International night. Here in our apartment tower we get great reception and can get seven channels. Most of them show old movies which suits us just fine. However, as I have said before, technically, British television is way ahead of anything this side of the Atlantic - and their colour T.V. here is appalling


                                           Letters 174 & 175 -  Hammer Horror Night

Toronto. Thursday Dec 1st. 1967  Rog and I are just home from the Lab. We walked to our lovely glass apartment tower across frozen patches of snow from the bus stop. Fortunately we are able to catch the bus from a stop almost outside the Lab, and it lets us off just a short walk from our front door. The neon sign on the bank building on the corner of Yonge and Bloor said the temperature was 18F degrees - that's 14 degrees below freezing point. We were wearing our fur coats and hardly noticed the cold. So far we have had only a few snow showers, but nothing to really speak about. Gosh! It's wonderful to be able to walk into our apartment from the outside cold and be met with comfortable warmth, and then to walk to the big window and gaze down upon the icy city. We are feeling extra pleased tonight as our pay check was $100 for the week. Usually it is around the $90's, but we are always pleased when the overtime knocks it up to the $100 mark. The best news this week is that we definitely have our own cabin on the "Canberra". A phone call to San Francisco from our agent here fixed it all up. We are so pleased as it is just what we wanted. Sharing a cabin with two others for over a month did not appeal to me at all. I put up with it for five weeks going to London, and it wasn't all that bad as we had two very nice guys sharing with us, but now with our own cabin it should be a more comfortable journey back to the land of Oz..I must tell you about our friend Johnny, a little Greek fellow from the island of Rhodes. I suspect his real name is not Johnny, but probably something that would be unpronounceable to us - so Johnny is easier. He is in charge of the colour processing on our shift and has attached himself to us, even to the extent of sometimes driving us home from the Lab, and helping us with our work. Anyway, his background is very provincial and, I suspect, puritanical. Greece is not like any other Western country, as they have very strong traditions, and religious convictions. In other words Johnny, I suspect, has lived a very sheltered life, uncontaminated by Western ways. He can't speak English very well, but likes to sit in the theatre with us and watch whatever we are screening if he is not busy. At the moment the Lab has a very lucrative contract to supply a company with colour copies of many feature movies for television. It so happened on that particular week we had been doing copies of two Hammer films called "The Evil of Frankenstein" and "The Phantom of the Opera". Johnny was in there with us when we put a reel of one on one projector and a reel of the other on the high speed projector. The poor little fellow watched both, hiding his face at times, but fascinated and afraid to go. Anyway, later on big Jim, the processing supervisor, came storming into the room and said "What have you done to Johnny? - He's up there refusing to go into the darkroom to load the magazines!". We told him what had occurred and we all had a good laugh. Later Johnny came in to us and said " I phone my wife to wait awake for me and leave lights on in house!".......Sunday:  Quite sunny today. It looked so nice that we decided to go out for a walk. However, looks can deceive (especially from a 10th floor window), and we returned within about ten minutes, as there was an icy wind that sliced through our thick jackets and froze our faces. There were patches of frozen snow everywhere due to a light fall during the night. We are eagerly awaiting the first heavy snowfall that covers everything, so we can get about and take pictures of it. I am pleased all the latest photos arrived okay. Yes, Roger did bake the tart(made from a packet mix) and it was very nice. His Mum was highly amused at that one too. She went over all the photos with a magnifying glass. I guess they, like you, have quite a collection of them now.......
Toronto. Sunday, Dec 10th  I've been trying to start this letter all day but we have had so much to do that it keeps being put off - until now. I was about to make us a snack, but Roger said "You sit down and write your letter and I'll make a couple of sandwiches". Since then the hard butter has ripped holes in the bread, the ham has fallen on the floor and the tomatoes have squirted on his arm. He has said if I laugh any more I'll be making the sandwiches!. We usually just have a light snack in the middle of our day and a cooked meal at night. Actually, it is 4 o'clock in the afternoon and already dark. A storm, or blizzard is forecast for tonight. It is very cold out, with a strong icy wind. We earlier wandered into the Colonnade, a modern arty indoor shopping centre of speciality shops. Here it is possible to buy English sheepskin clothing, Eskimo sculptures, Greek hand woven jackets, Swedish woodcraft, Indian ornaments, Australian boomerangs & toy Koalas, as well as a fantastic array of expensive objects for the home. Bloor street, as well, has many more exclusive shops with Japanese, Chinese and Indian goods. There is no problems in furnishing homes here. One can have it in any style of a dozen countries. Compared with Australia, furniture is very much cheaper. It explains why they are able to have such nice homes and apartments. I am very pleased to hear that you are getting about with Aunty Mill. I knew that she would liven you up. How did the picnic at the south coast go? I envy you getting about in that all that Aussie sunshine. Next time that you are complaining about the heat just think of how the people live here having to put on snow overshoes, great heavy coats, scarves, gloves and fur hats every time they want to go outside. Sunday night - late:  We have just had our first good snow fall. It looked so nice to gaze out our window and see Yorkville all white below us, that we decided to dress up warm and go out with our cameras and grab some shots. However, for some reason the falling snow changed to rain and washed all the fallen snow away. Oh well, undoubtedly there will be other opportunities. The trouble is all the slush now will probably freeze overnight and make getting about rather hazardous. If the roads freeze the council spreads salt on them which causes the ice to melt. The bad side of this is that it causes the cars to rust badly. We have seen many with the front and rear mudguards almost rusted away. Frozen footpaths are a real hazard too, as it is so easy to slip on them and fall over. We were running to catch our bus after working late at the Lab recently and the frozen sidewalk sent us spinning along on our bottoms when we both toppled over. Most of today has been spent working on backgrounds for our animation movie. Roger draws them and I paint them in. We also shot a title for our little Expo movie, called "Expo Mini Rail". Roger cut it together, after I edited it last week at the lab when we weren't too busy. Roger cut the original negative in what is called A&B rolls - a special type of negative cutting that eliminates flashing joins at scene changes. Everyone was amazed at seeing Roger doing neg cutting which is considered a highly skilled job. It is something that we both learnt at Humphries. Jack has even offered to grade it and everyone wants a copy of it. We hope to complete it this week after the neg for the titles is processed. It even has a sound track too, obtained by reprinting sections of two other sound tracks. Naturally we will synchronise the soundtrack to the picture ourselves. It should be very interesting to see the results of this, our first production...All is A Okay for our homeward journey with all bookings confirmed, and all Roger will need to get into Australia is his passport and smallpox vaccination. Our hotel in Sydney will be the Sheraton Motor Hotel. Must go now and tidy up the mess from my painting. Actually the apartment is looking like an artist's den, which is quite appropriate for Yorkville living....

                                       Letters176 & 177 - Bad News From Down Under.

Toronto. Sat. Dec. 16th 1967  Received your letter on Thursday. I am very pleased to hear that you are getting about so much. I knew Aunty Mill would get you out and about, and how wonderful of her to take you to the movies to see "The Sound of Music". I am so pleased. Do you know that you have seen the only movie to beat "Gone With the Wind" in box office takings? It was written by the same two guys, Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein, who wrote the music for "State Fair", a movie that I remember you were very fond of. You will now have to try and see "Mary Poppins" which also has the wonderful Julie Andrews in it. It also has scenes of our beloved old London in it and is one of the most charming movies ever, with a beautiful music score. Julie won the Academy Award for her roll in it. I have seen the above mentioned movies twice. On the other hand, if Aunty Mill wants to take you to see a movie called "Bonnie and Clyde" - refuse! It is one of the greatest movies since "Psycho", but not for dear aunties or sweet mothers. We have just seen it and it is very good film making, but extremely violent. Stick to Julie Andrews and you can't go wrong. We went to see Liz and Richard Burton in "The Comedians" this evening. It was a very good movie, but a little bit bloody too in a couple of scenes. We have given up watching television tonight. At the moment one channel is screening one of our movies that we did at Film House, and the other channel has an episode of "The Saint" on that was done at Humphries. Poor old Roger Moore! Apparently he hates guns, and every time a gun is fired on the set he blinks, and Humphries cutters have to cut out the frames where he blinks. He is a bit of a fraud really! Sunday Dec.17th  I just heard some absolutely disturbing news on the radio, all about Australia's Prime Minister, Harold Holt being missing in the sea near Melbourne. What a terrible thing to happen! I wonder who will take over from him if he isn't found alive. Was he a popular Prime Minister? I hope it will not make any difference to Australia's policies at the present time, as they seem to be realistic and facing up to things. A lot has been made of the Donald Horne book called "The Lucky Country", and it is generally accepted as being true. I hope the loss of our Prime Minister does not turn us into "The Unlucky Country"! The report says that the beach where he went swimming was known to be a dangerous beach, and that he almost drowned there a few weeks ago. I was just recently thinking that at least Australia is free of the political upheavals and troubles that seem to have beset other major countries lately. Canada lost it's Prime Minister this week when old Lester Pearson resigned. This place is now in a turmoil as to who will replace him. Now the whole thing is going to happen in Australia, only under more tragic circumstances. All we need now is for De Gaulle to come over again to "liberate" Quebec and this country would be in a right old state. I wonder why it is that only the best world leaders exit from it so tragically. Why doesn't an idiot like De Gaulle get assassinated, or drowned? He thinks he can walk on water. I wish he would try when there are a few sharks around! The senile old bum is going after the Jews now!. He must be feeling mighty pleased with himself after pushing Britain off the brink into the chaos of devaluation and now he is  after the American dollar. He seems to have cast himself into the role of world mischief maker. We have been dragging out records this afternoon and playing them on my tiny Japanese radio-gram. For some reason we have overlooked it until now, but yesterday we bought a lot of movie soundtracks for only a buck each at a record shop and tried them out on the mini-gram and they were fine - so now Roger is digging out all his favourite records and we are playing them too. Normally the little gadget serves as our everyday radio and we can carry it anywhere as it is completely portable. It measures only 4 x 9inches, and 2inches deep, yet it can play full size L.P. records. I bought it in Singapore. I hope you have a nice Xmas at Connies - and that it isn't too hot. We are hoping for snow, but it seems unlikely, going by the weather forecasts. Today was warm at 41 degrees. Everyone else has had snow except us. Even southern California had a heavy fall. We shall probably have a quiet Xmas and spend the time working on our project. All the department stores have big displays in the windows, some are quite elaborate with moving models of animals. There are colourful illuminations up everywhere in the city, and even in private homes. Well I must go and prepare our dinner which tonight is roast pork. Hope you have a wonderful Xmas with all the Kurth clan.....
Saturday. Dec. 23rd  Your letter arrived on Thursday together with a crop of Xmas cards from all over globe. Earlier in the week I received a letter from Mrs Smith. I was very surprised, but extremely pleased. She wrote to thank me for the card that I sent them and to give me some information on the girls. They have arrived in India and are staying at Gita's place in Madras. They met Gita, a lovely Indian girl of an aristocratic Indian family, in London, where she flatted with them.  It appears that they arrived there in November and are being treated like Royalty. I am very much relieved that they made it there safely after driving across Europe and Asia. What a pair! Gita's people will take very good care of them too as a family like that takes great pride in offering hospitality to others - especially friendly foreigners. Mrs Smith says that the girls love it there. I can just imagine it! I'll bet the girls come home wearing saris and playing the sitar - with red caste marks on their foreheads!.. Unfortunately India is having a lot of trouble at the moment over a language problem, with riots everywhere. Mrs Smith expects them home sometime in January. I hope they are delayed for a couple of months, then we may all arrive home together. We will have a lot of stories to share. Apparently we haven't heard from them because they lost our address. Mrs Smith got it from Bette, and sent it off to  the girls, but they never received the letter. Apparently a lot of their mail goes astray.
Sunday. Dec24th Xmas Eve 1967.  We awoke this morning and gazed down upon a white snowy city. We were quite excited until we discovered that it was melting. Unfortunately it was only a light fall. Everyone is hoping like mad that it will snow for Xmas day. Boston has had a twelve hour snow storm that left from between 2 to 9 inches of snow. It seems that the U.S.A. has had more snow than Canada has, which is rather odd! Even California and Arizona have been hit with heavy snow falls. We went to see a movie yesterday called "A Smashing Time", a comedy about "Mod" London with Lyn Redgrave and Rita Tushingham. It was filmed entirely on location in London and we really enjoyed recognising all the places that we knew so well, like Camden Town, Carnaby Street, Hampstead, the G.P.O. Tower, and finished up with the girls walking up a street near Humphries that we used to walk along ourselves almost every working day. It also featured Humphries on the end credits. After the movie we took the subway into the downtown area to get some shots of the Xmas lights and the store windows. One window at Simpsons Sears had cute animated beavers paddling a canoe, while another had a huge white moose with other little Canadian animals moving about it in a Xmas setting. The futuristic City Hall was very spectacular with myriads of lights in the surrounding trees and a giant Xmas tree in the square with people skating around on the pool/rink.(in summer it is a pool with fountains and winter it is an ice skating rink). People seem to make a big fuss over Xmas here. It's the thing to decorate the outside of your home, and some homes have quite elaborate lighting about them which makes them look very beautiful in the snow. Well, how about that! - I just looked out the window and it is lightly snowing again, with some flakes unable to decide whether to go downwards or upwards, so they just drift past our window like lost wandering souls....

 Xmas Day 1967  Definitely an indoors Xmas day today. The weather forecast is for frozen rain, sleet and snow. What a mess! In other words, venture out only if you have to! At the moment it is very dull, so dull in fact that we have had to put the lights on. All the snow of yesterday has melted, and we are waiting to see what it is going to do next. How we both envy you today, over there in sunny Brisbane. We have a very large chicken for dinner which we know is completely wrong, but we don't like turkey, and they are too big anyway. Everyone received turkey vouchers from Film House to the value of $7, so we with our $14 we lashed out and bought ourselves a heap of stuff, including the chicken. I met a fellow Aussie recently. His name is Peter Skinner and he is a movie maker here in Toronto. He has gone from being a cameraman to producing his own movies. When he was in the Lab on business a few weeks ago and heard my accent he came bounding over to ask me which part of Australia I came from. In the ensuing conversation it turned out that he comes from Kedron in Brisbane. Now we are great mates. It is marvellous to be able to talk with a fellow Aussie again. I think he feels the same way too. We both have the same thoughts about the people here. Peter is like most Aussies(at least the way they used to be). He is jovial, friendly, modest, open, direct and easy going. I just had a laugh to myself about the word "modest"!. That certainly doesn't apply to Canadians & Americans!....Boxing Day 1967  Xmas dinner went down very well and afterwards we decided to go to the movies. (Yes, the cinemas open here on Xmas day.) The 70mm version of "Gone With the Wind" is screening here, and as Roger has never seen it, we decided to brave the ghastly weather and go. It was quite spectacular on the big screen, especially the burning of Atlanta. It even snowed a bit later in the evening and we went out with the camera and played about in it.(with Roger ending up in a shopping trolley). That was our Christmas, somewhat different from the ones we used to have in Mount Morgan. I hope you had a happy time at Connies. Today there is still a bit of snow lying about, and those little lost snow flakes are again drifting past the window as I write this. I think one just drifted past with my name on it!..

                                                              Toronto Christmas 1967

                                                 Letters 178 & 179 - Weather Warnings

Toronto. Saturday, Jan 13th 1968  It's been a busy week for mail this week. Each day our letter box in the foyer has contained all sorts of interesting communications. Your letter came on Friday, and one from the girls in India on Thursday, a few came from London, another came from Japan, and one from Queenie and Linda in Brisbane. Roger also received a letter from one of the top executives in Humphries who thinks Roger is the greatest. It was a very interesting letter as he told us all about the state of Britain, and the chaos caused by almost two feet of snow. London apparently has had more snow than we have had. When I was there I was always hoping for a heavy snowfall, but it came only in light falls. Roger's Mum sent us a few clippings from the papers about the chaos it caused. She said it was a foot deep in their garden. We had our heaviest fall this week - reported to be 3 to 4 inches. Of course here they are well organised to handle it, and it causes no disruptions at all. Immediately the snow falls all the snow ploughs and sweepers are out clearing it from the roads, and sprinkling salt and sand about. London is never prepared for anything. Half and inch of rain can disrupt the city. All last week our temperature was below zero. Many times it was minus 9 or 10 degrees. Roger said that his nose kept freezing up! Thanks for sending on Desley's letter. We were both very pleased to receive it. They successfully crossed the continent in their van in eight weeks with no trouble - only a couple of busted shockers and springs. Boy! those girls have a lot of guts! They travelled with three others(a girl and two boys), and are now having a whale of a time in India, riding elephants and chasing tigers and other animals in Land Rovers. It's funny that when Bob, now in New York, asked me about the girls, I said they were probably riding elephants in India by now, and they were! They have no idea when they will be home, because Gita's brother, Kouma(who we also met in London with Gita) is getting married on the 9th of Feb. It will be an upper class Indian wedding, and something very spectacular, so the girls won't want to miss that. It is something that they will remember for the rest of their lives. Lucky them! So now there is the possibility of us all arriving home around the same time. Whacko!.. The letter from Queenie and Linda is the result of a Xmas card that I sent them. They sent one back and asked me to write to them, so I did, and they both wrote back. Both are fine, and Queenie does not work anymore. They said that Noel occasionally writes and that he is happy in Bristol and that he and Gerry have a baby girl called Liza. I think they think that's all there is. Maybe Gerry's husband took the others. One was just a young baby when I first met her. I presume they may be married now, if her divorce was allowed. It is so, so confusing. I guess nobody really knows. Noel will obviously lie low in Bristol for a while. After what happened I don't think he could ever go back to London.… We have been socialising tonight with the affluent Torontonians, by making a visit to the theatre. It is actually the first time we have been anywhere else other than the cinema. We went to the nice modern O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts to see "Sweet Charity" starring Chita Rivera. It is actually the Broadway Show which is now on tour. We have always been going to go to the O'Keefe Centre as it is a very impressive building not far from Film House, but this is the first show that has grabbed our attention. Chita Rivera is one of the big stars in the movie of "West Side Story" and it was really terrific to see her performing live on stage. The show was very good with lots of singing and dancing. What really fascinated us though was the audience. The women were dressed in everything they could lay their hands on. Expensive furs and diamonds flashed around with many women dressed in long evening gowns. The men were all in their best dark suits and ties and some even wore tuxedos. Roger was amazed! He said people in London only get dressed that way if it's a Royal Gala occasion or a Covent Garden special performance. I said "Maybe they dressed that way for us!"  Ha! Ha! Ha!..... Sunday  The radio is making announcements warning everyone to stay indoors, and only go out if they have to. The reason - Freezing Rain! Apparently it is the one thing that everybody fears most of all, especially car drivers. It makes the roads extremely hazardous as it freezes where ever it falls and forms ice on windscreens making it difficult to see and drive. It can also bring down trees, limbs, powerlines and aeroplanes because of the weight of the ice!. I guess if a person was waiting at a bus stop they would turn into a block of ice too! Definitely an indoors day today!

 Toronto. Sunday, Jan. 21st 1968  Well our nice modern apartment is now showing the first signs of disorganisation and chaos, prior to packing up. Roger is throwing everything of unimportance out! (I've had to rescue myself several times!) You just can't imagine the things that have been appearing!. I began trying to sort out slides, but as we always ended looking at them and saying "Remember this......" I gave up and started this letter. Roger carried on, but finished up sitting in a pile of international rubbish looking at photos that he found. Of course that distracted me too, so I don't know how far I will get with this letter. Now he has just found a road map of Italy with our route marked out on it. We have decided to keep that too. Your letter came yesterday. That was very nice of Connie and Lex to take you for such a great tour around Brisbane. I'll bet you enjoyed it. I keep wondering if it has changed much. Have you been to the Gold Coast at all? I'll bet that has changed considerably. In last week's letter I told you a bit about the freezing rain that we had. Well, later it developed into a full scale snow storm, that, together with the freezing rain that preceded it, did a lot of damage. The trouble was that the frozen rain on the Sunday coated everything with a layer of ice, especially the trees that abound in Toronto's streets, and with the added weight of the snow, trees and branches kept falling and crashing on to powerlines, and the occasional car or house. We were lucky as we didn't lose our power, but many parts of Toronto did. It was really weird, for during the night, we could see flashes all over the city as fallen ice laden branches wrecked power lines and blew up transformers. Miraculously no one was killed, but a few had narrow escapes. One of the great advantages of night work is that it leaves us with most of the day free, and on the Monday after the big snow storm we were able to get out and take pictures. It was still snowing heavily when we got up and after a quick breakfast and a warm wrap-up, we ventured out. The scenes were unbelievable! The traffic was hardly moving at all and most cars on the roads were just slow moving mounds of snow. Cars that had been parked overnight were buried in snow. All that signified that a car was buried beneath was a round hump of snow. Yorkville village was a picture and displayed some of the prettiest snow scenes that I have ever seen. It was difficult taking pictures in the falling snow, but on the Tuesday the storm passed and the sun came out, so we were able to go out with the cameras and get our pictures. We were amazed at the efficiency of the snow crews. In no time at all the snow ploughs were everywhere clearing all the main roads, and all week they shovelled up the snow into trucks and carried it away to dump it into Lake Ontario. The papers said that it was the worst storm in 20years because of the freezing rain combining with 14inches of snow. It was certainly an experience for us to be part of something like that. Must go now and help Roger throw things
 out.

                                                    Winter Snow & Ice Storm Hits Toronto

                                                             Letter 180 - Deep Freeze

Toronto. Saturday, Jan 27th 1968  I thought that I would start this letter tonight although I don't expect to get very far. It is 2am but we are not very tired as yet and Roger is doing some trial packing in a new trunk that we purchased this morning. That brings the total to two trunks, but I have a feeling that it still won't be enough. Fortunately Roger likes to have everything all planned out and, unlike me, hates leaving things to the last minute. We want to leave some room in the trunk for things purchased on the way home. Thank heavens all our baggage goes for nothing! I would hate to have to pay for it which we would have to do if we were flying. By the way, we have paid for our fares now and have just handed over a cheque for the final $800. Our tickets and papers will be ready next week. It's will be a little awkward handing in our notices at the Lab soon as we have just been given wage increases again - me $10 and Roger $15 with a promotion to supervisor. The management said that they are very pleased with our work. We took Marie into our confidence yesterday and told her that we were leaving, and she was pretty upset. She said that she will leave Film House, also, when we go, which will be quite a disaster for them. Marie handles the day shift with Ray(a Trinidadian) and John.(an Englishman who is hopeless, and disliked by Marie). They have both said to us "Why is it that when you two come in at 3.30, Marie changes completely?" Of course we laugh and joke with her. She has actually had a lot of sorrow in her life, and works flat out all day to keep depression away, but when we arrive she is happy. She knows that she can confide in us, and we like to make her laugh. She will be the only person at Film House that we will really miss.With the exception of Jack, Ted & little Johnnie, most of  the others are a bunch of boring no hopers, so totally different from the people we worked with in London. Sunday 28th.  Today is overcast and very gloomy, with freezing drizzle and wet snow predicted. Lovely! One thing though, inside it's very warm, so much so we have turned off the central heating. It's funny how you get to thinking that temperatures in the twenties and thirties are "mild". What we call really cold now is when the temperature gets into the "minus" figures. We got caught in a wet snow storm last night on the way home from the movies and when we entered the foyer of our apartment building wearing our fur coats, we had to shake ourselves like dogs do! Luckily there was no one else in the foyer at the time! I've been filing all my slides in new magazines. It is now only a matter of labeling them properly to make it easy to select a country and just place the magazine in the automatic projector and up come all the slides on the screen. I will need to have them all carefully filed as I expect to get many new ones when visiting places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Japan and China on the way home… I have just been out for a walk to the drugstore. It's almost impossible to walk as the sidewalks are all covered in ice and terribly slippery. As ridiculous as it seem, one has to shuffle along in six inch steps. I feel like a kid playing "choo -choo" trains! Well it's either that or falling over and skidding along on one's bottom and possibly bringing down a few more people in the process - like playing ten pin bowling, only you are the ball and the people are the skittles! You don't have this problem when doing the Friday shopping in Mount Morgan do you? Aren‘t you lucky!…I am glad you and Aunty Mill had a day out. She is right of course about eating "posh" and being waited on. I hope you enjoyed it. I am very much looking forward to having someone else do the cooking and being waited on when we are on the "Canberra"... Well I must go now and sort out a couple of suitcases. It would be much easier if we travelled like the Abos do with just a couple of boomerangs!

                                           Letter 181 & 182 - Countdown Begins.

Toronto. Saturday, Feb 3rd 1968.  Things are starting to move pretty fast now, as we have only two weeks left(and three weekends). We leave Toronto on the evening of Tuesday 20th Feb. by the Canadian National Super Continental which will deliver us to Vancouver in three days. The news broke this week at the Lab. Roger told Bill, the manager, and when we came in the next day we were grabbed by everyone, even before we had reached the screening room, asking "Is it true?" Oddly it coincided with a lot of dissension within the Lab, and I guess news of our resignation stirred things up further. While others at the Lab had it not so good, we, on the other hand, were sitting pretty with big pay rises and more authority.(our pay this week was $120).This, of course, is the only reason we regret leaving Canada. However, despite this, we both feel that we could not live here, and would rather return to London than remain in Canada. I have not been very well since we arrived here. From the very first day I have never been what I would describe as 100%. 1 thought I had developed an stomach ulcer, so under the persuasion of Roger and Marie, I went to see a doctor(who I have been with ever since) and he said it was not an ulcer, but a condition brought about by strain and stress. It's quite involved, but I have been taking tablets for some time, which help. He said what I really needed was a long ocean voyage. I said "Well it just so happens that…….” I have gained more weight now(perhaps the tablets?) and am having trouble fitting into my old clothes. I guess I need a new wardrobe. I will have to get Mr Ah Chuk in Hong Kong to make me a couple of new suits while I am there. Actually, as the time to leave approaches I am beginning to feel much better. We finally finished our small 3 minute movie called "Expo Mini Rail" this week. We shot a pre title sequence by filming some of our more dramatic Expo slides and Roger cut them in such a way that they overlapped and dissolved into each other. I put the sound track together and when it was all finished one of the graders "timed" the scenes and we had it printed. The result is very exciting. They reckon we should sell it to T.V. The sound track is a specially arranged version of the Ontario theme song "A Place To Stand". We hope it will be the first of many movies that we will make together. It will be a lot easier when we settle down somewhere and are able to check out the layout of the Australian film industry and Laboratories. With our knowledge we could do quite a few things, but we think it best to work in a Lab at first. Eventually we hope to start our own neg. cutting business. Anyone who can do neg cutting here is earning a lot of money! It doesn't take much to set it up either. A spare room, or a basement and a bit of equipment is all it needs. We just hope the Australian film industry is as advanced as it is supposed to be... Sunday  All our tickets came this week. Roger is very excited. He has been sorting, and packing all day - or half the day. We went down to Lakeshore this morning as it was a bright sunny day, and quite mild at 28 F. The lake edge is all ice, and all throughout the park there is ice on which people were skating. We slipped a few times and almost went sliding along on our bottoms(again!). I have almost finished filing away my slides now, and have 1,120 of them. We also have a stack of movies from the Lab to pack up too. I hope you are enjoying you stay at Aunt Ivy's. Give them all my love...
.Saturday, Feb. 10th  I received your letter from Maroochydore today. I am glad mine have begun to arrive. It certainly took them long enough to get to you. Before I go any further I must tell you about future letters. Now you should receive this on Saturday Feb. 17`" (if there are no more postal strikes) and any future letters to me should be addressed care of "S.S. Canberra“, Tourist Class, from Vancouver to Sydney, P&O Lines, 155 Post Street, San Francisco, California 94108, U.S.A." We will be in San Francisco on Feb. 28th. I will send  more details of postings and a timetable later. You don't really have to worry about writing, but an occasional letter from you would be nice. From the time we leave here we will be six weeks travelling and should arrive in Sydney on March 30th. I shall be writing again next weekend, which will be the last letter from Toronto. Don't forget when you return home TAKE IT EASY. You don't have to get the house spotless and the yard cleaned up for our return. Anything that has to be done leave it for us - and don't go climbing up on chairs and taking curtains down for cleaning. We can do all that. Roger is busy organising gear to go into our trunks. We now have quite a vast film collection that creates a bit of a problem with packing. Yesterday Hans Wolf, the Lab color timer, came in to us and said "It's a great pity that you are both leaving. It will be a big loss to Film House". He then gave us a couple of feature movies to take with us. They were copies that weren't sent out to the client because of slight imperfections, but will be okay for home screenings. We were quite thrilled to get them. Our luggage will be insured for $2,000 for 2 months. Everyone at Film House is staggered at the news. All agree that it is a fantastic journey that we are going on. One of the guys, whom we dislike, came to us and said "Just heard you guys are going to Australia! Great place Australia - but be careful out on the plains. It's just like America in the 1860's. A real frontier place. Make sure you carry a gun! There's some mighty wild fellows about. Everyone carries guns out there!". He didn't know I was Australian!!! That's how they are here. Completely full of bull---- ! Maybe it's because most people in Toronto come from somewhere else. Today we went shopping and the temperature was 4 degrees, now it is nothing degrees (zero!). Probably tonight it could go down as low as -10. The trouble is that when it goes down to the minus temperatures, one has trouble breathing! The air going into the lungs is so cold it hurts! Roger complains that his nose freezes, and mine seems to have today too. One of the processing guys came in off the freezing streets one day and he had icicles dangling from his nose!!. We are beginning to feel like a pair of Eskimos! I see that the date that you will be leaving for home is the same date as we leave Toronto - only it will take us a lot longer to get there. I was telling Roger today about the time we were all at the Yandina Falls and the boys threw some stones over and an angry man, who was at the bottom, came up and blamed Aunty Ivy! Must go now and help Roger with some of the gear.

                                                 Letter183 - Farewell Toronto!

Toronto. Friday Feb. 16th 1968. FINAL. Well Friday the 16th has come and actually passed as it is now I a.m. Saturday. We have just come home from our last day at the Lab and things happened that we didn't expect. Now we are both feeling a bit chuffed and sentimental. Marie bought us two Canadian wood carvings(one each) and a collection was taken up, so we ended up with twenty dollars each and wood carvings worth about the same. Poor Marie was pretty upset. She was unable to talk and dashed off home. I guess she was one of the best things that happened to us in Canada. It was all pretty sad. There was a procession of people all evening calling in to say good-bye and shake our hands. I guess it's the thing that I hate most about travelling - having to say good-bye to people knowing that you may never see them again. Now I feel sorry that I didn’t spend more time getting to know them. The Lab Manager has given us terrific references which will help us in our quest for work Down Under. Now that the time comes to return, I realise that I know very little about my own country, the one that I left behind four years ago. Suddenly it has become foreign to me. I can talk endlessly about the pros and cons of England and Canada, but I realise that I do not know all that I should about my own country. I may not even like it now. I feel more of an Englishman at heart. Anyway, we are now practically all ready to start our journey. We spent some time today with the income tax people and they worked out that we should both get about $180 back($160A), which will take about two months to arrive in Australia. Just about the right timing for when we become poor and destitute. Realistically though, working here has given me a tremendous boost financially as I would have been in trouble had I have gone straight home from London. Since we came here we have both saved well over $2,000 each in ten months. A nice sum to get us to Australia and help us get settled there…. Saturday  Almost a blizzard today. The temp is around 8degrees, but there is a bitterly cold wind which brings the occasional burst of snow with it. It actually feels colder than when it drops below zero. All arrangements are going well for our departure. We leave the apartment on Monday, spend Monday night in a Hotel and leave Toronto Tuesday evening. I hope you received the ship schedule and the details of how to address future letters. The usual Aerogrammes may be a problem, or they may require extra postage if they are only good for Commonwealth countries. Check at the post office anyway. I hope you received the snow photos that I sent. What did you think of the one of me in the snow? Different from the usual ones where I am racing about on the beach in my togs isn't it? There are a lot more photos to show you of our winter here. In today’s paper there was a big article about wandering Australians. It seems quite a few come to Toronto but find it hard to get work as everyone knows they won't stay. It seems that the new generation of Aussies all head for London, "the roots of our culture", and then end up calling into Canada on their way back. The paper said that the general opinion among Aussies is that Canadians are cold and unfriendly.(the writer must have been reading my letters! - though I said a lot worse than that!) I guess we were lucky in having a few good friends at least. The article then carried on to say that all wandering Aussies then return to Australia convinced that there is no better country. They look upon Australia as being clean, healthy, warm and secure with Canada having nothing to offer but money and central heating.(The writer has definitely been reading my letters!!!).. Well! it won't be long now before we leave it all behind us. One wandering Aussie, and one wandering Pommie are now on their way!!!………………………..................Farewell Toronto!

                                     
                                               "Give me a place to stand, and a place to grow.
                                                and call this land Ontario - Ontario! Ontario!
                                                Ontari- ari -ario!.........................................."

                                                                    Expo Anthem

                                                               Toronto. Then & Now


                                                               The Crossing of Canada      

                                                                Letter 184.  Vancouver

Vancouver. Friday. Feb 23rd  1968  We have just completed the 2,700 mile crossing of Canada. We left Toronto Tuesday night and arrived here this Friday morning. The three days and nights on the train weren’t as bad as we anticipated. (neither of us are good train travellers). Of course the train was well equipped and well appointed for the comfort of its passengers. Having our own compartment was really great and we could move all around the train to its various nice lounges and dining areas. After we left Ontario we travelled through the Canadian provinces of  Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Colombia. The scenery was quite varied from the snowy frozen forests in Western Ontario, that appeared to be carved from crystal, to the desolation and emptiness of the snow covered prairies, to the towering majesty of the Rocky Mountains. Out on the prairies the sun appeared to be no more than a pale disc as it struggled to make its presence felt in an all white sky above an all white landscape that was without any visible horizon. It gave one an eerie feeling of being in a strange new world, where nothing else existed but the train hurtling along in a spray of snow. What few towns that we did pass were half buried in snow with little signs of life. I guess they would remain like that until the spring thaw, when life would return and transform them into a hives of activity. In the surrounding farms, ploughing would be done and seeds planted, which would then reward them with a rich harvest of wheat, in the Autumn to fill their bulging granaries. After this the snow would return and their lives put on hold once more.  Fortunately we had stops at a few places where we took the opportunity to get off the train and walk about with the camera to see what there was to photograph. At one place, called Hornepayne, it was 10 degrees below zero. Here we walked up a hill which was all ice and on the way down Roger slipped so he then proceeded to slide down sitting on his bum - in the middle of the road too! I wonder if pedestrians sliding along on their bottoms have right of way at intersections?  An interesting thing we noticed here was that all the car parking areas had posts with power outlets so that motorists could plug their cars in to keep them warm and to make it easier to start the engine when they returned. By far the most exciting part was travelling through the Rockies. Although we started climbing them at night, when we woke up in the morning they were still around us. We were, in fact, travelling through a pass called Fraser Canyon that carries all road and rail links to Vancouver. On one side of us were the steep snow capped Rocky Mountains and the other side was a precipitous drop into the rushing waters of the Fraser River. Much to our surprise we seemed to have left the snow behind, as there was now only the occasional small patch to be seen. Sometimes the train just crept along through the most dangerous passes, and occasionally it had to stop for rocks to be removed from our path. Once out of the canyons and into the flatter land beyond, we moved quite swiftly again. The scenery was very picturesque with the many small farms, now clear of snow, sitting there with the Rockies behind them. Even the sun came out shining brightly and there was actually some green grass about. What a difference from the glaring whiteness of the prairies. One thing that I have noticed about Canada is that they romanticise their railways. They sing songs about them, write stories about them and collect all sorts of memorabilia about them. Their railways helped build their nation and are treated with reverence and awe. Why then don't we sing songs about our railways in Australia?.  They helped build our nation too. Somehow, though, I know that if someone wrote a song about the Queensland railways everyone would die laughing!....We arrived in Vancouver about lunchtime, took a cab to our hotel, and then, after dropping off our suitcases, set off for a look about the city. It was marvellous! The weather was mild, in fact, one hardly needed a coat - and there was no snow anywhere!.. What a change from the Toronto that we had left a few days before, where one had to gasp for breath because it was so cold. Another big difference is that Vancouver is like a real city, with the city spread about several blocks, not just one long main street. It also has a feel of Sydney about it, with a great bridge spanning the harbour, lots of water around it, a big park with beaches and a nice fountain. Like its province name it is very British with many of the TV shows being of British origin, and the capital is called Victoria!.. Sunday: We are both rather exhausted from walking around Vancouver. Yesterday we walked to Stanley Park, a great National Park in the heart of Vancouver - or more correctly at the end of the island. The actual city seems to be situated on an island, while the rest of it is spread over more islands, and up the mountain slopes. It is a haphazard rambling city, as all cities should be. We had a real hate session on Toronto yesterday. Previously I mentioned a newspaper article on Australians in a Toronto newspaper before I left there. Well, a day or so later another letter appeared in the same paper, from a Canadian who lives in Newfoundland and part of it said -"I have lived in many major cities of the U.S. and Europe, but Toronto is decidedly the worst. It's not the nightclubs, streets or buildings. It's the people. They are icy cold, pompous, intolerant, unkind scared little people practising one upmanship, dominated by the almighty dollar" - I couldn't have put it better myself!  We worked out that I probably suppressed my dislike for Toronto so much that it affected me physically. From the day I left the Lab, and Toronto, I have had no further problems with my stomach. It's very weird! Roger said that I am back to my old self again. He knew that I was never happy in Toronto, though I would not admit it. Anyway, back to Vancouver. Stanley Park is a great big chunk of forest left in the heart of the city, with numerous beaches around it and everything left in its natural state. It is so marvellous to see green grass and green trees again after the Wintry desolation of the Eastern Provinces. Roger is now planning our next hike. We are off to get pictures of some totem poles. Vancouver has Indian totem poles everywhere, but we haven't had success at finding any photogenic ones yet. I must go now. Busy day ahead and a night out "on the town" to plan to celebrate our departure. A meal in Vancouver's interesting Chinatown will be on the agenda. Maybe I will throw Roger into the colourful fountain! (I threw him into a horse trough once in London. I didn't know it had water in it!)...We are both looking forward to boarding the ship tomorrow....  Now at sea.. Once again I am on the Pacific Ocean, the ocean that I left behind four years ago. We have just sailed out of Vancouver Harbour. Wow! What a departure! I had forgotten how exciting these departures can be. We had the city band on the wharf playing continuously before we left, and, as the ship pulled away, the band marched along the wharf with the ship, playing all the time. While we were docked, streamers, and lines of stockings were tied together and held by family and friends on the wharf. As they ship gradually pulled away those last links were broken in a symbolic severing of contact. There were lots of tears and lots of waving as emotions took over - especially when the band played "Waltzing Matilda", which almost had me in tears too - especially when Roger turned to me and said "You're going home Barry!". To top off the farewell the sun sank in a blaze of colour above the snow capped mountains surrounding the harbour. We are now off on a tour to check out the ship. I will write again from San Francisco.. The prediction is for calm weather so it should be a good voyage down the coast....

                                                                 Scenes of Vancouver


                                                              Letter 185. San Francisco.

S.S "Canberra". departing San Francisco..Thursday, Feb. 29th 1968. The "Canberra" is a fantastic ship, and we are very pleased with our cabin. It is number C271 if you are writing. Everything is "luxury plus" - different from the old "Orcades" which was a bit of a tub! Fortunately most of the passengers are Aussies - something to do with a "Women's Weekly" cruise. San Francisco was very unusual, and the cable cars quite fascinating. Almost lost Roger on one when it began moving off without him. It's a bit like the big dipper only on a larger scale and not as fast - but almost as steep though! There is actually a cable under the road that they run on. The city once had an extensive cable car network but everything was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire which destroyed most of the city. The surviving lines exist today only because the electric streetcars that took over were unable to travel up and down the steep hills. The engineering is quite fascinating. The cable runs continuously just beneath the road and the movement of the car is controlled by a large handbrake which is manipulated by a highly skilled operator called "a gripman". When the gripman wants the car to go, he just releases the handbrake, which in turn drops a gripping device on to the cable. This device then grips the cable tightly which then cause the cable car to move off with the travelling cable. When the handbrake is applied again and the grip rises to release the car from the cable. Where cables cross at intersections, the gripman has to release the grip, and the car actually coasts along through the intersection, until the gripman can manage to grip the cable once more. The cable travels at about 12 miles per hour, and when the car reaches the end of the route it is turned by hand on a manually operated turntable and attached to the other cable for the return journey. The cars also carry a conductor who is responsible for collecting fares, and for the safety of the passengers. However, car drivers need to be aware of the control limitations of the cable cars, and the gripmen must be highly skilled and a little bit clairvoyant in order to avoid accidents. (which would, I imagine, be not uncommon!). We did the city tour which was interesting. One of the places we drove past was the Coit Tower which previously had aroused our curiosity, as we wondered what it was. Apparently it was built on top of Telegraph Hill in 1933 by the heiress Lillie Hitchcock Coit to beautify the hill. However, the woman was a little bit eccentric and had a thing about firemen and liked to ride with them on their engines to the fires. Some say the tower is actually a tribute to her beloved firemen as it is shaped like a fireman's hose nozzle. Another tour took us out into the forest on the other side of the harbour, to see the gigantic Redwood trees. Some of these giants are between 800 and 1,000 years old, and grow as high as 250 feet. In the evening we had a night out in the city and ate in Grant Avenue, in the city's Chinatown made famous in the Roger's and Hammerstein musical "The Flower Drum Song". (I even danced about a bit singing the song "Grant Avenue"). The Golden Gate bridge is really beautiful. It is actually red, but I guess in the sunset it would look gold. We had a day and a half in San Francisco, which was really great as it gave us time to look around. We even had an earthquake!.. well a little bitty tremor. We were at a check out at one of the city shops and the lady said to us "Did you feel it?".  "Feel what?" we answered. "The tremor! We just had a slight tremor!". We remained calm, and resisted the impulse to run screaming into the open space and hide in the little park opposite....No! only joking! Actually we did not feel it at all, but I guess living in a city like San Francisco would make you highly sensitive to the slightest shake. Our passengers on the ship are mostly elderly Aussies, and the way they talk is hilarious - but so marvellous to hear.  Aussies really are warm, friendly and very natural. We both love listening to them talking.. It's a much needed tonic! Our faith in people is restored. Quite a few loud mouthed Yanks boarded in San Francisco, but we hope to avoid them. If they come near us we may have to push them overboard. We have become mates with two Aussie girls and a chap from Brisbane. All terrific young people and all at our table. I started writing this as our sleek white ocean liner sailed beneath the Golden Gate bridge. We are now heading south towards Los Angeles. …
                                                                  Views of San Francisco

 

   

 

                                                   Scenes of San Francisco & Los Angeles

S.S."Canberra" Departing Los Angeles.  We had a day Los Angeles. Our ship docked at the port of Long Beach and we caught a bus into downtown L.A. ,and from there caught another bus to Universal Studios. We thought doing the tour of Universal would be of more interest to us than a tour around the homes of the stars, which was one of the tours from the boat. Firstly, let me say that we were most unimpressed with Los Angeles. It seemed to be another one of these cities in search of itself, like Toronto. It had no centre, and therefore, like Toronto, no soul. In the downtown, or office area, whatever they call it, the thick smog obliterated everything above the sixth or seventh floor of the buildings. On the ground, low life wandered about asking for money. The Studio tour was quite interesting, but more like a fun ride for tourists, with not much emphasis on technical details. We saw the "Psycho" house up on the hill, various back lot "streets" where they can give the appearance of the action taking place in another city or country. The old "New York" street was exceptionally interesting as we saw the street that Julie Andrews walked down singing in "Thoroughly Modern Millie", a movie that we had just recently seen. We passed the "Court House" used effectively in "The Chase" and one of the stars of "Bonanza" gave us a wave as he walked past. They had stuntmen falling off buildings and a miniature naval battle between two old Galleons in full sail. Later we were allowed to wander about part of the back lot on our own and look at things. We made our own way back to the ship, after an interesting day, but of the West Coast cities, Vancouver would be our favourite, with San Francisco not far behind. To live in L.A. you would have to have a car and then where would you go? Somewhere far away obviously. Our ship has now turned around and is on a Northwest heading for Honolulu…
  S.S."Canberra" - a postcard from Honolulu  We have just spent a wonderful day here. The ship docked at 9.30am and left at midnight so that gave us a full day to explore. Avoiding any organised tours, we hired a new bright red jeep, and drove ourselves around the island. We had to quickly adapt to driving on the right hand side of the road again as we did in Italy, but we soon got used to it, and the roads were a lot less crowded than the Italian roads. The scenery was fantastic with huge mist topped mountains, sugar cane and pineapple plantations everywhere, and, of course wonderful beaches. Apart from the grass huts and the hula hula girls, the place reminds me very much of North Queensland. However, nothing anywhere could be like Waikiki, the playground of rich Americans. We happened to go through this place at night and it was all glittering tall lavish hotels, with flaming torch filled gardens, and was quite a breathtaking sight. The highlight of the days tour was our visit to the big Polynesian Cultural Centre which is a place that displays, and educates people on the various cultures of the Pacific Islands people. Seven island nations are involved and we found it quite fascinating. Of course, it was very photogenic and we took heaps of pictures, and even some movie footage of the big canoe pageant. We also saw, in the harbour, the new memorial that has been constructed above the partly sunken wreck of the U.S.S Arizona where 1177 American sailors died in the Japanese bombing on Dec 7th,1941. It is hard to imagine that such a beautiful place could be the site of so much destruction and killing. Hawaiians seem such a very warm, friendly people, and when we disembarked they said "Aloha" and placed Leis around our necks. That night we ate Chinese again, and tried Shark Fin soup, which we found edible, but rather slimy!..

                                                                   Scenes of Honolulu

                                                                   Letter  186 . at Sea

S.S."Canberra" Thursday,March 7th 1968  We are now somewhere between the Hawaiian Islands and Japan. This stretch is quite a long one as we will be at sea for five days, and will not reach Yokohama until Tuesday. Tomorrow is Friday, and the next day is Sunday.. We lose Saturday because we cross the International Date Line! There are a lot of jokes flying around about it. Many say we should get a fare discount because of the lost day!! So far all is well. We ran into some high seas between Los Angeles and Honolulu, and both of us(not being the best of sailors) were not terribly well, but now the sea is calm and the weather good. We have been in the pool every day catching up on some exercise and sunbaking. The "Canberra" is a marvellous ship - quite different from the old "Orcades". Our cabin is very nice. Quite roomy, air-conditioned, two music channels to play if we want it, and of course the usual Goanese steward who makes beds, and attends to all our wishes. The ship has two pools, three bars, a ballroom, a cinema and its own television. Most of the passengers are elderly or middle aged Australians who are making the round cruise trip of the Pacific. We love listening to them talk. They are just so Australian. I know it is saying the obvious, but it is not just the accent, it is their friendly open manner and sense of humour. We spent almost a year with the Canadians, who were, in general, quite the opposite. I felt so isolated. At the dining table that first night on the ship, we were at one end of the table and two young ladies were at the other end. Behaving like two Englishmen we didn't speak to them(after all, we hadn't been introduced!), until the closest(Julie) finally turned and said "Well are yew gonna talk to us, or are we gonna talk to yew?". Fair dinkum cobber! I knew that I was once again amongst my fellow countrymen!. Our table is all Aussies, and we even have a young officer who dines with us in the evening. We were all up at his quarters for cocktails last night. This will probably be the only letter I will have time to write as once we get to Japan we will be very busy, especially with Hong Kong just afterwards. However, I shall send cards at every opportunity.

                                                                    S.S. Canberra
    
                                                            Letters 187 & 188 Japan.

S.S."Canberra" Yokohama. Japan. March 14 th. 1968   I thought I had better write a letter this time as a postcard would be hopelessly inadequate with so much to tell you. We are now sailing out of the very crowded Yokohama harbour, into Tokyo Bay headed for Kobe, where we will arrive at 7a.m. tomorrow morning. Well, we had a fantastic two days here, and it's been a tremendous experience. Our arrival was greeted with a band playing on the wharf and lots of ladies in traditional dress. Most of the "Canberra" crowd went on organised tours, but we preferred to find our own way about. This morning we went out to village of Kamakura. We went there first on Tuesday afternoon after we docked, but we were rather late, and the weather wasn't the best. However we loved it so much we decided to go back on the Thursday morning if we could. Luckily it was a brilliant sunny day so we set off again. As we did yesterday, we got a taxi from the dock to take us in to Tokyo, where we would catch a train to Kamakura. However, we did not get far, for, as we were driving along the taxi driver asked us, in very bad English, where we were from. Before I could anything, Roger answered him and said "From England!". With that he slammed on the brakes saying "English people no money! Out! Out!" and he threw us out of his cab and we were left stranded in a sort of no man's land somewhere between the dockyard and Tokyo. We set off walking in what we thought might be the general direction of Tokyo, until we eventually saw another taxi. Fortunately he stopped when we hailed him and I said in my best Canadian/American accents "Could you'll kindly take us to Takyo plaase?". He did quite happily and once more we caught the train to the historic city. Why Kamakura you wonder? Well a lot of Japan's history is associated with it and it was once considered to be the de-facto capital of Japan. Many great battles have been fought there and a lot of blood spilt(maybe that's why  the land is so fertile!). Shoguns and their armies battled other Shoguns and their armies. The list of killings and assassinations is endless. What a way to live - or die! Perhaps beneath the Japanese facade of peace and politeness there lies a very violent soul..... The big attraction for tourists at Kamakura is the Diabutsu, otherwise known as the giant Buddha. It was erected in 1252 when Kamakura was the world's fourth largest city.  Originally it was housed in a temple, but that was washed away in a giant tidal wave that hit the city two hundred years later. Now it just sits exposed, gazing out to the sea - waiting for the next tidal wave!.. The other attraction there is the Tsuruoka Hachiman Shrine, erected there in 1180 and built to honour Hachiman the God(Kami) of war. Maybe that's why it was the place of so many battles. One has to ask the question "Does the Kami of war promote battles, or is the Kami supposed to stop them?" Beside the stairs to the Shrine is a giant Ginko tree that has been its companion for hundreds of years. When in leaf it is a bright yellow which would look spectacular beside the red Shrine. We were intrigued by all the little bits of paper tied to its branches and later discovered that they were called Omni Kuji and were fortune messages. People buy the Omni Kuji to find out what their prospects for the future will be. If it is good, they tie the bits of paper to the branch, or something else nearby, because by doing so it makes their good fortune come true. On the other hand, if the prediction is not good, by tying the Omni Kuji to the branch the bad fortune can be avoided.. In Kamakura both the two main religions of Japan are represented. The Shinto religion has the Hachiman Shrine, and Buddism has the giant Buddha. It appears that in the past there were problems with having two religions, but now the majority of the Japanese worship both! Now why didn't the Catholics and the Protestants think of that!. Places like Northern Ireland would be much more peaceful. Walking about the streets of Kamakura was rather hazardous, especially for Roger, as he kept bumping his head on the shop awnings as the city was built for the much shorter Japanese. Yesterday we visited Tokyo and had a walking tour of the world's largest city. It was tremendous. First we went up the Tokyo Tower, a new tower that was built to house Tokyo's television studios. It is taller than the Eiffel Tower, and gives a bird's eye view of the massive sprawling city.(if you can manage to see through the thick smog!) We then caught a taxi to the Meiji Shrine, built in 1921 as a memoriam to the Emperor Meiji and his wife. After this visit we again set out on our feet to walk past the gigantic Olympic Stadium, built for the Olympics a few years earlier, and then carried on walking to eventually arrive at the Imperial Palace.  This is a huge walled citadel surrounded by a moat in the heart of the city. We would have invited ourselves in for a cup of tea, but we were rather pressed for time so we moved on. Next place was the heart of Tokyo, the Ginza, Tokyo's main shopping and entertainment area. One of the department stores had an escalator complex that carried you up and up, and if you gazed down on one side to look at the ground floor you saw it through masses of flowers that hung all the way down from the ceiling. Many shops had large glass tanks full of the most beautiful fish that I have ever seen. Some blue fish appeared to be luminous and seemingly glowed with an inner light. Both of us were impressed with the politeness of everyone, and on a number of occasions people have gone out of their way to help us(excluding one taxi driver!). One woman at Kamakura, seeing that we didn't have a clue where to go, put us on a bus and sat with us to make sure we got off at the right stop to see the big Buddha. It is very difficult making your own way about as all the signs are in the impossible to read Japanese language. In Europe one can get by and figure things out as we all use the same alphabet - but here it's impossible. Of course no Japanese can read an English map either(unless he or she has a knowledge of English). Their culture is totally different from ours, and as Japan has only had it's doors opened again to Western culture for a little over a hundred years, there's a long way to go before there is some sort of mutual understanding. The "young" Japan is very "with it", but one sees the older women in traditional dress all the time. We even see Geisha girls quite frequently. Before I go any further, I must tell you about our visit to a Sukiyaki House.  We thought a visit to one would be a good way to finish our day in Tokyo!. As you may know Sukiyaki is the traditional dish of the Japanese, and is a kind of beef and vegetable mixture served with rice and a beaten raw egg. The idea is that it is all cooked for you while you sit there on the floor, and the flavour each time is varied by cooking the meat with different vegetables and sauces - but before it is put into the mouth(by using chopsticks) you dip the mixture into the raw egg. Noel and I tried cooking it once, and were very surprised that the raw egg actually helped the flavour!. Anyway, so we front up to this Sukiyaki house, and hardly got past the front door, before we caused a disturbance. We knew that we had to remove our shoes before entering(so we made sure our socks had no holes on them!) but I stirred up the evil spirits, and upset the staff when I took off my shoes, but placed them on the elevated floor in front of me. Roger, in his ignorance, did the same. However, the floor was sacred, and everyone began running about waving their arms and talking madly in Japanese, pointing at the shoes on the sacred floor! We quickly removed the offending shoes and placed them somewhere else watching the staff closely to make sure they were put in a more acceptable place. We were sat on cushions at a table inches from the floor, by a Japanese woman in traditional garb, who then stayed with us during the entire meal. She cooked the meal for us, and kept filling our tiny cups with hot saki, the traditional Japanese rice wine. Despite the difficult eating position,(what do you do with your feet?) we really enjoyed our meal. You should have seen Roger sitting on his cushion, eating away like mad with his chopsticks. Guess I must have looked kinda funny too! We must have because the girls giggled frequently. During the meal two Geisha girls played a weird musical instrument and danced for us. Naturally the songs they sang would not exactly make the hit parades, but the odd discordant notes, and strange movements of the dancers all fitted in with the rice paper walls, and the rest of the traditional Japanese atmosphere. We loved every moment of it and at the end bowed and thanked our hostesses in Japanese(yes we learnt a little bit), and in reply the main hostess repeated what we said, but in heavily accented English -"Thank you very much!", and we all laughed happily. We retrieved our shoes at the fifth floor front entrance, bowed all round again  and said "Sayonara" to everyone and departed after a truly wonderful experience. On the Ginza the lighting was the most fantastic that we have ever seen. The Japanese seem to be masters of all things electrical and technical, and the lighting on the Ginza beats anything we have ever seen anywhere else, including Broadway and Piccadilly Circus. We just walked about with our mouths open and cameras clicking. However a still camera could not possibly capture the colour and the non stop movement of the amazingly innovative works of luminosity that surrounded us. The Japanese have developed the art and gone further than anything that we have seen before. It is a bit like walking into the future. Taxi doors open and shut automatically, shop doors open and slide away as you approach them and the colour T.V. is the best we have seen anywhere in the world. One could say that it is almost perfect. Japan is a country of massive contradictions. Out of the cities it is firmly rooted in the past. Tradition is everything, and thousand year old customs are honoured, yet on the other hand they seem to be the world’s most modern nation technically. Manners are strictly observed, and politeness is everything. A lot is made of peace and beauty, yet it is also the most barbaric, violent nation on the Earth, with a trail of blood and horror reaching from the past into this century. The toys in shops are pure genius, with toy animals that you would swear were real as they walk about and do all the things that animals do. We played for some time with radio controlled cars and space vehicles all controlled by means of a small device held in one's hand. We would have loved to have brought some home with us, but reason prevailed and we resisted the temptation....
Saturday Mar.16th 1968  It is early morning and we have just departed from Kobe, and are now heading for Nagasaki. The sea is quite calm and the weather sunny, although it is still Winter here and one has to wear sweaters or coats to guard against the cold. Roger has picked up an honourable Japanese cold and is sitting dozing in the next deck chair. Over breakfast this morning we all chatted excitedly about our experiences. Naturally, Lloyd from Brisbane, had the most hair raising adventures as he hitch hiked from Yokohama to Kobe, staying at Japanese country Inns along the way. Yesterday, Roger and I travelled by train to the ancient capital city of Kyoto to see some of the historic temples and shrines, and then caught a local train to the even older city of Nara. Nara was the Capital of Japan, even before Kyoto was, and all that is now left is a village and all the old Shrines etc, that are now in a park where tame deer wander about. It was all very picturesque and very colourful, with the trees, temples, shrines and deer. On the train a young Japanese student said "Excuse me, but do you mind if I spoke English with you?" With that request, all three of us chattered on. Of course, his English was not really great and was at times difficult to understand, but we managed except for one part where he asked us where we had been. Roger answered saying "Kobe!". Our friend had never heard of it, and kept asking, and Roger(and I) kept answering "Kobe"! Finally a glow of recognition appeared on his face and he said "Aah Kobe!" Now to us it sounded like what we were just saying, but obviously there was a supple inflection somewhere that we got wrong. We laughed about it afterwards, and went through a few English words that to foreigners would sound the same, but to us had slightly different inflections that changed the meaning entirely. English is now a compulsory subject in schools here, which will make communication much easier in the future.  At Kyoto, at one of the Shrines, two schoolgirls came running up to us and requested to speak English with us as well. I guess foreigners wandering about on their own is a bit of a novelty here, and quite frequently we would be asked the time by schoolchildren who were wearing watches. We figured that they were dared by their schoolmates to do so. However, we did get into trouble ourselves that night in the Osaka railway station as we tried to catch the train back to our ship which was departing in an hour or so. We were completely bamboozled as all the signs were in Japanese and of course we couldn't read them. Fortunately, a young fellow saw that we were in trouble, and came up to us and said in perfect English "Can I be of assistance to you?" We almost hugged and kissed him(only it would have been impolite to do so!). He then took us to the correct platform, bought our tickets for us, and waited to see that we got on the right train. .Nagasaki.  This was the last place in Japan that we visited. We had a day in this city that was the target for the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan during World War 2. Around a couple of weeks ago we were in Honolulu where the Pacific phase of WW2 started, and now we have just visited Nagasaki where it all ended. Again we chose to avoid the organised tours and find our own way about. (which proves we learnt absolutely nothing from almost being left stranded on the dock at Osaka!) Nagasaki has now been completely rebuilt, since that tragic day in August 1945, and as a reminder of the event they have set up the Atomic Bomb Museum. This is where we decided to go. However, we found it rather depressing, and very frightening to see the damage that one bomb could do. The tremendous heat fused objects together, like glass became part of a brick, glass bottles were twisted into weird shapes, and of course the injuries to people who survived were horrific, as could be seen from the many pictures on display. 80,000 people died due to the direct attack but many were to die later of radiation caused illnesses. The next generation also carried the legacy of the blast with many horrible mutations in new born babies. While there we were able to learn about the history of Nagasaki and discovered that it was founded by the Portuguese in the 16th century, and, because of it's close ties with the west, it kept that link going even during Japan's long period of official isolation. It also became, in part, a Christian city due to the European influence and, because of it's friendship with the west, it was also the setting for Puccini’s opera "Madam Butterfly". The tragic Madam kills herself when she feels betrayed by her western sea captain lover. It seems strangely ironic that Nagasaki, is betrayed by the west again when it is chosen as the target for the nuclear attack. However, it was not supposed to be that way for the target for the bomb was the city of Kokura. Cloud cover, however, prevented successful targeting there, so Nagasaki was chosen as the target instead.  After absorbing as much of the horrors in the museum as we could manage, we then wandered into what is called the Peace Park, and here, watching children at play, a little of our despair disappeared. We then returned to the main city area, and, after a walk about, reboarded the ship in time to join the others for dinner.  As Lloyd was leaving the table he "accidentally" dropped an orange he was carrying into one of the girls tea cups causing the tea it contained to splash out everywhere, amid squeals of outrage from the girls. Things had now returned to normal! As we sailed out of the harbour later, Roger and I hung over the rail singing a silly ditty that I had made up using a theme from the "Red Poppy" ballet. It went....
                                    "I am little Japanee,  I sit underneath the Ginko tree.
                                     I hope soon to get to, the big Daibetsu,
                                     After I've had my cup of tea!"

Our laughter echoed into the starry night, with the big ship's engines going "thump, thump, thump!" as we sailed across the water to our next destination - Hong Kong...

                                                                      Scenes of Japan

                                                                                                          
                                                     Letter 189. Hong Kong Return                         

S.S. "Canberra" Hong Kong March 1968  When we sailed out of Hong Kong harbour almost four years ago, it was absolutely deserted with all the ships having taken refuge in the typhoon shelters. As the typhoon sirens wailed the old "Orcades" cruised slowly down the empty harbour into a wall of water and howling wind. My return, however was a little less dramatic. Unfortunately my record of the return to Hong Kong is one rather scrappy postcard, so I will pass this part of the narration over to Roger, for his account of this very fascinating city.............

We arrived in Hong Kong as scheduled on the 19th March at 4pm. Since we left Japan, the weather hasn't been marvellous, so everybody was pleased when we reached the calmer waters off the China Coast. As we steamed along we saw many fishing junks, whose numbers increased as we approached Hong Kong Harbour. It was a very busy place with all types of craft, from the small sampans to ferries and big ocean going junks, and of course the huge liners. As we berthed, many people in sampans appeared beside the ship begging for food and money. A sampan is a small boat the size of a regular rowboat. These people spend their whole lives on these little boats as they have no other homes. Some have a family of four or five and they all sleep together under a canvas roof. The young boys in the families have to dive into the murky water to retrieve any food or money that passengers throw from the ships. Many have nets in which they attempt to catch the thrown items. We threw them some of P&O apples and oranges, as did many others. After we got ashore we walked through the Ocean Terminal which is said to be the largest shopping terminal in the world. It has 200 shops in which you can buy anything from A to Z. There were so many things to buy and so cheap, but this day we weren’t tempted. On the way out of the terminal we were accosted by dozens of Chinese people trying to sell us anything you could imagine, however we had been warned to avoid these people before leaving the ship. Next thing to do was to get measured for a suit. Barry knew of a place he had visited before. This tailor goes under the name of “Original Ah Chuk”. These Chinese are very polite, and when we entered the shop, Ah Chuk introduced himself and in turn we introduced ourselves. He then led us into a lounge room at the rear of the main shop and produced several bottles of ice cold beer and cigarettes, as yet there had been no mention of business. It wasn’t until after we’d downed a couple of beers that we were shown some materials. We selected what we wanted with the help of the girls from our table on the ship, who just happened to be passing by at the right time. By now it was getting late and we were hungry, so we went to a bar to have another drink first. Here we were quickly accosted by two Chinese girls (hostesses) who started chatting, and as soon as we sat down along came their drinks, most expensive looking too!. We quickly said “No” and they moved away so fast that we didn’t see them go. We drank our beer and pushed off to another bar. This time in the President Hotel, which was much better with music supplied by a pop group that looked like the Chinese Beatles. If you are wondering, we did eventually eat Chinese food at the Palace Restaurant. Next morning after breakfast on the ship we went to Woods Photographics store where we had ordered a 16mm projector which was far cheaper than in Aussie, but we had since realised that we would have to pay a lot of duty on it, so we told Woods that we didn’t want it but would spend the money (deposit) on something else. They eventually agreed after making a bit of a fuss. I bought a record player (stereo portable) made in Germany and many camera accessories, including a 400mm lens, a great big thing it is too, but excellent for magnifying faraway objects. I have since taken some good pictures with it of the islands of New Guinea. Barry bought a portable tape recorder and camera equipment.  Together we spent 100 pounds sterling, which was less than we expected, so we have some left for a holiday when we arrive in Aussie. Later that day we had to go for our suit fittings and more free beer. We then went back to the ship for lunch and later boarded the Star ferry to Victoria on Hong Kong island. This island is actually what is known as Hong Kong, while, where our ship docked on the mainland side, is known as Kowloon. The island itself is very hilly with hundreds of big skyscrapers perched on the slopes overlooking the bay. Here the very old mixes with the very new, and there are new buildings being erected all the time. They build these enormous 30 – 40 story towers using only bamboo scaffolding with no metal supports like they do elsewhere. It all looks rather dangerous. The European residents seem very well off and live in mansions above the city. On the other hand, the Chinese are very poor, and many of the houses they live in are not fit for pigs, and their food looks as though it has been rotting for weeks. Their diet mainly consists of fish but most of it looks revolting. After we got to Victoria by ferry and had wandered around the shops etc we walked to the Wanchai district, an area where the very poor Chinese live. The buildings are very tightly packed and most of them are in a bad state of repair. The suburb even extends up the hillside where it is no more than a shanty town. This area was made famous in the movie "The World of Susie Wong" where the whole hillside collapses in a typhoon.. In  the city area they have no gardens or backyards and have to dry washing by hanging it above the streets. The children play in streets that are filthy and eat most of their meals at communal tables set up in these streets. We observed them eating a meal that didn’t look marvellous, in fact it was reminiscent of mud! Still it must have been quite nourishing as all the kids, despite their surroundings, looked pretty healthy. After walking through markets teeming with only Chinese and being glared at, we were only too happy to get out and return to a more civilized part of HK. In the hour or so that we were in Wanchai we never set eyes on another European face. Victoria has very old  trams as a means of transport through the city. They are funny looking things with no glass in the windows and there is a first class compartment on top with second class downstairs. Some even tow a trailer behind, which we thought must be for the third class peasants. These trams are only used by the Chinese and they are always packed to capacity and more. That evening we had drinks at the Mandarin, a very plush and inexpensive hotel bar. Afterwards we dined at the State Chinese Restaurant. Next day we went on a coach tour of the New Territories. About 360 square miles was leased from the Chinese by Britain in 1898 for 99 years. This lease will expire in 1997 and many people in HK are very concerned about what will happen to them if the lease is not renewed. The coach trip was very interesting with a variety of scenery ranging from fishing villages and beautiful beaches to vast farmlands. The food that is grown in these fields in one year, only lasts the population of HK and New Territories for 7 days, then food has to be brought in from Communist China. We drove right up to the border and gazed into Red China across a lovely valley with several rivers flowing peacefully around green islands with small farm houses on them. That afternoon we went shopping again, this time for shoes. Barry got his without any trouble but I with my big feet couldn’t get the right size. It appears all Chinese have small feet, and it wasn’t until we had tried almost every shop in HK that I got my shoes. On Friday we collected our suits which turned out to be very nice. I nearly forgot, on Thursday night we went out with a gang from the ship and had drinks first at the Firecracker Bar in  the plush President Hotel, then dined at the Golden Crown Chinese Restaurant. It was a fantastic place, probably the best yet. It had a floor show while we ate with singing and dancing and mild stripping. On Friday we steamed out of HK Harbour, it was about 6pm and the light was just fading and people in sampans were still begging for food and money. Earlier in the day we went to the fishing village of Aberdeen, somewhat different from the one in Scotland. Here most of the people live on their boats and exist only on the fish that their men folk catch on early morning trips. Many of the boats where the people lived, were in  a  very poor state, with some splitting at the seams, with most bobbing about in a sea full of  rotting garbage.  While there we saw a large fleet of junks going out to sea on the morning tide. It was quite a spectacular sight  with hundreds of them, one behind the other, stretching to the horizon. Hong Kong was an extremely interesting place to visit and a real eye opener to how other races and cultures exist. One thing I shall always remember is the variety of smells, known as the HONG KONG PONG!....
                                                                   Hong Kong Scenes

Footnote:  In 1997 the British rule of Hong Kong ended, and it became part of the People's Republic of China. However, because of its importance as a financial hub and as a doorway to the west, it was allowed a certain amount of autonomy under the principal of "one country, two systems". The question for the future will be whether this bastion of capitalism can co - exist with its communist masters...........

                                                             Letter 190. Coral Sea

 S.S. "Canberra" the Coral Sea. Thurs. March 28th. 1968   It's hard to believe that in a couple of days I will be home in Australia. At the moment we are well out to sea off the North Queensland coast, sailing steadily through perfect weather conditions. We have been swimming all morning and the weather is fantastic. Since leaving Hong Kong it has been sunny, hot and humid every day. That pale English/Canadian complexion has now gone and I am starting to look like an Aussie again. The day before yesterday we crossed over the Equator and we are now officially in the Southern Hemisphere - Roger for the first time. Now he will have the problem of the sun being in the "wrong" place, like I had in England! When we crossed over the imaginary line King Neptune and his attendants "came on board" and it was mirth and mayhem for all. As I knew what was coming I made sure we stood well back. Anyone who is in the front of the watching crowd stands a good chance of being grabbed and covered with multi-coloured ice cream and thrown into the pool. I much prefer to eat my ice cream, than have it smeared all over me!.. Yesterday we sailed around the end of New Guinea. It was very, very beautiful with many islands and a volcano or two thrown in. Roger startled many people on the deck when he produced our new telescopic lens to enable us to get in closer for photos. We have tried to photograph the beautiful flying fish that take off and soar ahead of the waves, but they are always too fast for us. On the whole, the voyage has been rather quiet as we sailed past all the islands of Indonesia, with only the occasional native fishing boat, with their funny triangular sails, to be seen. There's just been us and this big ship beneath the stars. All the Aussies are looking for the Southern Cross in the night sky now. It should be visible soon. This morning we picked up what sounded like the A.B.C. "Hospital Session" on our cabin radio - a sure sign that Australia is not far away. The '"Canberra" is sailing to meet the Australian coast near Great Sandy Island, just off Maryborough. We are scheduled to be there early tomorrow, and then on Saturday we sail into Sydney. Unfortunately it will be some time before we can clear customs, and the trunk, which is in the hold, won't be out until Sunday. However things will eventually be sorted out, and in the meantime we will be staying at the Sheraton Hotel. Everyone looks startled when we say we are staying at the Sheraton, as it is the Hotel that The Beatles stayed at and is considered to be one of Sydney's top hotels. Should be fun! Anyway, we expect to be there until Tuesday, at least, while we look around for some sort of car to buy, to drive ourselves home in. I haven't heard from Bette or anyone. I guess if she and Marg are there to meet us, then they will be there! Anyway, we have our own arrangements. So, all going well, we should be in Brisbane by the following weekend, that is around the 7th April and home the following week around the 10th or 11th. It's difficult to know exactly as we intend to drive nice and easy up the coast, stopping here and there and calling in to see the Aunts maybe. I shall send you a telegram when we know the exact date of our arrival. We have decided to send all the baggage home, as I think that is the best place until we decide what we are doing. Things aren't too bad financially as we did not spend as much as we anticipated on the journey home, and we still have quite a few of our travellers cheques left. You may be receiving some mail for us from Canada too - all with money in some form or another. Just leave them until we arrive (There is around 96 pounds each owed to us from income tax refunds). Also, when we arrive in Sydney we will be putting in a lot of films for processing, so they will be arriving to the home address as well.(your postman is going to be busy!) Our slides, since we left Toronto, should be really something, as every place we have visited has been completely different from the one before. It's been a marvellous trip. I enjoyed it much better this time. The "Canberra", of course, was in all ways superior to the old "Orcades, which was a bit of an old tub!. I was only slightly seasick once when we left Los Angeles and hit some rough weather, but apart from that it has been a generally smooth voyage. We have been on the sea, between ports, for almost a week, and by Saturday it will be seven and a half days between ports, the longest hop yet. This is our fifth week at sea, and the sixth since we left Toronto. I guess by the time we reach Mount Morgan we will have been travelling for around eight weeks. We are all, really, really looking forward to sailing into Sydney Harbour on Saturday…………. ………………………………. End of Letters

 

Cruising through the Islands 

 

 

                                                       Sydney Arrival - 30th March. 1968

                                                                Home to Queensland


The Epilogue....
The first problem that we faced when we arrived in Sydney was that the Sheraton Hotel had let our pre booked room go, because we did not verify it immediately on our arrival. (no one told us we had to!). They did, however, find us another room at a top hotel not far away in the high class suburb of Double Bay, which was a much nicer area than Kings Cross, anyway. That night it rained lightly, and both of us were amazed at how warm the rain was. Another problem arrived with the matter of buying a car. We had a new Valiant Station Wagon picked out, but complicated state laws discouraged finance companies from lending money to anyone who was going to take the vehicle to another state. We then packed up and travelled to Brisbane by train(which looked like something out of the dark ages, compared to our CNR Super Continental), and bought our car there - a new Holden Station Wagon. We stayed with Aunty Millie in Brisbane, but because I wanted to be home for Easter, I deferred visiting Aunt Ivy until our return south again. To our absolute joy we discovered that Desley and Jan had returned from their travels at the same time as us, so we all had a great re-union in Mount Morgan! The following week Bette and friends arranged a big welcome home bar-be-cue for us and the girls. This was Roger's first introduction to the delights of an Aussie Barbie, complete with cane toads and green frogs. He was also introduced to "Nancy", the girl's pet Kangaroo whom he heroically rescued when she escaped from the Smith's backyard one afternoon! How do you get a Kangaroo to go where you want it to go? - you hold on to its tail and use it to "steer" the wayward 'roo in the desired direction!. A sight to behold indeed!!. We later hit the road and travelled north to Cairns, camping out all the way in the Holden wagon. The weather couldn't have been better and the bitter cold of Canada became a distant memory. We had a night on magical Green Island, where Roger became acquainted with the glorious wonders of the Great Barrier Reef.. Around June we applied for film laboratory jobs in Sydney and were rewarded with a reply from Channel Seven's, Atlab who warmly welcomed us. Channel 7 had recently installed an Electronic Camera system to enable them to produce their own T.V. shows on film, using the multiple camera technique of Television shooting, and we were just the guys they were looking for. On the way to Sydney to take up our positions, we called in to see Aunt Ivy, only to discover that she had died a couple of nights previously of a sudden stroke, and we would be attending her funeral that day instead. A few months later my Mother died, also of a sudden stroke, to be then followed by Aunty Millie, again from the same cause. Our jobs with Atlab, involved assembling the E - Cam footage from the new Tony Hancock show that Channel 7 was shooting with him in one of the studios. While we were journeying to Sydney, Tony Hancock committed suicide and the production was disbanded. However, Atlab wished to keep us and offered us other jobs within the Laboratory. One job was in the Negative Cutting Department and another in the Optical Effects Department. I took the negative cutting job and Roger took the optical effects position. Neither of us had any real experience in either, but one thing that Canada had taught us was that with a bit of bluff and self confidence you could go a long way. We learnt quickly and did well there, making many friends, until an industrial dispute flared up at the Lab and we all went out on strike. The rival laboratory, Colourfilm, then offered us jobs with them which we accepted. I, however left there several months later to take up a negative cutting position with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Roger rose rapidly through the ranks at Colourfilm and became Australia's top Optical Effects Technician working on most of the nation's golden age feature films that made the world sit up and take notice.


WHERE ARE THEY NOW
Barry and Roger are now retired, but are busy amateur film makers, concentrating their efforts mainly in the areas of Wildlife and Animation.  Many of their movies have won awards in Australia and Internationally. Proudest achievement of all was being awarded the Photographic Society of America’s Gold Medallion at the Cotswolds International Film festival in Britain for “Lady Elliot - Cinderella Island” in 2003. At the present time they are now partners in YouTube where they have over two hundred movies for viewing. These can be viewed at   http://www.youtube.com/ozpix  and  http://www.youtube.com/roco43   ........Desley married an engineer, Peter Goldstone, who became involved in many major engineering projects in Asia for the Australian Government. They have two sons and are now proud grandparents. Jan married Jim Lazzarini, a school headmaster, and they also have two sons and are happy grandparents as well. Jan writes and has had articles published and some of her plays performed. Desley continued her studies and has recently gained her PHD, and now has the title of Doctor. Isobel returned to Australia and married Lou Bianchetti and lives at Banoa Point near the Gold Coast. Roger and Barry never travel north without calling in to see them. Robin Langer married Breda, and lives in Harpenden, England, where they have a beautiful home and three children. The eldest, Alison, recently played Eliza Dolittle in a production of “My Fair Lady”. Robin has only just recently retired from his job as colorist at the Technicolor Film Laboratory where he worked on feature films with the top directors, producers and cameramen. He now is able to spend more time acting in the theatre in numerous popular productions.. Also living in Queensland are John and Carol Spence, whose wedding took place in Mackelsfield, England. On his return to Australia John worked as a film editor with the ABC in Brisbane until his retirement. They have two daughters and they too are now happy grandparents. Kate now lives in Melbourne with her husband Bill whom she met in England. She is semi retired which now gives her more time more time to spend on her other love - travelling. Pat FitzGerald became Patricia Beasley, but lost her husband a few years ago. However, she now has grandchildren to spoil and is a tireless worker for Floriade, Canberra’s  premier flower show. In 2011 Pat had the honour of being presented to the Queen during her Canberra visit. Sylvia decided to emigrate to Australia and kept corresponding with Barry until her arrival in Melbourne during a heat wave in late 1967. This beautiful English rose wilted in Melbourne’s ferocious heat, reboarded the ship and returned to England, never to be heard from again. Despite Barry's predictions, Mike Flynn remained in Australia and became a successful film editor. Harry Kyle, with wife Muriel and son Julian, emigrated to Australia in the early seventies.When reunited with us again he told of his surprise, when, on his first editing job which included footage of passengers disembarking from the "Canberra" in Hong Kong, he saw the two of us walking down the gangplank..They returned to England in later years, but still keep in touch.  Also not forgotten are Elvira Mazzone of Humphries, and Marie MacDonald from Film House in Toronto. Christmas cards and news have been exchanged yearly since 1967/68...The open cut mine that gave the town of Mount Morgan its livelihood (and was the home to the group of ten expatriates in London), closed in 1981 and the town became a shadow of its former self. However due to its proximity to Rockhampton, and better climate, it is now becoming popular with retirees who prefer the country town lifestyle… With the discovery of the letters, a link was re-established with Bob Megginson who had gained success as a writer, producer and director of films and TV shows in the U.S.A. Among his many achievements was to be nominated for an award as writer of the highly successful movie called “FX- Murder by Illusion” starring the Aussie actor Bryan Brown. He now lives in the Hollywood Hills with his beautiful second wife Isabelle, who is a leading costume designer. Barry and Bob now email each other frequently discussing what they used to discuss so fervently in the film cleaning room at Humphries in 1964 - The problems of life and movies!…..Humphries Film Laboratories closed in 1985 a victim of the popularity of video tape, and the decline of film usage. Barry’s beloved Scala Theatre suffered severe damage from a fire in 1969 and was demolished  to make way for an office block. The “Orcades” was retired from service in 1972. The “Canberra” went on to serve with distinction in the Falklands war in 1982, where she acted as a troop ship. Her solid construction made her a better candidate for the war zone, than the more vulnerable “Queen Elizabeth 2”. After the war her popularity as a cruise ship increased, but ultimately her age and high running costs forced P&O to retire her in 1997.......As for Yorkville, in Toronto, well it now seems as if the hippies and the flower people have faded into the dust of history, for the trendy little village has now moved considerably up market with a luxury Park Hyatt Hotel in its centre. Here I quote from a recent travel article that appeared about it in a Sydney paper. “Yorkville is Toronto’s answer to Fifth Avenue or Rodeo Drive, where you see Maseratis pulled up alongside stretched limos and well heeled women walking their pampered pooches along the footpath.” It sure doesn’t seem like the Yorkville that I knew, so I guess the battle to close Yorkville to traffic in 1967 was lost. I would also like to take the opportunity here to apologise to all our American and Canadian friends for the younger Barry’s less than charitable remarks about all you good people on the North American continent.

Footnote.   Jan’s adult sons(and fathers themselves) have questioned her on the use of illicit drugs in London during the Swingin’ Sixties era. One said “Come on mum, you must have got into that stuff when you were in London!”. “They refuse to believe me when I deny it!” she said laughing. So, for the record, this misconception must have come about because of all the publicity given to pop stars and their drug use during that period. Certainly I was never aware of any illicit drugs being used at the numerous parties that I attended. Alcohol was always the exclusive drug of choice. Perhaps in the entertainment industry where a lot of money was being tossed around it would have been a very different story. Certainly, at that time drugs would have been very expensive, and unaffordable to the average poorly paid working person. Consequently, I found London to be a very safe place to walk about in at any hour of the day or night.

                                              Bob Megginson with Barry - Then & Now

A Traveller's Journal - Part 5