About Going to Canada:
The ‘Pushkin’ was a beautiful ship, brand new and sparkling clean, and the well regimented crew kept it that way. It had three bars, a large formal dining room, several snack bars and cafés, a small cinema and a shopping arcade. Helen bought a set of nesting Russian dolls, each of which could be split open to reveal a smaller doll inside. I bought myself a 35mm Russian camera for £10 when the man in the next cabin told me that it sold for over £100 in London; I put in a 36 exposure Kodak colour film and took my first colour shots. The manual was in Russian but when I stopped a crewman to help translate he told me ‘no talk on job’, which I guessed his boss had taught him to say, as they didn’t like to have the crew diverted from their tasks. Very few of them spoke any English. I figured out how to take basic snaps, and thought that would have to do.
Helen was badly seasick before we were even out of the Thames estuary. After two days of this we called for the ships doctor, who produced a pill and gave it to Helen. He said “one”. Helen asked “One a day?” and the doctor replied “No. One.” After the pill she felt much better but drowsy, and preferred to stay in the cabin, especially when we were in mid Atlantic and the weather turned rough. I went down for breakfast every morning and noticed that most tables had at least one empty chair. After my table had finished their breakfasts I took what fruit was left back to Helen. Several other people, male and female, were doing the same thing for cabin-bound friends or family.
I’d taken other sea trips and knew that however rough the water got I would not be bothered by it. When Helen was dozing, or resting easily with a book, I would find a chair at the prow of the Pushkin and sit there enjoying the up and down motion of the boat. For a good deal of that time I sat there worrying and playing the ‘what if’ game. What if Zed had seen through my interview. I’d found out that the Addressograph was a small printing press; well, maybe not so small, about the size of a refrigerator. A big refrigerator. And they had three hundred of them! The Printing Bureau must be massive. I hadn’t really lied about knowing them but I had dissembled quite a bit. Then what if they checked with Watford Tech and found I’d failed my City and Guilds exam? Would I be sacked before I’d even started? Would we have to pay our own way home? Could I get my old job back? I was glad I’d said nice things in my resignation letter. What if I had to speak French? I could manage “Comment ça va?” and “Bonjour,” but not a lot more. Would they laugh at my accent? (They laughed so hard they almost fell over, but they were good sports about it.)
One morning when the ship was about half way across the Atlantic a piece of paper was pushed under our cabin door to say a lifeboat drill would be held sometime that day. When we heard the siren we were to grab our life jackets and follow the signs to the deck. Before we had time to think about it the sirens blasted through the ship and we joined the shuffling masses to line up on deck. The woman in charge of our party was my idea of a perfect Russian shot-putter for the Olympic Games; the Royal Marines would be proud to have her as a Sergeant Major. She pushed and pulled at our life jackets to make sure we didn’t have them back to front, and when she was sure we were all OK she stood in front of us and said. “Good, good, everybody good. Big waste of time, fall in ocean in September, dead in forty five seconds. Go back to cabin now.”
We docked in Quebec City on Monday, the fourth of September, 1966. Labour Day. We were invited to tour the city and told that a line of taxis was waiting on shore to give conducted tours, but if we wanted to go ashore we would have to be ‘landed’. Once officially welcomed into Canada we would become ‘Landed Immigrants’, having almost all the rights and privileges of Canadian Citizens. Helen was anxious for dry land, and wanted to see North America’s oldest city, so we went off to be ‘landed’ by the Immigration people. A very large man looked at my documentation, particularly the card which I’d been told I’d need in Canada. He gave me a big smile and said “So you’ll be joining us in the Public Service, will you? Well, welcome to Canada young man.” He wrote on his ledger, next to my name ‘Queen’s Printer’. I said, “I’m not the Queen’s Printer.” He winked and said “Maybe one day?” We walked down the gangplank and stepped onto Canadian soil as landed immigrants.