HOW times have changed.
When I left school in 1953, I never in my wildest dreams thought what was to happen in my later life.
A Hounslow resident born and bred.
My first job was working at my local butcher’s for £2 a week.
At 16, I went to work for BOAC at the airport. My oldest brother asked if I would like to go with him and his family to live in Canada.
So when I was 18, we set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Thirteen days after leaving England, we arrived in Hamilton, Ontario.
I was offered a job on a 400-acre dairy farm as a hired hand, said goodbye to my brother and set off with my new boss. He was the son of the owner, and 10 years older than me,
I started that afternoon learning the ways of a farmer. He taught me how to milk the cows and all the other things you have to do on a large farm.
Apart from me, Bill and his wife were the total labour force. Nearly seven months later, I received a phone call from my sister-in-law to say Ken had broken his foot.
I had to go to their assistance. I left my job, rented a house where they lived and moved them in with me.
My brother also worked on a dairy farm. A cow he was milking trod on his foot, which did the damage.
With the job came a house so he was sacked because he couldn’t work and had to get out of the house.
He had three children under the age of six, so you could see he had problems.
We didn’t have any insurance so didn’t get any help. Being new to the country we were not really organised. So after paying all his hospital bills and getting nowhere fast, after three years we all returned to the UK.
It just shows you how times have changed.
My brother had even more terrible things happen to his family, but that is another story.
PETER NOBES
Ely Road
Hounslow
