Canada 1940-41

In fact once we had arrived in Stanstead we made contact much more with Canadians than we did with the Hicksons, who tended to keep themselves very much to themselves, and have a little British enclave within the Canadian school. We were fortunate in obtaining lodgings with Mrs Lamb, a widow with three daughters and two sons. The youngest son was still living at home and attended Stanstead College where we went to school.

We were there for about a year in all, but it seemed much longer, and we survived both a winter and a summer - the winter extremely cold when all the roads froze, and the pavements were like ice. One had to wrap up in a completely all-enshrouding second layer of clothes with over-boots just to venture outside. I remember that Robin was frightened of having his nose frostbitten, and used to wrap his face up in a warm scarf and then invite our mother to lead him to school. We also had a running battle with the French kids. French Canada was divided very firmly on racial grounds. The French Canadians even painted their houses a different colour from the English Canadians.

Stanstead was a very closed community, fairly isolated in a way, the nearest big town was Derby Line across the border in the States [in Vermont], and we were close to a lake, Lake Memphremagog, but if you wanted to go to a really big town, it was about 50 or 60 miles away. The school was the centre of the village, and children came from far and wide, mainly as boarders from across the state line. The schooling was of indifferent standard compared with what Barbara had been used to in England and she very soon found herself advanced several forms. For Robin and me whose education had been more basic, we slotted in more easily into our age group, but we had to struggle with French Canadian history and geography which was very different and rather boring. We often got the idea that the North Americans had really not heard of Europe except in the context of this new World War about which they understood very little. However, they were extraordinarily generous to us and kitted us out in old clothes and fed us virtually for nothing and had us live for a peppercorn rent.

We more or less took over the upper floor of Mrs Lamb's very elegant house, and we had meals with them, and were altogether rather a noisy and argumentative collection of children. Robin in particular was going through the difficult age when he had asthma quite often, and he used to have tantrums when he flung himself on the floor and beat his heels on the carpet, whereupon I realise now, the waves of dust mite would rise and cause him to have an asthmatic attack. Sidney Lamb, the youngest Lamb boy, was very good at sorting him out, and as time went on Robin became much more manly, because he mixed with rather more manly types of children, the Canadian boys being much more outdoor and active than he had been used to. His great friend was Wesley and they used to go off on their toboggans for hours at a time in the winter.

I spent the winter skiing in Canada on the hills behind our school, gentle skiing which was more my style than the very sophisticated skiing people did further away in the Laurentian Mountains. However I could not ever claim to be anything much of a skier, though Barbara became quite good at it. Our equipment was pretty primitive, bearing in mind how poor we were. I think Barbara was the only person who had a pair of automatic ski harnesses that detached themselves when you fell. Even our mother used to ski with us in her very old fashioned way.