by Peter Carlyle-Gordge

Find the local angle and exploit it.

That was the basic idea I had back in 1967 as a penniless student attending the University of Manchester in England. I was an aspiring writer and had penned many short items for my local paper in Yorkshire, starting at the age of 14. I had even persuaded them to publish a full feature article on one occasion, but was still a novice.

I also had a penfriend/girlfriend living in Winnipeg, Canada, more than 4,000 miles away. Money was always scarce but I succeeded in saving about $120, the price of a charter return from London to Winnipeg. The plan was to spend the summer in Canada, visiting a sister in Toronto and my penfriend (who later became my wife) in Winnipeg. I had also been invited to a wedding in Vancouver, so there were three major cities on my Canadian itinerary.

It occurred to me that on my return to England I might be able to write some travel articles about Canada, but then I had an even better idea. What would happen if I made contact with Britons who had emigrated to Canada and wrote a feature on them for their old “back home” paper?

 

The more I considered it, the more enthused I became. Selling an editor on a story with a clear local angle would be much more likely to succeed than just offering a general travel story on Canada. But how to go about it?

First I wrote to the editors of about ten provincial papers outlining my idea: I would attempt to find expatriates and ask them about their new life in Canada. Where had they lived in the old country and what schools had they attended? What did they do in England and what had made them emigrate? How was their new life turning out? What did they miss about the old town and the old country? Did they have any regrets?

I was 20 years old at the time but quite ambitious. Why settle for a single feature?
Instead I suggested to each editor a series of five or six parts, each article focusing on a different family or individual…always provided I could find enough families of course.

I wrote to the editors of such papers as the Halifax Courier, Bradford Telegraph and Argus, Bristol Evening Post, Wakefield Express, Derby Evening Telegraph, the Nottingham Evening Post and News and, of course, my own local paper the Huddersfield Daily Examiner. All expressed interest in the idea without giving a firm commitment.

The next problem was to quickly locate and line up potential interviewees in Canada, so I wrote a letter to the editor explaining what I was up to and got it published in the daily papers in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. I would only have a couple of weeks in Toronto and even less time in Vancouver, so some of the interviews would have to be done by phone once I arrived.

One stroke of luck came when I discovered a Toronto radio station had a weekly program specifically slanted to ex-Britons. I quickly arranged for the host to interview me on air when I arrived. That short interview produced many calls from people who had emigrated from all the areas I was interested in. I did about half the interview by phone and half in person, using a set list of questions which covered family details, occupation, likes and dislikes about Canada and Britain, future plans.

When I was able to meet the people in person I took along my camera. If the interview was by phone I stressed the importance of a photograph and gave an address they could forward it to.

Some of the people I met were genuinely thrilled and insisted on giving me a tour of their city or taking me out for a drink. I scribbled away furiously, but soon I got very familiar with the questions I needed to ask. Responses varied a lot. Some people were far from adjusted to their new lives in Canada. Often the wives had the hardest time because back then the husband was often the breadwinner while the wife stayed home. That meant limited social contact with new Canadian friends and a limited ability to adjust to the new culture.

These wives clung to memories of England and had a lot of time to wax nostalgic and pine for a way of life they missed. Their menfolk usually fared much better, making friends at work and socializing far more.

A few families were ecstatic about their move to Canada, with almost no criticisms. Sure they missed family or the old English pub or the local soccer team, but what they had found in Canada more than made up for it. Others were still homesick for England and hadn’t ruled out possibly returning one day. But overall they were mostly happy with their new lives. Those with children thought they had done the right thing. Despite the pain of adjusting to a new culture and education system, they believed Canada offered their offspring a much brighter future in terms of opportunity and living standards.

Many of these new immigrants offered advice to other Britons thinking of coming. The main theme was: give Canada a chance—at least a couple of years. As electrical engineer Keith Lane, formerly of Nottingham and now of Toronto, noted:

“We could have returned to Britain dozens of times in the first six months , but we stuck it out. We emigrated to give the kids a better chance and Canada offers that.”

John Potter, another migrant from Nottingham to Toronto, thought on arrival that he did not want to die in that strange country called Canada. But after 12 years of living there his view changed: “My only regret is that I didn’t emigrate 20 years earlier,” he said. “We could never have as well off as we are if we had stayed in Nottingham.”

In all I interviewed more than two dozen families and individuals in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver and produced features for their back-home provincial papers.

The series ran under such titles as Home Thoughts From Canada, The New Pioneers and The New Canadians.

The families were delighted; the editors were delighted; and I earned enough to pay for another trip to Winnipeg three months later.

On that trip I became engaged to my penfriend/girlfriend and we were married two years later. And, with my folder of published articles, I easily walked into a job as a feature writer with the Winnipeg Free Press.

About the Author

Peter Carlyle-Gordge is a former Manitoba correspondent for Time Canada, Macleans, the Toronto Star and The Financial Post. He is also a former story producer for CBC Information Radio and his work has been widely published in North America and Britain.


Copyright © 2000 Peter Carlyle-Gordge.