Office Life 2

Left to Right: Brian Farrah, Karen MacDonald, Edward Jones, Reg Creed.

It was Reg Creed that helped us so much in those first few months in Canada, he and his wife Jackie looked after us, hot meals and hospitality. He worked on the DeHavilland projects and one of his traits was to quickly walk into the office and shout "Wake Up! you bright and shiny engineers" at the top of his voice.

Office Life

Front to back, Dave Williams, Rob Chappell, Rui Coelho. Almost two stress guys and one of those designer types.

It was usual to have total chaos on your desk, usually three or four binders, drawings and notes, in those days at least the desk space included a reference area which vanished as small cubicles replaced the open concept.

The Other Guy

The Chief of Stress at Dowty was Barry Levoir and his next in command, by title only, was Jim Collins.

The one thing you found out about Jim quite quickly was that he did not suffer fools gladly, although in reality, few of us do. However, Jim would curtail conversations with idiots quickly, he would do little to hide his dislike of wafflers and at first impression seemed somewhat of a curmudgeon.

So I learned to talk to him...

The title that had been applied to him was of Stress Office Manager, but it was Jims passionate goal to never manage anything, not because of being lazy, but more from a disinterest point of view. In addition, the Chief of Stress was the policy maker and Jim did everything he could to keep it that way.

I would have long conversations with Jim, often with the pretense of talking about structures theory, an open book in front of us as we chatted about everything and it's dog, it was apparent that something important clicked between the two of us and although Jim was older than my father, he became a lifelong friend.

Black Velvet

Allanah Myles, 1989

It was a time of Much Music and almost 24 hour videos, we did not have MTV but Much Music was the Canadian equivalent, Steve Anthony and Erica Ehm and an endless supply of music.

It would be the TV channel of choice, watching the videos, dominated by white Canadian music, of course, that would change in time and deteriorate into endless reality shows and very little in the real music line.

I would have given Allanah Myles the top off my chucky egg any day.

Canadian Music

I was standing in the waiting room at the dentists office near to the Oshawa Centre, the transistor radio was playing in the backgound and "one of those songs" came on that occasionally makes you go and buy the album of a complete stranger.

It was "Levity" by Ian Thomas.

This was the second time this had happened in a short time, the other artist was a chap called Gowan who grabbed my attention with a song called "Moonlight Desires" with support vocals from some unknown singer called Jon Anderson...

It was June, 14th and we drove to Ontario Place, downtown Toronto. The venue was the Forum, which was an open air concert arena and we watched this guy Gowan, who was the same age as me, live for the first time, it was a remarkable night, filled with wild dancing on pianos, and I knew that we would see him live again.

Canadian music, of course, was everywhere and it was refreshingly rock and roll when compared with the pop based British scene, other solo acts such as Kim Mitchell, Tom Cochrane and even Allanah Myles had a new edge that crept into my ears and changed my musical direction.

Voice of Reason

June, 13th, 1988

I had met so many people over the previous months and I had been placed in a high traffic area of the office, facing the personnel department (as they called it back then, later to be Human Resources when we all became faceless automatons).

The Queen mother, as Graeme mentioned in the last post, was our nickname for the head chicken in the personnel department and she had a secretary that had no volume control on her particular clucking, of which I had the very close pleasure of on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

So, Along came Jones as I said, not the cowboy from the Coasters song, but a Scottish chap from Bell Helicopter, I think he had been there for quite a short time after entering Canada and obviously decided that the rolling hills of Ajax were a better bet.

Graeme and I became close friends over the years and in my opinion, "chance" meetings never happen as this frugal chappy arrived at my desk at the very beginning of my "age of enlightenment" regarding money.

Along came Jones

A perspective about our first meeting from Graeme Wright, another immigrant, this time from Scotland, via Spain and Montreal :

It was Monday June 13th 1988. That morning I turned up at Dowty as previously arranged with Ralph Darlington and he had not told anyone. I asked at reception for Ralph and was told he was in England at British Aerospace and fortunately, Derek Hodgson knew I was starting, Barry Rotherham at Bell Helicopter had told Derek.

So it was Derek who sort of took me under his wing.

I was in the Cad Room getting introduced etc and met Jimmy Chow.

Perhaps after an hour or so later (mid-morning), Jimmy said "Graeme I have someone that you might be interested to meet ..." He took me out past the Queen Mother's office to the first desk in the adjacent row. You were there holding court, getting laughs and being typically "Dave".

Jimmy said "Dave meet Graeme he just started" ..You replied with some really remarkable comment to Jimmy along the lines of "Fuck off you little Chinese Fucker .." or similar. That was it Dave, we had just met and I had to adjust ...!!!

I recall thinking "How the hell did he get into Canada..?" . Initially that first meeting alarmed me until I had adjusted ......

That is my clearest memory of my first Dowty morning ...!!!

Planning

June, 1988

It may seem astounding, but at the age of thirty I had my first serious savings account, it wasn't a fortune, but it was by design and not by accident.

It was not all my doing either as Karen had always been somewhat of a saver and her influence, along with the diminished social safety net of Canada, encouraged me to start being more responsible with money.

The UK commitments, Natwest bank, Barclaycard and Lancashire County Council were being dealt with along with a monthly check to the first wife, the rent was high, but it included utilities (Electric and Water) and of course the self inflicted wounds of car and stereo payment.

However, through all that, a trickle of savings emerged, just a few hundred dollars, but nevertheless spare money along with a plan to have a thousand dollars saved by the beginning of August.

Good Habits

It was perhaps the first time in my adult life that money was being managed and it was partly through a Commodore 64 program by a company called Microswift.

The spreadsheet we called Houseplan was as simple as they come, each week we kept a record of what we spent on almost everything, and often, in those first few months it was surprising how much money was frittered away.

The frittering was untrackable before the spreadsheet, I would take some money out of the bank at the ATM and it would go in the wallet, as soon as a $20 bill was "broken" it seemed to vanish after it went in the pocket.

Tracking money is a serious concept but I believe we all feel foolish to do it, don't know why, but keeping a tight hold on the pursestrings seems to be viewed as negative by most people, the "Scrooge" and "Fagin" concept, driven into us all from our childhood years.

The spreadsheet changed that, we didn't become financial brainiacs because of it, but it gave us a heads up about where the money was going.

Bad Habits

After all those years of reckless, and drunk, driving in the UK the Canadian driving test was going to be a pushover, after all I was an excellent driver, in my mind of course.

The first test was terrible, even though I was concious of speed limits I drove far too fast, too confident, no mirror use and a few technical points failed, I arrived back at work with my tail between my legs.

I approached the second test with a fear and respect, overdid everything, even down to the moving of the head (and not just the eyes) for mirror use and fortunately I passed.

I had a sort of fear when Karen took her test in May, she had never driven in the UK and my fear was she would pass first time and I would never live it down with some of the guys at work, well, fortunately for me, she failed.

It was down to nerves for her, not because she had picked up bad habits over a decade of bad driving. The second time was scheduled for May, 18th and of course, she passed!

PET Rocks

I know it seems I was going backwards in time when I go forward in time briefly to 1990, however, I saw this thing at the Ham radio sale, along with a WATCOM basic daughterboard and two disk drives, it was a huge box of real estate for very little money.

It represented a copy of that very first "personal" computer I had ever used in the workplace (and at Edge Hill College) and was fun to have for a few months, crazy yes, but I've been big on nostalgia for a long time.

I sold it six months later on the BBS for about the same money, the enthusiastic guy who bought it drove all the way from the other side of Toronto to pick it up.

TPUG

Frank James (Jim) Butterfield (14 February 1936 – 29 June 2007) was a Toronto-based author and computer programmer famous for his work with Commodore microcomputers, and a longtime contributor to periodicals such as The Transactor and TPUG. One of Jim's major works was the book Learning Machine Code Programming on the Commodore 64 (and other Commodore computers), one of the leading references on programming the 6502 derived 6510 microprocessor.

In addition to the Qlink forums, I met the guy at a couple of the Computer shows around Toronto, he was always an excellence resource for Commodore hints and tips and he was often to be seen on community television.

I finally disposed of a box full of the Transactor and TPUG magazines in 2007, they had been festering in the house for all those years along with Compute and Byte magazines, it was a sad day.

Oh, and at one point in 1990 I was the proud owner of a Commodore Pet obtained from a Ham Fest (Ham radio yard sale), memories of the stress analysis beam program from Gullick Dobson back in 1980 and an excellent timewasting program called simply Rhino.

QLink

The Internet as I knew it back in 1988, the world of QLink, downloadable content, message boards, learning and hint forums. It was here that I was introduced to a chap called Jim Butterfield, a Commodore guru of the time, who always had an answer to any problems.

Cooking on Gas

April, 16th, 1988

The second computer show of the year, which was at the Toronto airport exhibition centre, provided me with the blazingly fast, 1200 baud modem (from a combination of MOdulate and DEModulate) and all I had to do when I arrived home and plugged it in was to find something to call...

The Commodore online service back then was called Quantumlink, or QLink, a dial up bulletin board which eventually turned into America Online. The basic monthly fee was $9.95 and Ajax had a local access number.

I would sit in the spare bedroom, my little mission control room in Falby Court, and connect to this exciting portal into the outside world, which, at 1200 baud, might sound pathetic in this broadband society we live in, but everything has to start somewhere.

And it was four times faster than a 300 baud modem...

In later months the "habit" would evolve with C64 specific terminal programs, Darkterm being one of them, and local BBS (bulletin board) sites that would provide downloadable content and an online messaging forum.

It would eventually result in a dusting down of the pirate costume, however, before that happened the 1200 baud modem would be replaced, and then replaced again to support a rapidly changing online world.

Over There

The first three months of our Canadian experience, regardless of the winter weather, felt like a vacation and was a bit of an extended honeymoon, and of course, spring and summer were just around the corner.

It was fortunate that Karen had found work so quickly and we certainly had little to worry about regarding money with two incomes flowing in, but as I say, water always takes the shape of the bucket and we were having no trouble spending it.

Dowty had quite a high proportion of British people and depending on which side of the morning you talked to them, Canada was the best place or things "over there" were far better, or worse, or better. The bias was often towards the grass is greener concept, that Britain was better because of this or that, and in some aspects I had to agree.

The pair of us made a pact that, when the honeymoon was over and real life set in, that we would give it a chance, I think we said that we should give it at least two, maybe three years to see if we had made the right decision.

Killer Tag

I was working long hours on the tailcone tank loads report, the foundation for the secondary internal loads and stress reports.

It was the tradition back then to submit your report to the boss, Barry Levoir, and he would take it away for a few days and do a thorough check, usually, each problem would be identified by a small post it note attached to the page that was in question.

It was a good system, you would get your report back and work through all the tags, replacing the pages (yet keeping the tags attached) and then returning the report for the sign off process.

The load summary tables would show limit loads, ultimate loads, tire closure and strut stroke associated with the load case. The rolling radius of the tire would be subsequently used in the wheel load distribution program and then progressed into the internal loads (stick model) report.

Occasionally, a simple post it note, attached to an early page of the submitted report would be the dreaded "killer tag" and here, on my first submission, was just such a tag. It was simple, tire closure, XT as we called it, should have been based on limit, or applied loads, and for my limit load table it was.

However, on my ultimate load table, I had generated my XT based on the factored loads when they should have been the same as in the limit load table.

In essence, my first killer tag affected about two weeks of work and consequently a mad scramble to get reports back on schedule, I have known killer tags to affect massive reports and fortunately, my first experience was a small, yet valued, lesson in consequences of a simple slip up.

Of course, it would not be the last.

Home Office

I don't want the history blog to come down to a list of things I bought, but these were exciting times!


The Star NX1000 was a graphics dot matrix printer, it had the ability to do NLQ which was "near letter quality" and had built in fonts selectable from a little front panel. It was wise to use draft quality most of the time though as NLQ would do a double pass on the ribbon.

The printer was around $300 plus tax and of course, to use it on the C64 I needed a special parallel interface cable which was another $60, but what price perfection?

In these days of inkjet and laser printers being almost given away, it is funny that we would spend so much back then on a fanfold dot matrix machine, however it was an exciting addition to my 1988 system.

Essentials

March, 6th, 1988

We drove up to the Princess Centre on Highway 7 to the first of what would become a tradition of Computer Fests.

It was quite the show, a big hall full of vendors and even more of them scattered upstairs, computer stuff of every description, software, hardware and even affordable modems for the home user.

The Commodore Amiga was coming down in price but was still over $1000 for the unit on it's own, so, with my existing library of software it made sense to buy the updated slimline C64, which for the computer, monitor and disk drive came to just $845 which was "cheap at the time".

I was back on the joystick.

Stuff

I had mentioned before that it may have been better if we had negotiated with Dowty a lump sum to buy new furniture when we arrived, although the personal effects would still have been shipped.

The bill of lading shows that we brought "essential" items such as an ironing board, a weights training cycle and some shelves. The primary items, three piece suite, mattress, box and headboard and a few cabinets were really things that could have been replaced economically in Canada.

However, not forgetting that at the time, the 33 items on that inventory list represented our worldly belongings, which was sad to a degree as I was in my thirties and had very little to show for all those years on the planet.

I'm reminded about George Carlin and his routine on "stuff" at this moment.

Computer Fest

The furniture had arrived from the UK at the end of January, along with my boxes of floppy disks, a few thousand C64 programs calling to me from inside their cardboard tombs and a convenient spare room in the apartment to set something up.

In the (almost) spring of 1988 the average price for an entry level computer with VGA was around $2500 (for a 286) and the 386 was just being introduced at prices hovering around $6500+ Canadian. The price was so restrictive that, even in the workplace, personal computers were only for the elite.

There was a free monthly magazine, called Toronto Computes, which I would slobber over endlessly, and advertised was a weekend event, Computer Fest, approaching at the start of March.

Pioneers

The next step in our master plan to build up our credit rating was the purchase of a stereo system, it was a shame that we had to sell the Pioneer system in the UK, but research had shown that even with a power converter, turntables would not run at the correct speed in Canada.

The mecca for this sort of stuff was Kennedy Road in Scarborough, quite near to the Ford dealership where I had secured my impressive deal on the Mustang.

This is one of those examples of planning, but perhaps in the wrong way, nevertheless we wanted to establish credit in our new country, so we bought a Pioneer stereo at a place called Majestic on Kennedy Road.

Majestic, which no longer exists, was one of the first "electronics superstores" that I had ever been in, of course they became very common, but at the time, in early 1988, Majestic was enormous.

The credit arrangement, for a short 9 month term, was with a company called Trans Canada Credit, in retrospect, not really necessary, but probably did not do us any harm either.

Niagara

January 31st, 1988, our first visit to Niagara Falls. Karen is showing off that BHS wool coat that did little to stave off the winter cold, also notice how smart we were that day, no gloves or hats. Hard as nails...

I commented in my diary that it was very mild that day, we had brunch up on top of the Skylon Tower and then drove out to Niagara on the Lake, a visit to the Viking shop where we bought a Coalport Christmas plate.

Learning the ropes

I was challenged at first in the Stress office at Dowty, the analysis side of things was driven off a Cyber mainframe computer and we all had a TTY terminal.

Therefore any custom work was not done through Lotus 123 or GWbasic, the system used a derivative of Fortran IV and I had never programmed in Fortran, so I had a learning curve before getting started if I wanted to use custom Roark or Bruhn formulae.

However, Dowty already had a suite of programs and a solid pair of instruction manuals, S-1200 and S-1201, they paired theory and input format which was refreshing for a new starter as once you had mastered the TTY terminal you had access to a broad range of pre-compiled programs.

And I still used my PB-700 for a lot of those simple calculations.

The essence of mastering Fortran was to establish methods to input a file and output the result, once that was done, the "twiddly" bit in the middle where the formulae would go was just a case of syntax. The thing about Fortran which was initially difficult to grasp was the way that subroutines were handled, especially with common variables, and the endless formatting of input and output with the added confusion of tape definition.

I know this is all sounding geeky, and it was to a great extent, plenty of reasons to install a pocket protector on this subject, suffice to say, I found the need to learn Fortran quickly and that presented me with a great side project in the first six months of learning the ropes at Dowty.

Back to the Plot

January, 23rd, 1988

It was a cold day, but the Eaton Centre was an indoor, warm, vast mega mall, on Yonge Street, downtown Toronto.

We walked in the mall and up Yonge Street, which apparently is the longest street in Canada, regardless, within three blocks I swear if I had grabbed my earlobe I could have broken it off. The temperature was ridiculous, we had been in Canada less than three weeks and the cold was still amazing the pair of us.

It was time to buy some real gear, and in the following weeks we both had suitable coats, the thin British winter coats relegated to the closet for summer perhaps.

Attention to Detail

I expect that the four years of blogging between 1988 and 1992 will take quite a few months and I'll probably forget, so I'll flash forward...

A few weeks after the car purchase, an envelope arrived in the mail with the payment book, forty-eight payments of $272 which, back in ye olde days, had to be paid by monthly cheque, no direct debit.

January, 1992

In those later years, I had become more savvy with money, far more thoughtful about purchases and had a saving plan, yet it seemed like I had been paying for this car forever, and around my birthday in 1991 I had started a countdown to the final car payment.

Three to go, two to go and I told people in the stress office that I was going to celebrate with a few pints soon when my car was paid off "free and clear" as they say over here.

Four weeks, three weeks, two...

An envelope arrived from Ford Credit, I thought, here we go, they want me to pay for an extended warranty or something.

It was a book with 12 more payment slips, which I held disbelievingly, whats this?, huh?, wah?

I pulled my Ford folder out of the cupboard, searched for the agreement, Freeway Ford, January 1988, Ford Mustang, monthly payment $272, term, 60 months...

In that moment of negotiating genius, four years ago, I had turned down a monthly payment of $297 and beaten the guy down to $272. What I had forgotten, or never realised in the first place, was he merely changed the term from 48 months to 60 months.

Financial Savvy.

The original car price was around $11700 and I had the option of a 48 month term to pay a total of $14256 and in the blink of an eye and a lack of attention to detail that had changed to a 60 month total of $16320

Because I wanted to pay $25 less per month, it had cost me $2064 more.

I dragged myself into work the next day and fessed up to the guys, I took my lumps because, by golly, I deserved them.

Never again.

New Car Smell

The approval from Ford Credit came through in three days and the sales guy called me from the office to say I could pick the car up.

In addition, Ford had a $500 cash back promotion that he had wangled for me, so I didn't have to pay any deposit.

On the 21st of January, 1988, George Sonnenburg gave me a lift up to the Ford dealership in his Volkswagen Rabbit, dropping me off, I signed my life away and picked up the keys.

It was a puzzling five minutes in the car park as I tried to start it, the trick being to push the clutch pedal in when turning the key, after a few days, I would be a master of that particular operation.

I breathed in the new car smell and drove home to Ajax.

Part Two

The test drive was thrilling, the difference between the Oldsmobile rental and the Mustang were night and day and we drove down onto the highway, zoomed through a couple of exits then looped back to the dealership.

It had that "new car smell" and was warm, very warm, the heater worked extremely well on that cold January night and that was an important factor as the Cutlass had to be idled for five minutes to get any sort of heat through the vents.

In addition, it felt so...American.

I was sold on the car when we drove back onto the lot and parked up, the sales guy put his hand on my shoulder and said all fatherly, "lets see what we can do" and we followed him into the office.

The numbers were plugged in to the terminal, and there was intense concentration going on, this time, things took longer, the suspense was building somewhat when he smiled and showed me the screen. The number, with a $500 deposit was $297 a month and I shook my head, saying that was far bigger than the $250 I wanted to pay.

The number crunching continued, he asked what I could comfortably pay and then fiddled for a few more minutes on the screen, in a flourish he showed me the latest revision, same deposit and $272 a month, a few dollars above my updated amount.

The deal was done, all that was left was approval from Ford Credit and we would be running under our own steam in Canada, and you know, that nice man had even put me on his Christmas Card list.

Freeway Ford, Part One

The most important thing in the month before we arrived was to settle things with Ford Credit, the loan for the XR2 was "bought out" as they say and I ended up walking away from the car with enough cash for a few nights out.

I found out where the nearest Ford dealership was and we drove our trusty Oldsmobile out to Scarborough, about twenty minutes on Highway 401.

The sales guy was of British descent, either he was or he did a good impersonation of one, he sat us down and asked us what we wanted, all friendly like. The interview went well and he asked us to follow him out to the lot where he showed me what I could afford for the $250 a month I had outlined.

It was a five year old Mustang, orange I recall, sitting with an enormous crack in the windscreen, which he told us not to worry about as they would replace it, the car was unimpressive to say the least, dusty and dirty, and I dragged behind him as we went back into the showroom.

The salesman pulled up a screen and typed in some numbers, swivelled the screen to me and said that, if I put $500 down I could have that beauty for $279 a month.

I assumed that my face said it all, because my new found friend nodded in an understanding fashion, his eyes went upwards and he appeared to be thinking hard about something, and then he smiled and told us to follow him.

As we walked out of the showroom, he asked if I liked the colour blue, and I said it depends, he opened a glass case on the wall and retrieved a set of keys. We followed him to the new car area of the Ford lot and stopped at an amazing looking, brand new, dark blue, Mustang LX.

"Want to take it for a spin?", he asked knowingly...

Commentary

I made the comment that there was a lot going on, and our heads were full of new things and it was difficult to focus and make good decisions without thinking things through.

The sofa bed was a good example, it wasn't a good sofa and it certainly wasn't a good bed and we could, if we had thought it all through, have bought ourselves a new bed for less and used a couple of camp chairs until the furniture arrived from the UK.

The stuff we had shipped wasn't new, and it would have been far more sensible to negotiate an equivalent lump sum from Dowty to buy new items when we arrived, however, retrospect is a fascinating thing and it was what it was.

The next story, about the purchase of our first car in North America, is a good example of our lack of attention to details, something that would provide a hilarious secondary story in 1992.

Hilarious to everyone but me.

55 Falby Court, Ajax

The apartment was on the seventh floor of the building, which was about a five minute walk to Dowty across the playing field, that walk of course would be longer with three foot of snow on the surface.

A kitchen, a dining area, a TV area (for our latest acquisition) and a couple of bedrooms. It was so much better than the motel, of course, the motel had several items that the apartment did not have, beds being an example.

On the 16th of January we bought a sofa-bed from Sears, which would not be delivered until a few days after we moved in, so we bought some foam to sleep on at Zellers. In retrospect, an inflatable camp bed would have been a better idea, but there was too much going on to think in a practical manner.

We moved in on the 18th of January, the kettle, the cups, the spoons and the popcorn popper found their way into the kitchen, the TV was perched on a cardboard box in the main room and our foam was laid down in the bedroom.

In the corner by the kitchen, a patio set including plastic chairs was our pride and joy, kindly loaned to us by Reg Creed.

It was a start.

Solvent

January 13th, 1988

The electrical devices in our new life had reached three with the acquisition of a 14" portable TV in the motel room. The motel TV was attrocious, reception was awful and Karen really needed a friend for those hours I was at work.

The new TV, bought from Woolco in Whitby Mall, received about five or six good channels, at least we could watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune while relaxing on the beds at night.

It was well into the second week and Karen was managing, suddenly we had money again as Dowty had paid the expenses for the flights and furniture shipping, which we had to pay up front.

It was hopefully all going to change on Monday, when we were moving our three electrical devices and our cases into an apartment in Ajax, I believe the company was called "Shelter Housing" or something like that, which sounded like a non profit organization, but the rent was over $700 which was a fair old bite out of my single salary.

I was paid again on the 15th January, a pro rata paycheck for $820.26 which was something else to celebrate, we turned left this time from the motel, walked up through the snow to Caseys and enjoyed far, far too much food and one or three of the amber nectars.

Another Scouser, or two..

The night at Steves house was excellent, it was like visiting an old friend for some reason, the Rotherams were very hospitable and we had a great night, telling stories about APPH and drinking strong Canadian beer.

I have to include something, because it became funny many, many years later. Their two kids, Sarah and the very young Adam, were little darlings and very well behaved, Sarah was a little shy, but interested in the new man that sort of sounded like her dad. She was darting about in her nightdress and slippers and badgering her mum for a cheese single.

Gay Rotheram was talking to Karen for ages and it appeared that she was secretly being interviewed for a job at Bata where Gay was in Human Resources, this would fall into the lucky break category as I think Karen was starting to veer towards the slightly insane category as our time progressed in the motel.

The Rotherams were an example that made me believe that we had made the right decision to come to Canada, I believe they had been "over here" for about seven years when we met them, and it seemed that they were surviving very well, despite the outside temperature.

Lifes Essentials

I was driving to Whitby at lunchtimes to keep Karen company and maintain her sanity, she was surviving well, but it was a lonely (and cold) existence and the motel had no facilities.

Therefore, the first electrical device we bought was a kettle along with a couple of mugs and of course, instant coffee. It is surprising how the addition of one little thing makes things seem a lot better, the ability to make a hot drink, when we wanted, was like the discovery of the wheel.

The second electrical device, strangely, was a popcorn popper.

The first impressions of Canada, besides the bitter cold and danger of breaking an ear off when walking to the shops, were that it could only get better when we rented our own place and I was making enquiries to see where we could live.

In the interim however, people at Dowty had gone out of their way to make us feel welcome, Reg Creed, who helped us a lot in those first weeks, invited the pair of us over to dinner with his wife Jackie, Steve Rotheram, an ex-APPH employee, also invited us over one night to their house in Oshawa, a night that changed things dramatically for Karen.

Challenger

Dowty Canada Limited

At the beginning of World War II, Dowty, a British landing gear manufacturer established a factory in Montréal, which later moved to Ajax, near Toronto, to support the war effort of the Allies. The company I arrived at, called Dowty Canada Limited, had been modernized and expanded.

The print room area at the time was in a brick annex to the left of the building, apparently during the war it had been used to manufacture ordnance and exploding stuff.

In the early 1980s, Canadian aircraft manufacturer de Havilland awarded the then Dowty Equipment Ltd in Ajax a contract to design a landing gear for its new Dash-8 turboprop commuter aircraft. In addition they were working on the Canadair (Bombardier) CL600 and 601 aircraft which were also called the Challenger.

The new project I had been recruited for was a derivative of the Challenger, they were incorporating a tailcone tank which changed the weight of the aircraft and shifted the aerodynamic envelope.

It was my first career exposure to developing ground loads, although Dowty had an impressive array of programs already in place to help.

Wheels

At the end of that first day I was delivered to the hire car place at Dundas Street and Lakeridge to pick up the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera.

I arrived back at the motel and Karen had also survived her first day, even braving the cold to walk up to Whitby Mall.

We drove out of the motel car park and turned right, our first mistake, it seemed like we drove for fifteen minutes before we found anywhere to eat and the first Canadian dinner event was held at the Pickering Swiss Chalet.

If we had turned left, Caseys Restaurant was three minutes away, in fact it was within walking distance, even with the intense cold.

However, Swiss Chalet was a palace in the frozen wilderness and it was a very welcome roast chicken sandwich that I attacked that night.

First Day

The lady that picked me up at the motel that morning was Marlene McCormick, she delivered me to the personnel office at Dowty to be processed.

The front building and office were quite modern, walking in past the reception, the stress office was on the right and the drawing office to the left. The management resided upstairs and in the middle of it all was the coffee station, conveniently placed near to the washrooms.

It was an interesting day, I was introduced to a lot of people and shown my desk, which was right at the front of the bus. I was introduced to the Stress Office manager, a gruff chap called Jim Collins who felt almost like a drill sergeant, Initially though I would report directly to the Chief of Stress, Barry Levoir.

Cold Light of Day

The motel was the usual two double bed arrangement, a TV that hardly worked and the usual facilities.

It was to be our home for the next few weeks, Karen, who was jobless of course, was to live here, make herself scarce when housekeeping came around and wait for me to come home at the end of the day.

This first morning, I ventured across the road to a little cafe and ordered a couple of coffees and two bacon butties, although I must have been talking in a foreign language with the second bit as it took three or four variants of the words to get the message across.

I was searching for the phrase "two toasted bacon sandwiches" which seems straightforward now.

The early morning scran was well received and my ride arrived to take me into Ajax.

I waved goodbye to Karen, apprehensive about the day and sad that I was leaving her on her own in this frozen wilderness.

Popsicles

January, 5th, 1988

The Dowty chief of stress, Barry Levoir was waiting to take us out to Ajax, well, Whitby actually which was where the Canadiana Motel was. It had been a bit confusing at the airport and we had difficulty finding him, well, we didn't know what each other looked like did we?

In the weeks before the flight I had taken Karen to British Home Stores (BHS) and bought her the best woolen winter coat we could find and I also had what I considered to be good winter clothes on.

However, as we walked to his car in the open car park, the temperature was somewhere in the minus twenties with a nice whistling wind between our thighs, it felt like we were wearing swimsuits.

It was so cold I was giggling.

I can still remember the drive to Whitby, tired from the flight yet wide eyed as we drove in the dark, the brightly lit city of Toronto to our right, the eight lane highway ahead.

The Arrival

They were ready for us as we left the Airport.

Immigration

It would be many years before we returned to Schiphol airport to explore Amsterdam, of course, at that moment while we were waiting, we did not know it.

I cannot remember the second part of the flight to Toronto, of course it was exciting, free booze again and in flight movies, but it was a long flight and a few hours of much needed catch up sleep were chased around an uncomfortable cabin.

The carousel seemed unwilling to give up our baggage, I'm sure everyone who is in some sort of rush feels that, we picked up our cases and followed the green line until it came to the immigration counter.

The line up was quite long, lots of foreign looking people of all shapes, colours and sizes. The man in front of us was South African, or Australian, a sort of strange, skewed English dialect, maybe he was from Wolverhampton...

Anyway, the Immigration Officer went through his checklist with him, paperwork, passport and then asked if he was bringing anything illegal into the country, the man said no, then the officer asked if he had any cheese or meats, again, the guy said no, then paused, and said he did have a sausauge sandwich in his bag.

We'd been waiting for eight months for this moment and we were stalled by a sausage butty.

A five minute discussion ensued, about the legality of a sausage sandwich as opposed to "meat" and even though the man said that his mum had made it for him, the Immigration Officer said that he could not bring it into Canada. The argument extended into a "what if I eat it now" situation and I could hear the line behind me shuffling and muttering, a crescendo of internal "for fucks sake" comments, muted and expressed with body language.

The contraband was surrendered and the man was allowed into the country, the Immigration officer smiled at the pair of us, asked the same questions and I was tempted, but not very much, to say I had a pigs head in my carry on baggage.

The paperwork was stamped, he waved us through and we were in Canada, after all that time, we were officially Landed Immigrants.

First Leg

As an old bugger, I yearn for those days of flights where the passenger, even in economy class, was treated like a special visitor, not quite royalty, but "special".

The 90 minute flight from Manchester to Amsterdam in the creaking jumbo was an example, a hot breakfast was served and two rounds of free booze crammed into the short time, it didn't matter that it was early, a free gin and tonic or two are always welcome.

The flight from Amsterdam, which was leaving at 1400 hours, was with the now defunct Canadian Pacific carrier, flight YCXAB, we had another 90 minutes to wait at the airport which was quite different than Manchester.

I had never been to an airport with the range of shops that Amsterdam had, they even had a supermarket in there, and even more surprising, prices were reasonable.

KLM 747-100

Goodbye

1987 ended with a New Years eve party in Bolton and the diary shows that the most exciting thing that happened on New Years day was a visit to a Little Chef for breakfast.

The night had been spent with Lynn, Graham, Michele and Glynn doing the disco duck and the major event was that fancy dress nuns stole handbags, which besides all the normal womanly goodies contained the hotel keys.

It was a quiet way to end the year, but at least we had friends around.

The next three days were spent saying goodbye to places, the furniture was gone and all we had were scant belongings in a suitcase, we crammed about twenty people into the miniature house for a house-cooling party and I believe I dropped the house keys off discretely at the bank on the 4th of January.

The rest of the day was spent running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, making sure that every thing was sorted out, the day ended with our last visit to the Poacher in that particular lifetime.

The early morning trip to Manchester airport was on the 5th, Karens sister, brother and mum escorted us to the restaurant and we had a subdued breakfast, Karen bummed a cigarette off Sue and said "This is my last" which was true.

The short flight from Manchester to Amsterdam was surprisingly on an older 747-100 KLM jumbo jet.

Merry Chrimbo

The APPH Christmas night out in 1987 was to an Italian restaurant in Liverpool called Buca Di Bacco. After the meal I was fascinated at the burning glass of Sambuca before me, a coffee bean floating in the glass and a faint blue flame wafting around, my concern was that the longer the flame burned, the less Sambuca would be available.

I decided that the best way to extinguish the flame was to place my right palm on the glass, something that was quite memorable in itself and left a neat, thin, circular scar about 3cm in diameter, a scar that was there for three more Christmas and New Years Eve parties.

Loose Ends

I applied at the NatWest for a four hundred pound loan, there was nothing left and we needed cash for the first few weeks in Canada. It was a leap of faith by the Speke branch loan manager, who knew where I was going, she asked me would I pay it back, and I promised I would.

I had taken the XR2 to the agent in Manchester and the adjusted price covered the Ford Credit loan buyout, I walked away with eighty one pounds and that was that. It had been a great car, not memorable from an event standout, except for the time a police car chased me into the APPH car park.

I had a balance on my Barclaycard and I still owed money to Lancashire Council for a second year grant at Edge Hill College that I wangled when I started at APPH, those debts would be paid off in the first eight months of life in Canada.

The mortgage, well, I sent a letter to the bank to tell them I was walking away from it and on the 3rd of January I sent them the keys with a cover letter, I felt no moral objections to it, my reasoning at the time were that the bank would not lose out as the house was worth more than when I bought it and, in addition, I had paid them a mortgage for almost five years.

In retrospect it was quite an irresponsible thing to do.

The approval of the loan from NatWest was a lifesaver, it was a reminder that banks are not always the bad guys, I would keep my promise to pay it off and actually received a thank you letter from the lady.

Crazy

Paul Boyd, Tony Macklin and Matt Hilliard.

The Patsy Cline record "Crazy" was the second most played single by the departing Weldon that week, and the guys in the Office bought me an engraved tankard for "A Wild and Crazy Guy" a reference to Steve Martin, who I was a big fan of since California.

Adios Amigos

The terrible trio, Weldon, Hutchison and Tasker.

He'll Have to Go

It was the best of times in my young working life, it had been five years of knowing that something suited me, that if I had a career then this would be it.

The last days at APPH were filled with social events, we crammed ourselves into the Sports and Social Club each lunchtime as Christmas approached, I played Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline constantly on the juke box and supped Newcastle Brown ale like it was going out of fashion.

I was determined to make Canada an adventure and I hoped to find a group to work with that would be as memorable as this lot at APPH.

Landed Immigrant Status

It was an annoying day and a very, very relieved day.

Karen finally found someone with a pulse at the High Commission and they put her on hold and chased down our case file, it was the 14th of December. The person came back and said "Yes, the passports are here, completed, just waiting for you to pick them up, they have been ready since the 27th of November"

There was no point in being annoyed at the lack of communication, it was done and we took the train down to London to pick them up, Lynn and Graham had bought us a bottle of champagne for the day, and we took it with us.

All the final preparations could be made, the movers told and the flight booked.

Fast Food

The evening event followed the mood of the day, no issues and everything went to order. The buffet, that Karens sister Sue had prepared, was a great success and there was even a wedding cake.

The room was full and the four factions were well represented, Karens family, my family, friends from work and the Poacher, I took along some money to buy drinks but nobody would allow it, I think I managed to spend twenty quid over the entire night.

I had my moment as I took the microphone off the DJ, it was a thank you speech and I compared the Registry Office wedding to a MacDonalds: "it was so fast that I expected them to ask will there be fries with that?" and then I continued with the gibberish until the cane came from the side to hook me off the "stage" so the music could continue.

It was everything we needed, we had run the show on a shoestring but it turned out an amazing day, I smile at the reality programs nowadays with couples spending tens of thousands on princess bride wedding days.

Thats not what it is all about, it's about the right couple, buying the ticket and keeping a promise.

Thursday Night Fever

The Weldon contingent, my older brother Rob, Dad and Mum.

Once the music started it became obvious who was the more talented dancer out of the brothers.

The Smithy

The Taskers, The Hilliards and half of the Boyds and the Hutchisons.

When you wish upon a star

The afternoon session at the Poacher was a subdued affair, for those daft days of drinking far too much, all thoughts were on the Smithy in the evening, the Poacher was the reception before the reception, a chance to unwind for a bit.

It gave me a time to reflect about what we were leaving behind, I have to admit that below the excitement of it all there was a growing trepidation about what a new country would bring and a fear of failure, I looked around at the people in the pub and I realised that I may not see some of them ever again, a thought that stuck with me for the rest of the day.

That's not to say that there was any sort of sullen mood about the day, it was a giddy time and everyone was enjoying it, especially the bride.

Married Man

Thursday

The day started like any other wedding day, we woke up together, went downstairs and made some Nescafe, buttered two loaves of bread and made ham and cheese sandwiches, it was early and the registry office was booked for 11.00am.

The quad sized Barret house was probably a total of 700 square feet if it was lucky, and we were having family over for butties, a sherry and a cuppa afterwards before we invaded the Poacher pub, just up the road.

Wigan Registry Office was on Bridgeman Terrace back then, not too far from my old haunt Wigan Mining and Technical College and close to Karens favourite childhood playground, Mesnes Park. It was an older terraced house, bay windows and that air of efficiency of the mass market marriage production line.

Arthur, my dad, in typical fashion was five minutes late because they could not find anywhere to park and the usher lady was started to fuss around because there was a danger that we may impinge on the next fifteen minute slot.

There were nothing but giggles though, it was one of those magical days were everything went well, my mum and dad arrived and we were all ushered into an upstairs room, the ceremony began, and ended, very quickly.

It was back to the batcave for sandwiches.

Monday, Monday

Monday, November 30th, 1987

There was also the issue of the flights to contend with and all signs, besides the lack of Landed Immigrant visas, were indicting that it would be early January, 1988 as we wanted to have the New Year with our friends and families.

The cost of the flights was not an issue, as Dowty were picking up the tab, they were also providing a loan car for the first two weeks after our arrival in Canada, the real issue was flight availability and that was out of our control, along with several other factors including the moving company who wanted a date to pick up the house contents.

The Zanussi was sold, Matt bought the stereo I believe and the Commodore 64 went to Graham Bennett with as many disks that he could copy in the time remaining, I was keeping the software for a North American C64 that had my name on it.

The XR2 was sold, but still in my possession, I had an agreement with a trader in Manchester with a very good price, I just had to avoid hitting any lamp posts over the next few weeks.

The wedding was on Thursday.

No Secrets

The same week was the twinned announcements of wedlock and departure, I was giving APPH a "technical" months notice, although the Christmas festivities were going to eat into that somewhat. I also indicated to Bob Morris that I might be around for longer as the Canadian High Commission were dragging their feet.

I sent a flyer around the office, inviting people to the party at the Smithy along with a veiled threat that I might buy a round, the plans for the wedding were in full swing, we had arranged a disc jockey and the buffet was being covered by the family.

The blurting out to all and sundry spread to Karens workplace and the crowd at the Poacher in Winstanley, it was a great feeling to finally have no secrets after the previous eight months, the only secret remaining was guarded by the consulate who still had not told us if we could actually go to Canada.

Any old Iron

It was November the 23rd and I wrote off to Ralph Darlington at Dowty in Canada, I had three quotes from moving companies who had visited in the last week or so to estimate how much it would cost to transport our stuff across the pond.

The electrical items were not included as the system was 120 volts over there, so some stuff would have to be flogged in the short time we had left, this included our Zanussi washer and dryer, the stereo and my Commodore 64.

I'm pretty sure I didn't have my Goblin Teasmade at that point, that had gone west a long time ago because of it's high fear factor of scalding, morning explosions.

Scotpac, Pickfords and a company called John Mason quoted and the latter was the company of choice because of the way they treated us during the quote. The damage would be 770 quid plus 15% vat.

November

The consulate had almost a one way system when it came to the information superhighway of the time, I can appreciate that they would do this knowing the volume of applicants they have to deal with, however, when you are one of those applicants the system can be highly frustrating.

Their business hours were short, they took a long lunch break and there was no message system, so if you telephoned you were often put on hold for horrendous amounts of time, often to be told that the person was not available and to call back on the next working day.

I could not do this at work, so that task was down to Karen who struggled with the place for weeks, it was a black hole and they had our paperwork, our passports and our birth certificates somewhere and as far as we knew, we were still three slices short of a loaf.

The month of November moved along, the way it does, and nothing was resolved.

Anfield Iron

Tommy Smith had a pub down in Billinge called the Smithy and we drove out there in the first week of November 1987 to look at the back room, which was available for the 3rd of December, the day we were getting hitched.

It was perfect, and I think it was sixty pounds for the night. The room had its own bar nook, a dance floor, seating and a place for the buffet and disk jockey.

The Canadian High Commission hadn't given us the green light but time was moving on and we were going ahead with the wedding regardless.

Do not pass Go

The big package of stuff had been sent off at the start of October, passports, photo's, birth certificates, Decree Nisi, Decree absolute and a declaration from the pair of us that we would be married.

A few weeks later, a letter arrived.

It was one of those you've got to be kidding me moments, the Canadian High Commission had informed us that, despite all the paperwork being in order, despite me being a reasonably skilled and well educated person and having a job to go to, the overall "score" that the pair of us had achieved for landed immigration status was 64 points and the pass grade was 67.

I think Karen scored higher with her office skills than I did with mine because of a cyclical dislike of Stress Analysts or something.

The next step was probably a formality for the consulate, but agonising for the two of us as we waited to find out if we had been approved by the committee.

Footsteps

Frank Weldon, born June 25th, 1906 in Huyton Quarry, Married Doris Byron, born August 8th, 1909.

They emigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1946.

Frank and Doris

This would usually be on the family tree blog, but it was amazing to see this photo of my great Uncle Frank and his wife Doris outside of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1958, a year after I was born.

They are the couple on the upper right of the picture.

It seemed like I was following in the family footsteps and in 2007 would move close to the very Canadian City that Frank settled in back in 1946.

The Inner Sanctum

It was approaching the end of October and my 30th birthday had slipped by, the medicals had been completed and the doctors had given the pair of us the heads up that our chest x-rays were fine, which was good news in more ways than one.

The secrecy at both our workplaces was continuing but in the outside world the news was, of course, spreading. I had told my family and had a discussion with my dad about his Uncle Frank who had gone off to Canada after the war, in addition we had brought a couple of our friends, Lynn and Graham, into the expanding loop of secrecy, mainly because we wanted them to be witnesses at the wedding.

It started off with the request for them to be witnesses and then, as we were bursting to tell someone that wasn't family, it rapidly became a full fess up.

The relief of having the pair of them in the loop was incredible, finally we could actually yabber on about the madness in our lives to a couple who could relate to our position and take our minds off it all.

Swim Swim

This goes back to March of 1987 when Howard came out on a Friday to swim with us, it reflects that five minutes and two lengths after we dove into the pool, Howard was still getting ready for the event.

The Golden Lino of Acmon

The young man had not endured the horrors of an apprenticeship, the burden of horrendous draughting exercises or the forced discipline of trade school, he was one of the new breed of computer literate chaps and all his written work was done on Wordperfect.

However, the report generation in APPH at the time was hand written, and his early attempts reflected his abilities to write like a doctor:


Babylonian Scrolls : Circa 500 BC.

The above scrolls discovered in 1987 tell of the mythological fable of the discovery of the Golden Lino of Acmon which once belonged to the great Lord of Larios.

The scrolls continue to tell of the discovery at the long lost village of Vila Vonsa on the Isalnd of Tonguu by the Babylon crusader Thoru Aru-tno and his partner of many years, Linoi Luss.

The whereabouts of the Lino remain a secret to this very day.

Hacking

I mentioned that a more elaborate approach was required for our young man in the Stress Office, Mark Overton. I was tasked with bringing him up to speed with Patran and I wanted it to run at my pace, mainly because I was juggling three FEA projects and training involved the one terminal that we had.

Mark was arrogant, that was for sure and somewhat of an upper class twit, probably misunderstood by the incumbants, yet an irritant because of his quick fire "I know that" type comments on almost every topic. It was at times as though he was gracing the world with his attendance, sighing and rolling his eyes if a simple concept of P/A or M/Z was discussed (whatever that means).

I noticed over a period of days that journal files were appearing in my subdirectory, a by product of running Patran, however, I knew that I had not actually run them, so it was a bit of a puzzle.

It was the first time I had been hacked and it appeared that Mark or "Mooto" as we had nicknamed him was the culprit and was using my files for some reason to advance his knowledge, I wasn't against that, it was just the sneaky manner that was annoying and the fact that some files could become corrupted in the process.

This started a covert operation to undermine his covert operation.

Mooto had an alphanumeric password on his stuff, smart guy, so I set a trace program running that would record his keystrokes one day, it would not record his password however, but all I needed was a text file showing him logging on and accessing his files and directories.

The next step was a simple master directory move, which I could do as an administrator, I took his entire world and moved it to another, hidden directory, on the system. I then created an empty directory in the original area, with the same name as the moved directory and placed a modified, time stamped, trace output file above it.

It was on purpose to make it look like during overtime I had hacked into his passworded directory using a "special" program, the trace output mirrored his log on text and directory access (showing all his files) and then I had added a sequence of commands that indicated that the files and subdirectories had been deleted, even down to some "are you sure" type echoes.

The last few lines were a cleanup operation where I removed the special program, but unfortunately "forgot" to delete the telltale journal file...

It was something that drove the boy nuts over the next few days.

Haircut 100

Something as simple as a haircut could launch a major distraction in those days.

Howard's Zoo

In all this business with Canada I'm distracted from fitting in APPH stuff, however, Brendan linked the blog to Howard Van Netton and he asked if I mentioned his walk.

The first stressman I ever met was Howard, a youthful "old school" suit and tie man, he walked me to the engineering building which had been relegated to the back of the industrial lot, upstairs and out of sight, something that seemed to happen in Aerospace companies for some reason.

John Wingate sat next to him, and John was an easier target than Howard, who was more private and had less obvious character traits. One thing though was he had a very upright walk, feet almost at the "ten to two" position, in addition, he would approach corners in a straight line and sort of swivel through ninety degrees instantaneously.

The musketeers nicknamed him Howard the Penguin.

In the early ASAS and Patran days we all had an uphill challenge to get analysis files running, the things were based on punch card format, even though punchcards had long since vanished from the workplace, syntax was very important.

The tomfoolery spread to the computer system and occasionally an input file would be modified slightly, a full stop added, or replaced with a comma, or an extra space included. This was actually quite evil as the syntax system was difficult enough without sabotage to drive you crazy, although more justified trip wires were used on the young upstart Mark Overton.

One day, we noticed that Howard had used an animal name for one of his directories or files, so over a period of time we added files, of course Howard noticed long before it reached this level:

What?

October, 6th, 1987

I really don't want to give the ex-wife any airtime, therefore, I will get this one over in one post as it still makes me shudder to think of what she attempted.

I met her in Skelmersdale Concourse, it felt strange after all the years to sit and have a civilised cup of tea with her, that's how I saw it, civilised. I explained the situation and gave her the form, which she took and asked for my phone number and address so that she could send it back.

It was a few days later that she phoned, her exact words were that "there was some good news and some bad news". The good news being that she would sign the forms, the bad news was that she wanted a lump sum of two thousand pounds to sign them.

I put the phone down and my only thought was that we were sunk, this was the event that would kill Canada, to put it into perspective that amount was more than a quarter of my yearly take home pay and I freely admit I was pathetic with money, living on a constant overdraft.

The next day though threw a different light on it all and I called my solicitor from work and she gave me some very good advice, call the bluff and make everything legal, she would draw up a binding document to jointly agree an arrangement to pay a monthly amount to support the kids.

Cooler heads prevailed and the amended form was signed.

There, I made it through that without any expletives.

Somethings Cooking in the Kitchen

The cat was out of the bag, the only way Karen could get hold of her birth certificate was to ask her mum for it, it was then a simple, short, interrogation that resulted in our ring of secrecy growing to her immediate family.

There was some concern about this man whisking their daughter away to a foreign land, especially with my track record over the previous two years and then, after the consulate visit, what appeared to be a shotgun wedding unfolding.

One Step Forward, Two steps back.

The process to obtain Canadian Landed Immigrant status was to be taken seriously, for all I knew the man behind the desk already had a thick dossier of information on me, I realised that every question he asked seemed to carry weight.

Medicals were required, at approved facilities with designated physicians, including a set of chest x-rays and all sorts of blood work, I think the nearest centre was somewhere in Manchester, however, all of that was lost long ago in the grey matter.

It seemed that everything was straight forward and the man stated that the paperwork would not be completed until the marriage certificate was presented, although there was no real rush for that as the entire process may take up to three months.

He then leaned forward, his face went back to the impassive mode and asked that one weighted question.

"So, have either one of you been married before?"

I said yes and he tutted and said that I should have ticked divorced or widowed in the status area. He then did the trademark swivel in his chair to his left and opened the filing cabinet, extracting three forms he said:

"You will have to have these filled in then"

I looked at them, and besides a whole new bunch of items required (divorce papers etc), one of the forms appeared to indicate at the bottom that for me to go off and have a lovely life in Canada, I would have to obtain complete approval from my far from loving ex-wife.

Plan B

It probably wasn't the most romantic of marriage proposals, but I walked out of the office and gave Karen the form, stating that she should fill it in as we had to get married.

It was a good job that we had already talked about plan B.

The interview had started at 2.30pm and they closed the doors at 4.00pm, so the following became like some episode of the generation game.

There was a mad rush to the nearest photo booth where Karen had some extra pictures taken and as instructed she had brought her birth certificate and her passport with her. The man had given us half an hour to get ourselves sorted and we arrived back with minutes to spare.

It was sort of a lucky break because he had explained that normally an appointment would have to be rescheduled at a later date, but his human side was fighting to break out of his suit and he crammed us in.

So, armed with our package, we both entered his office.

Technicality

September, 29th, 1987

The pair of us had the day off and took the train down to London, the consulate was quite the imposing building and the proceedings quite formal. I showed my letter and the lady parked us in the reception area, there were other more crowded areas with people lining up for things and taking numbers, but we were shuffled upstairs to some smaller offices.

I was invited into the office on my own, the man sitting behind the desk appeared to be sitting higher than me and he opened the file, he was quick to his point, and this was it.

"Is your fiance here?, You have indicated that you wish to take your fiance with you to Canada"

I squeaked yes, and he looked at me with an expressionless face and shook his head.

"That's not going to happen, we can only process landed immigrant status in these cases for a spouse, is that going to be possible?"

I squeaked yes again.

He swivelled in his chair to his left and opened a filing cabinet, extracting a form he said:

"Will you ask her to fill this in, then to save time I will see you again shortly"

Canadian High Commission

Macdonald House, 38 Grosvenor Street, London

Progress

In typical fashion, and partially because we expected it, no letter from the consulate was on the doormat when we arrived home. In fact the letter didn't arrive until the 17th of September, three weeks later.

I had talked before the vacation to Valerie Davis at Cantech about air fares for my "fiance" and she had agreement from Dowty, so that was no issue, and Karen, my apparent intended, was excited about it all.

The paperwork to the consulate said the same thing, I had skirted over the "divorced" tick box and completed the relationship section with engaged. I think we talked about getting married but it didn't seem to be anything that needed to be rushed.

The letter instructed us to attend an interview at the High Commission in London, to bring our passports and birth certificates and the correspondence from Dowty, it was the progress that we had been hoping for.

Bloody Unions

Flight International, September, 5th, 1987

Studley Morehumpin

It was the last day of the holiday and it was going to be nice to get back from Ibiza and have a hard earned rest at work. The minivan picked us up at the hotel and we sang ten green bottles all the way to the airport.

It was going to be a slightly longer wait though, we had a 24 hour delay on the flight due to the Spanish air traffic controllers strike, sleeping on floors and being fed ham toasties and warm coca cola.

SPF 300

I was safe from the timeshare agents as long as I wore the appropriate hat and drank the invisibility potion.

Ibiza

August 8th, 1987

It was holiday time again and after the success of the previous years Tenerife trip we decided to go off to the Balearic Islands and find our way around Ibiza.


It gave the pair of us time off from thinking about Canada, paperwork and the long periods of inactivity between the consulates letters to the troops.

The place was different than Tenerife and had a lot more of the British aspect of night life, which was ok, but hardly an escape. It was a struggle, but we found lots of foreign things to do and most of those involved chasing each other around, alcohol and excessive sunburn.

An annoying aspect of the place was the constant badgering to go on a guided tour to buy a timeshare, strangers would approach you in the street offering cash, champagne cruises and free meals for simply "viewing" one of the new developments, something we steered clear of.

It was a great holiday, plenty of sun, sea, sand and sex. I don't know what Karen got up to though...

Open a cool one.

There really was only one thing to do to make the buzzing noise go away, drink.

Beep Beep

The tomfoolery continued in the office, Bob Morris appeared to be doing something special with his hair around the crown, sort of a twizzled look, something akin to having a walnut whip strapped to his head, so that was on the watch list for the lads in the office.

I had programmed my pocket computer with a random two tone beep and we hid it under Bill Queedings desk. This was another of the "in the know" comedy moments where you attempt to drive someone insane with a daily oddity.

There was no malice involved, unlike taping a fish to someones radiator or farting in someones cup (which of course, we never did), this was the real time stuff that kept the musketeers amused for hours on end.

The computer would beep and once Bill started to hear it, the puzzled look and the searching for the source were hilarious, I think he even got a couple of other people involved, of course, we would switch it off and that was equally as funny, watching them waiting for a beep that would never happen.

Leaving on Friday

The office life carried on as normal, even though I had my dark secret which I suppose wasn't such a big thing as I was merely leaving. The thing was that I wasn't leaving on Friday, well maybe I was but I didn't know which particular Friday in what particular month or year that would be, so it was not something to be shared.

The initial package of paperwork had gone off to the consulate, which wasn't in Birmingham as Dowty had instructed, there was only the London consulate.

It was pointless to get anyone in the loop as we had no idea if there actually was a loop until the first real High Commission encounter, and as we found out, the Canadian High Commission moved at a pace that would make a snail look like Nigel Mansell.

Classic - Charnock Richard

Ok, lets see who I remember, at the top Tommy Green, Tony Macklin, Mark Charnock, Paul Argent. Next line down, Ray Norton, Matt Hilliard, Ian Tasker, Gary Perkins and Dave Bullen being supported. I don't know who the lady is.