Nigel Whiteley

My mother, Beatrice Whiteley, passed away at the age of 86. She loved her adopted country so much that a trial return to the UK to live, in the late seventies, led to her return to Canada in 1981. We came with the War Brides, but to join my father who had come as an immigrant. As an RAF aircrew trainee, he had been a member of the Commonwealth Air Training Programme during the War, and had undertaken his Navigation training in Mount Hope, Ontario. On demobilization from the British Forces, he decided to immigrate to Canada. He told me that it was so that I would not have to serve as a draftee in the UK. His main reason, however, was that he had been so impressed with the country that he wanted to make a new start here.

My father had to come to Canada in 1946 via Sweden and New York in Cargo Freighters because of the shortage of direct Trans Atlantic berths in Passenger Liners. We followed the following year. Halifax is where our money ran out, and where we made our first home in Canada.

My mother was, even before her citizenship was granted, involved with volunteer work with the Canadian Red Cross, first, as a helper at Camp Hill Hospital and later with the Red Cross Hospitality teams that used to meet the ships bringing the immigrants to Halifax. She helped with the families as they were being processed through Immigration. We'd had the comfort of a small group of people to meet us; so many of those who followed did not. She felt that her small contribution was a right thing to do to ensure that those arriving with little or nothing were given a taste of a caring country; and of which she herself was very appreciative.

The aim of our not having to serve in the military did not turn out too well; Dad served in the RCAF for eight years, and I spent twenty-eight years in the RCN and Canadian Forces and almost a dozen of those years in Halifax/Dartmouth.

In re-reading the piece about the travel in RMS Aquitania, I suddenly had remembrances of the vessel herself. She was one of the few ships which had been used as a troopship in both the World Wars. The decision had been made that she would not again be refitted as a trans-Atlantic Liner because of the costs, her age and the looming threat of faster means of travel.

Aquitania's berthing for the women and children was in large mess decks. The deck heads were quite high and had allowed the ingenious naval architects to fit stanchions which would carry bunks six deep (high). As a concession to the women and children, the top three layers of bunks had been chained up out of the way. This eliminated the fun for the more active of the kids, and probably saved a few nasty falls which would not have been pleasant. I seem to recall that there were in excess of forty of us in this one mess deck. I do remember that, after the fresh Atlantic air, the interior of that magnificent old ship seemed gloomy and tired. But the air in our mess deck, with the mal de mer of all those landlubbers as a counterpoint, was not an environment possessing a lot of charm.