COVERING A WIDE VARIETY OF FICTION AND NON-FICTION SUBJECTS, THESE SHORT STORIES BY BARRY DEVONALD CAN BE READ ON-LINE OR CUT AND PASTED FOR PRINTING. BARRY LIVES AND WRITES IN VANCOUVER, BC CANADA. HE WELCOMES FEEDBACK OF ANY STRIPE.

What Made You Come To Canada?  

“Egalitarianism is a philosophical perspective that emphasizes equality and equal treatment across gender, religion, economic status and political beliefs.”  

Since emigrating from the UK now some considerable time ago, okay actually longer than I care to remember, I have often times been asked and still am, what made you come to Canada? My answers have been consistent and candid. Primarily to escape the British class system, without doubt still deeply entrenched to this day.* I wanted to have the opportunity to join and contribute to an egalitarian centric society where most everyone, regardless of their social background, education and upbringing is inherently treated with equal respect, period! 

The year of departure was 1967 and Canada, along with two other Commonwealth countries, New Zealand and Australia, were routinely advertising in the UK’s national daily newspapers for emigrants. All three were generally regarded as being and to my knowledge still are, about as close as it gets to inherently egalitarian societies hence the dilemma was which one to choose. Why Canada? Largely because of the then named Beautiful BC Magazine. (now British Columbia Magazine). My wife-to-be had relatives in BC, Canada’s westernmost province, who had given her a monthly subscription thereto. An outdoorsman to a fault, in the magazines I saw in spectacular photographic detail all I needed to know about the extremely varied and extensive BC outdoor environments. 

Given to name just a few of my outdoor interests, sailing, mountaineering and at that time hopefully in the future skiing, Canada and specifically BC seemed like an excellent choice. Of the three countries considered, Canada was of course also the closest and thus the easiest to get to from Britain. Growing up on the northwest coast of England and keen to find a similar juxtaposition of ocean and mountainous environments, heading for the southern BC mainland coast was a no brainer. 

I swapped the North Atlantic ocean and the Irish sea for the Pacific ocean and the Straights of Georgia, an arm of the Salish sea between Vancouver Island and the mainland. My close proximity to the mountains of the storied English Lake District, think Wordsworth, Coleridge, Taylor, etc and of course famed children’s author Beatrix Potter, along also with other mountains not very far away in North Wales and the Scottish highlands, would to be swapped for the much higher and very extensive BC coastal and interior mountain ranges. Both of the latter would offer the added bonus of world class ski resorts.

I was born of working class parents in the rural market town of Northallerton then and now with a population of about 17,000 in the then described North ‘Riding’ of Yorkshire at some point eventually ‘simplified’ by officialdom to ** North Yorkshire, the county being the largest in England. *** These days Northallerton and environs are recently minted British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s weekend escape territory en-route to his nearby prestigious and then some Georgian Manor. He and his wife take the train to Northallerton whenever they are not flying up from London at great public expense amid the equally great public consternation and outcry thereof. This to no surprise given that he and his wife collectively are worth about 529 million pounds. Prince Charles on the other hand in comparison has about 2.3 billion. Just saying. 

When I was three and with my father just home from World War II, we moved about a hundred miles west to his home town of Barrow-in-Furness in coastal northwest Lancashire (now Cumbria) thus enabling me to become a ‘dyed in the wool’ Barrovian. **** Established in 1871 the ship building town, still building them to this day albeit now exclusively submarines and frigates, has a current population of about 70,000 and is located at the end of a thirty mile long peninsula, the Furness peninsula, q.v. the map below. With the Irish sea on three sides of the peninsula and my beloved Lake District National Park abutting the fourth, both salt and fresh waters were and are in my blood as is the concomitant need for ready access to mountains and their often spectacularly fast running streams. It does rain often and voluminously in the Lake district. The annual average is about 80 inches, however the town of Seathwaite is good for what must be a trying 130 inches.

For what it’s worth, entering the work force immediately on leaving school, I quite soon clawed my way up one notch from run of the mill working class to white collar aka middle class status after graduating at sixteen from the then Barrow County Technical School for Boys, yes then (1958) it was exclusively for boys. (Try and get away with ‘boys only’ today!) Like most of my classmates, I had to start work straight out of school there not being any funds nor grants available for pursuing further full time education. Not from my parents and not in those days, in the form of a loan from the government. Initially I became a chemistry laboratory technician locally for British Cellophane and a year later about eight miles away in the small rural town of Ulverston for Glaxo Laboratories, now Glaxo Smith Kline. Ulverston by the way is the birthplace of Stan Laurel of which fact the populace is very proud and rightly so. 

I had been at Glaxo for two years and was still living at home, when I discovered I had been robbed of some money from a desk drawer in my bedroom. The culprit? My malevolent, given to violence, chain smoking and heavy drinking, compulsive gambling father. My mother had the theft figured immediately and confronted him. Sure enough. Guilty as charged. To no surprise and encouraged by me, this triggered my far too long-suffering mother, to finally throw in the towel. Better late than never. Equally unsurprising I did the same. He claimed he was going to return the money had the horse he had bet on with my money won which likely he would have done and gotten away with it until the next time. I liked the company, the job and my colleagues so it was with great reluctance that I resigned from Glaxo and my mother and I, after eighteen years in Barrow, moved back to Northallerton tout suite. 

I survived a year of small-town living, working locally (albeit the worst job I ever had more on that coming up) before I left to settle in central London for the three years prior to beating my retreat from the UK. Whilst living in Northallerton, which incidentally is a gateway to the much loved Yorkshire Dales, Wensleydale about fifteen miles away being the closet one, I worked as a laboratory assistant in a local Public Health laboratory. Much lower paying than Glaxo, the job itself was marginally OK notwithstanding it required me every Monday morning to assist a man licensed (and I am not making this up) to kill and post mortem animals (guinea pigs, rabbits and mice) their having been ‘used’ (i.e. abused) for medical testing purposes. Specifically in the case in point the animals were guinea pigs. 

Having identified each animal by number and test purpose, one at a time I handed them to him and holding them upside down, he then broke their necks with a single vicious blow from a cosh! ***** My job incidentally was the lowest paying one by a considerable margin of the four jobs that I had over my nine years working in the UK. I also had to put in five full days a week plus Saturday mornings! 

I was well aware that the need to abuse and inhumanely slaughter live animals (the mice for example once of no further test value were gassed en-masse for God’s sake) was no longer necessary given that reliable chemical testing had long since been developed. I therefore politely enquired of the lab’s uppity and then some, upper class twit to a fault manager, obsequiously parading, conceivably perhaps masquerading who knows as the chief medical officer of health for the local area, as to why we were still using, abusing and inhumanly killing animals period? “Why not, I enquired, just use the highly accurate modern chemical tests?” A Rolls Royce driving, supercilious and arrogant in the extreme upper class individual to put it mildly, he erupted instantly into a class centric, affected tantrum advising that working class me “WOULD HAVE TO” and I am quoting him exactly, “LEARN TO KNOW YOUR PLACE!” 

The words YOUR and PLACE, were both very heavily emphasized. LEARN was pronounced, phonetically if you will, as LEE-ARN – very UK ‘public’ i.e. private school centric). I will never forget those words. ‘My place’ I had unbeknownst to him already determined, was going to be at some point in the future, assuming they would have me employability considerations and all that notwithstanding, in either Canada, Australia or New Zealand. The former I can confirm and I have no doubt the other two, have no time for birthright based upper class immigration selection shenanigans.  

Shortly after that outrageous and arrogant attack on my character, having soon after applied for and been offered a much better job in London, I took it and forthwith boarded, for the two hundred mile journey, an overnight train thereto. I was to spend three happy years in London living as many did and likely still do, on a shoe string income and budget. The laboratory technician job was with the North Thames Gas Board potentially at first blush, a fate worse than death. As it turned out I enjoyed both the job and the (very) mixed racial and societal backgrounds of the likable people with whom I worked. We all liked the boss who was Australian and played tennis with us after work. He was thus by definition the down to earth antithesis of the animal abusing upper class boss to whom I had just prior answered. That said, the vast majority of working, middle and it must be conceded upper class Yorkists (for the latter think of for example, the late, great and very comedic Yorkshire born British Prime Minister Harold Wilson) are the salt of the earth who if necessary would not hesitate to give you the shirt off their backs. (Actually I just might have to think about it). 

Quick witted to a fault Harold Wilson, who was an Oxford Don by the very early age of 21, was famous for whilst giving a speech, on finding his pipe on fire in his jacket pocket, as indeed was the rest of the jacket, immediately quipped, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we are (alluding to the British Labour party which he led as Prime Minister) going to set Britain on fire.” Also, whilst being televised and giving a speech on a wooden platform that collapsed under his feet throwing him to the ground he climbed back on to what was left of it, picked up the still live mic and said “I hope we are going to build a better platform (as in political vision for Britain) than this one!” alluding of course to the collapsed platform.

Living with friends in London’s Notting Hill Gate area (the group shared apartment rentals were almost affordable) I became aware of an institution in London sadly long since in demise, called the Commonwealth Institute. It was an educational and cultural organisation with magnificent very elaborately staged dioramas showing elements of daily life in each of the fifty-four commonwealth of nations countries, most of them also former territories of the by then diminished and well en-route to oblivion, British Empire. The legally unavoidable hand over of Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997 marked the end. Still alive and well however, the Commonwealth of nations is to this day a largely thriving political association of fifty six independent countries. 

I spent many happy hours at the Commonwealth Institute primarily but by no means exclusively, perusing the dioramas of the three countries to one of which I would eventually focus my interest in immigrating. The detailed dioramas of all three showed scenes of homes, work and play most all of which which melded with my targeted would be future life style. In the end, what was the tipping point that triggered favouring and hence immigrating to Canada? It was upon seeing a stunningly beautiful Snowy Owl on the Canadian display with which I became enamored all be it of course a stuffed one. I hoped that it had been road kill and not deliberate kill for the purpose. I also hoped one day to see them in the wild which certainly I have done on many occasions.  

Snowy owl.

Three years in London was long enough. It was great but it was time to emigrate from Britain with my part-time earned, vague semblance of post high school technical/engineering oriented somewhat higher education diplomas to hand. Canada we had definitively settled on as our favoured destination. Married in Barrow to the previously mentioned Barrovian lady literally the day we left the town for the 300 mile drive to London, my wife was equally keen on emigrating to Canada. (She in fact the recipient of the ‘Beautiful BC’ magazines’ many years earlier). 

Once accepted by Canada as immigrants, we had booked passage on the Aleksandra Putin, a Russian passenger liner sailing out of Tilsbury docks located on the river Thames deep in the heart of London and bound for Montreal. It was a nine day voyage the last two of which being spent plying upstream on Quebec’s 1197 kms long St Lawrence river. Our newly purchased left hand drive export model Austin 1100 hatchback sold in Canada as the Austin America (go figure) was extremely well lashed down to the ship’s foredeck. This to address once clear of the Thames, a full on the bow force eight (39 to 46 knots) and then some gale which lasted several days.

We never looked back. (See my story Austin 1100 April 18, 2019). We drove the four thousand kilometers or so from Montreal to Vancouver over about four weeks pup tenting and primus kerosene stove cooking it the whole way. We were fortunate to both find interesting and well paid employment within a very few weeks. 

By traveling south from Barrow and then west from London about 13,500 kms on the surface of what amounted to about one third of the circumference of the earth, we had found nirvana or if you will, the promised land. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada!

Back to the British class system and my successful escape therefrom. Something incidentally I had been secretly plotting in my mind quite early childhood as, oddly enough, was one day to write stories this being number forty six made public via my  blog in the last fifty months give or take. The short and not so short story writing took much more time to initiate than I had expected. I guess life got in the way. 

World War II was supposed to end the British class system. It would bring us together they said. It did not. After I made my move to London where, in further educational preparation to aid my career and my eventual departure from the UK, I studied chemical engineering part time at Borough Polytechnic. (now the London South Bank University. LSBU.) This resulted in my earning an engineering technologist level, not a professional engineer level diploma known as a Higher National Certificate specifically in chemical engineering. With this in hand along also with the result two years prior of related part time post secondary study an Ordinary National Certificate in chemistry. Both the National Certificates were attained via the one day a week and two nights a week classroom route and, in fairness to the UK’s then attempt to educate the working class masses beyond high school, they did give one a leg up career wise. Some, but not all employers gave that one day a week absence without it impacting one’s salary. In that regard I was one of the lucky ones. (And the reason for my move from British Cellophane to Glaxo.) The North Thames Gas Board also was equally happy to support one’s part time, one day and two nights a week education without any reduction in salary.

                             _______________________________________ 

FOOTNOTE: long subsequent to our departure from Britain, having apparently finally at some point become one of the fairly egalitarian developed countries, regrettably the UK is now said to be one of the least egalitarian. There has been an extraordinary concentration of rewards in the hands of the top 1 per cent, and within that group, the top 0.10 per cent. Wealth inequality is greater than it is for incomes and is growing.” (The Independent Sep 5, 2017). As a “limey” immigrant to Canada long since a “Canuck” citizen, I rest my case.

Below: The Furness peninsular. The red ‘blip’ is the location of Barrow-in -Furness.

Barrow-In-Furness

* See the # sign below for British class definitions – I did not make it up. 

** There were three ridings within the county: North, East and West. It is now North Yorkshire. Apparently the ‘Ridings’ had to go albeit there is apparently a movement afoot to bring them back!

*** There is not, nor was there ever a South Riding. 

**** Barrovian is an accent and dialect of English found in Barrow-in-Furness and several outlying settlements in Cumbria, England, historically in the county of Lancashire. Speaking the Barrow-in-Furness specific English dialect. Barrow was then in the county of Lancashire. It is now in Cumbria. Don’t ask.

***** Cosh, British: a blunt weapon often made of hard rubber. Bludgeon. An attack with such a weapon. Think British policemen.

# Five main groups in the British class system.

LOWER CLASS (aka Lower orders) 

The latter (Lower orders) is a controversial term to describe the long term unemployed, homeless, etc.

WORKING CLASS

Basic low level unskilled or semi-skilled workers, such as those with no university or college education. This includes occupations such as factory workers and labourers.

A popular slang to describe this group is “chav” which focuses on the negative stereotype of young people from this group who are perceived to be brash and loutish that wear real or imitation designer clothes.  (Who knew!!)

MIDDLE CLASS

The vast majority of British people fall into this category, such as shop owners, white-collar professionals (literally those who wear a white collar like businessmen and office workers), teachers, journalists, nurses and the list goes on.

A slang used sometimes for this group is “champagne socialists” because they are comfortable financially but have socialist views.

UPPER CLASS

This is where it gets juicy. A popular slang for this group is “toffs” which has both negative and positive connotations. A toff is someone that may think they are superior to others but someone from a working class background may think a toff is someone that has no clue about real life and lacks practical skills.

Someone with a good job such as being a barrister can be considered upper-class but if their parents were working class they may be considered to have “new money” by those that come from families were they have “old money” which means they have been rich for a long time.

ARISTOCRATS

The royal family and those with titles, such as lords or barons, fall into this group. They are often referred to as “blue blooded,” a phrase that originated in France. The term originally referred to people who were so rich that they didn’t have to work and rarely went out into the sun. This kept their skin very pale – so pale, in fact, that their veins (which appeared blue) were visible under their skin.

Of course no one really has blue blood, but the term has stuck around.

EGALITARIANISM (from French égal ‘equal’), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds on the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or moral status.

The use of the English language in current and former member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations was largely inherited from British colonisation, with some exceptions. English serves as the medium of inter-Commonwealth relations.[1]

Many regions, notably Australia, Brunei, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the Caribbean, have developed their own native varieties of the language. Mozambique, which joined the Commonwealth in 1996, is a special case: English is widely spoken there, despite it being a former Portuguese colony (though the port of Chinde was leased by Britain from 1891 to 1923). Likewise, in Cyprus, it does not have official status but is widely used as a lingua franca. English is spoken as a first or second language in most of the Commonwealth.

About the Commonwealth

After 70 years of its existence, the Commonwealth is a remarkable organisation which remains a major force for change in the world today. The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 54 independent countries, almost all of which were formerly under British rule.

Borough Polytechnic – the previous name of (LSBU)

London South Bank University (LSBU) is a public university in Elephant and Castle, London. It is based in the London Borough of Southwark, near the South Bank of the River Thames, from which it takes its name. Founded in 1892 as the Borough Polytechnic Institute, it achieved university status in 1992 under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.