The Swastika was the emblem or logo of the German army or the Nazis ….. as their enemies preferred to call them.
My Mom, Margaret (maiden name Tickner) grew up in south London, England during the German bombings of London. She emigrated from England in the final months of the war after meeting my Dad, Ernie (Joseph Ernest Roland Harvey) at a dance …… After a courtship of some kind, they were married ….. sometime after that, Ernie was sent to the European front with his company of Army engineers ….. Margaret went to Canada!!!
Ernie did some of his tour in Belgium where the following cartoon was drawn. The story has it that the cartoonist did the piece in exchange for a carton of cigarettes.
In any case, it was decided somewhere along the way that Margaret (Mom) would emigrate to Canada while Ernie was on the continent ….. and this is where this story begins to take shape.
World War II was horrible ….. more than 70 million fatalities from 30 countries …….they died from everything …… combat, disease, starvation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II . Adolph Hitler was determined and used new technologies to German advantage at every turn. The most scary new weapon was what many called “Buzz bombs”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb They were called that because you could hear their buzzing engines coming for a long time …… but when the buzzing stopped they would plummet to the ground and explode destroying everything in the vicinity. Close to 2,500 of these flying bombs hit London.
Margaret was in the middle of it all ….. they called it “The Battle of Britain”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain . Her family lived (and still live) in south London where “Sixty raids on the night of 19/20 August targeted the aircraft industry and harbours, and bombs fell on suburban areas around London: Croydon, Wimbledon and the Maldens.[216]” She worked in one of those factories in south London where they built parts for the Spitfire fighter planes …..
Standard operating procedure whenever Londoners heard the air raid sirens was to find the closest bomb shelter to protect themselves from the Luftwaffe bombs ….. be they conventional bombs or the V1 flying bombs. The scary part about the V1 was hearing them coming …… they got louder and louder as they got closer …… and you waited hoping that the sound would not stop ….. if it stopped close by, you knew an explosion was imminent ….. they were terrifying according to Mom.
OK so …… emigration to Canada! What does it take? How does one do that? How does a young woman (and 48,000 of her closest friends ….. War Brides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_bride ) do that in 1944? The Canadian government provided free transportation and medical care for the women and children while on the boats and trains to their final destination ….. given that Margaret’s family was not wealthy, we can only guess that those incentives were a factor in the scheme.
It is important to note that life in 1944 was not anything like 2021 …… as an example today, we just dial a telephone number …… anywhere in the world and VOILA ….. communication. Not so back then!!! Communication was exclusively by hardcopy mail ….. currently known as “snail mail” …… LOL! Common communication was by letter, carried by …… in England, the Royal Mail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Ltd …… by ship to Canada ….. in Canada, Royal Mail Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Post …… it took weeks for a letter to travel regular mail from London to …… Kirkland Lake, Ontario ….. the first ever airmail between England and North America was in 1939 so airmail was not even possible until much later …… after the war.
We do not know if Margaret made use of the Canadian Wives Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Wives%27_Bureau but somehow or other they hatched a plan that had Mom travel to Kirkland Lake Ontario. Most likely they would have written a letter to Dad’s parents …. Joseph and Adrienne Harvey in Kirkland Lake https://kirklandlake.ca/ and informed them of the plan …… imagine “Hello Mom and Dad, I got married. My new wife Margaret is coming to Canada. She is scheduled to arrive Month/Day/Year at HH:MM at Kirkland Lake, Love Ernie” ….. or something like that.
So the balance of this tale involves a lot of conjecture (guessing) on my part which of course is a direct function of my imagination ….. what I would be feeling in such a circumstance? …… and so …… take it with a grain of salt ….
So imagine you are 20ish years old with NO world experience …..you met this charming dude called Ernie Harvey, dressed in his Canadian Army uniform, you dance the night away (probably with alcohol involved at every turn), he sweeps you off your feet, he proposes marriage ….. oh but one thing ….. you will need to emigrate to Canada …… oh ….. but one other thing ….. you will need to leave sooner than your new husband …… and you will travel to a place called Kirkland Lake, Ontario …… So …… imagine now that Margaret has said YES to this proposal ….. she needs to tell her parents …… “Oh yes Dad …… by the way ….. I am getting married to this Canadian soldier ……. his name is Ernie (as she speaks to her very British parents) ……. I am going to emigrate to Kirkland Lake, Canada ……. Yes I know where Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada is …… Ernie showed me where it is on a map!!!!” …… or something like that!!!
In 1940, people did not travel much unless you were wealthy and Margaret as I mentioned earlier, was not wealthy. Crossing the Atlantic to this magical place called Canada and living with her new husband …… what an adventure???? ….. at this time of Margaret’s life …… clearly …… “Life in the Fast Lane”!!!! …… (PS I think that maybe I got a lot of my sense of adventure from my Mom)
In addition to the positives of getting the heck our of London …… there was this other big negative called World War II which was going on all around Margaret in London ……German buzz bombs, bomb shelters, daily work …. leaving this God forsaken place called London was in and of itself reason enough to go.
In any case, the plan is set. Margaret somehow finds her way to Liverpool and boards the Scythia, a repurposed ocean liner in the Cunard fleet of ships.
……. a week or two to cross the Atlantic ….. maybe not the luxuriousness of the typical Cunard experience but not bad …… free food and medical ….. she arrives in Halifax, Nova Scotia …… from there she boards the Canadian National Railway and travels 1,800 kilometers or so to Toronto, Ontario.
….. Keep in mind that it is approximately 650 km from London, England to Edinburgh, Scotland …… I don’t think that Mom had ever even traveled to Scotland!!!
….. So after that very long train ride, she switches trains to the Ontario Northland Railroad and …… it is the middle of winter ….. In Ontario!!!! ….. and she is continuing on another 600 km …… further and further NORTH!!!
A young lady from London England has seen snow …… sometimes fluffy ….. sometimes icy cold ….. but never in thousands of years has London had snow like the snow in Northern Ontario ….. and the snow keeps getting deeper and deeper …… and finally Margaret arrives at her final destination Kirkland Lake, Ontario!
But wait!!!!! …… on top of all that …… the train doesn’t go direct to Kirkland Lake ….. The Kirkland train stop is called
SWASTIKA
……. which is a little village about 7 km southwest of Kirkland Lake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika,_Ontario
AND ….. on top of all that there is this thing called Time Zones!!! Somehow the communication between England and Dad’s parents gets messed up and there is no one there to meet her. There is no telephone at the train station to call for help but somehow or other Margaret finds her way …… finds Joseph and Adrienne Harvey ……. only to find that Ernie’s whole family is French Canadian ….. they did speak English but French their mother tongue and was most common.
So out of the Battle of Britain and into the battle of living in a foreign land, with foreign people and foreign weather and ……. I just cannot imagine the challenges that Margaret faced, endured and survived …. imagine arriving at the final train station ……. named SWASTIKA ….. after escaping from the German bombs in London.
I only wish I had more details from her but alas ….. she passed away in 2011 along with all of her adventures and experiences!!!! ……. I hope this tale does here history justice!!!!
