Coming to Canada

Well we're on our way aboard a KLM Turboprop plane on a 14 hour flight to New York with stop overs in Iceland and Preswick, Scotland. I remember the excitement I felt, the little plane toy and the pin depicting pilot's wings I was given by the stewardess. There was a lot of engine noise and vibration that gave my mother a headache. There were brown paper bags for airsickness, a common occurrence then.

Did you know that air passengers received a blanket and a pillow each, that meals were served on real plates with real cutlery and that KLM stewardesses had to be registered nurses to qualify? Those were the early days of trans Atlantic passenger flight. The planes were terrible but the service was excellent. Luggage never was lost.

We were flying to New York because there was no KLM service to Canada yet. That was the point of our moving to Canada. My father was being sent to launch the KLM name in Canada. It was a new beginning for us but also for Canada.

It was early July and extremely hot in New York where we had to wait several hours for a connecting flight to Ottawa. Kennedy Airport was called Idlewild then and was much smaller. I remember having breakfast in a restaurant where my Dad ordered corn flakes which arrived at the table dry, in a bowl, accompanied by a jug of milk. He never dry cereal before so he began spooning up the dry flakes. He was not greatly impressed with this American icon. My mother laughed and set him straight. It tasted better with milk. I tasted my very first Coca Cola. It was fizzy, spicy-sweet and a total surprise in my mouth. It tasted like an other world necter.

We boarded our little plane for Ottawa and continued to vibrate our way to the capital city of Canada. Grandma, Grandpa, my Uncles Ken and Watson were at the tiny airport to meet us when we came down the stairs to the tarmac. Watson filmed our arrival and those black and white frames revealed a happy, skinny kid skipping down the steps followed by two tired, bedraggled and terribly thin parents in ill fitting clothing.

Without the home movie footage, I would have little memory of our arrival. Total strangers were hugging me and passing me from arms to arms. My grandmother and mother were crying and hugging and even my grandfather was emotional, pumping my father's hand. This was my first introduction to my Canadian family. Much later, I understood that until the liberation and the return of those Canadian soldiers who had visited us in Den Haag, my mother's family had no idea whether we were alive or dead. They had received no word from Holland for over three years. Our arrival heralded a return from their worst nightmare.