So the time had come to move.

My wife Sheila and I have been married for 62 years, during that time we have lived in England, twice, Australia, and two Canadian Provinces, Generally speaking the two of us have moved on different dates and undertaken different responsibilities for the move. The exception being the move to Australia, when we travelled first class on an ocean liner. When my contract with the Australian Government was due to expire, my wife was pregnant with our second child, and she would be too pregnant to travel when I was free to go. So she went back to England in July, while I went to Papua New Guinea. We had some friends who had just had a baby and were living in a small apartment so, we let them have our house while it was empty. When I returned to Melbourne, I let them stay in the house while I took a room in town, When I left Australia. the other couple was still in our house while they looked fo a place of their own they finally sold it on our behalf and shipped our belongings back to England, where my wife and I had already bought a house.

I was not terribly happy with my UK employer, and in1967 after three years I responded to an advertisement that resulted in my being offered a job in Canada, initially in Newfoundland. This time, I went first as we had school terms to think of. On arrival St Johns I was provided with a two bedroom unfurnished apartment, which I had to furnish as quickly and cheaply as possible actually getting it fixed for a little over$150. It was a couple of months before our belongings and Sheila and the kids arrived. Unfortunately, there was a controversy about what might be built behind our English house, which made selling not very practical, but we did get someone to rent it at what seemed to be a reasonable rate.

I worked in Newfoundland for a little over a year, and I was then offered a position in the Toronto headquarters of the company which I had little choice but to accept, as the other project was complete, and headed for Toronto, and found a townhouse which I rented, without the help and wisdom of my wife. She joined me with tyhe children a couple of months later. The townhouse in Don Mills turned out to be a good choice with plenty of other kids and likeminded adults in the neighborhood. We spent 5 years there, until I was poached by the New Brunswick Government who were setting up an environment department. This time I was allowed a trip with my wife, at their expense to find a home in Fredericton.

The morning after we arrived in Fredericton, we visited several real estate agents telling them we wanted to buy a house that day. We were shown several that did not meet our hopes, with the exception of one house, the right size, in the right place, that was not yet on the market, but was expected to be on sale soon. We approached the owner, whose wife was in hospital to ask if we could come and visit it. He said that his wife would not let anyone see the house without careful cleaning and preparation. We asked what her reaction would be if he could say the house was sold with no extra work. He reluctantly let us into a very untidy house with an unflushed toilet, but we made an offer anyway, and by 4 o’clock we had an accepted offer to move in in January. Once more we could not move as one unit, so I moved to Fredericton on January1 1973, and Sheila and the three girls arrived by train on February 22. We stayed in that house until June 2022.

A fiscal commentary: What might have been!