Passage from India - continued
Doctor Sinclair's prediction was spot-on. Post war England was no place to come back to. The family shivered and near froze in the winter of 1948. Large parts of inner-city London lay in ruins as did many other places in England and Scotland. They were casualties of the German bombing in world war two. Food was rationed and the weather was grey and cold.
The Sinclairs trekked to Barnet a small but growing suburb to the north of London proper. "I don't like this place ," Diane Sinclair said as she looked around the cramped four-bedroom apartment in Barnet. "Oh my dears, what a change from India." Jean the nanny had gone by now to live with her sister in Birmingham.
But the family didn't stay long in Barnet. One grey foggy day, Dr. Sinclair came home looking happy. "We're off to Canada," he said as he ran his hand through Jane's short blonde hair. "We're going to Fredericton in New Brunswick.
"Where's that?" Beatrice asked.
"A long boat ride away," the doctor replied. "And if you think it's cold here, wait till you get to Canada."
"Oh that's great," said Charles. "I've always wanted to skate,Daddy."
"Well you'll get your wish there," the doctor said. "Anyway I've got lots of relations in New Brunswick. They moved there in the 1880's. And I'll see them all I think."
The doctor had found a job in the provincial bureaucracy.
So the Sinclairs were off again and once again on a boat. They hauled their few suitcases onto another big ocean liner that had docked at the port of Southhampton, where they'd got off some months before. On a July day in l948 they headed out to sea again, but this time they sailed west across the Atlantic Ocean. There were a few rough days on the ocean. But six days after leaving Southhampton the ship docked at Halifax. A day after that, the Sinclairs were in Fredericton, New Brunswick's capital city
Here they would stay, some of them anyway, at least for awhile.There were problems there, but nothing that couldn't be overcome.
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