Exits and Entrances: A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe Chapter One continued

      Chapter One continued of Exits and Entrances


          In Barnet in the early 1950's there were plenty of sporting events to go and see. My favourite team was the local Barnet soccer team. I often go down the road to cheer them on. Their games often thrill me. I am crushed when I go down to the huge Wembley stadium in the early 1950's. Here from high up in the stands I watch some other team beat Barnet in the amateur soccer semi-final match. I came home simply feeling crushed and downhearted.
    But my mother is so proud of me. "David went to Wembley," she says. :"He went on his own in a coach alone and came back alone."
     I also loved to go to the Oval stadium in downtown London to watch my favourite cricket team Surrey play. And often in summer time I sneaked away and smoked cigarettes in a field behind the apartment building I lived in. This turns me on.
     My sister Sylvia thinks I'm nuts. She wasn't the only one who felt this way. "Everybody in this town thinks you're insane," she told me one day. I can't recall what my younger sister Valerie thinks.I realize early on that she often looks sad. For my mother and father though life was tough. And worse was in store for them and all of us.
      Montreal, Canada. Somehow that city popped up in my father's head. In 1953 he decided to move to Montreal. He should have chosen, Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver. But he picked Montreal. It was a disastrous choice.
    Anyway in the spring of 1953 he came home and says, ""We're leaving to Montreal."  My father's mail order business is making nothing. Time and again he borrows money from family and friends instead of going to the local dole office. So off we go to Montreal. My mother and sisters do something they'll be doing many times in the next twelve or so years. They pack up our clothes and leave our furniture, cutlery and stuff behind.
     On a day in July in 1953 our family relations wave goodbye to us as we get on a train to take a trip to Southhampton where a ship's waiting for us and others. "Well, they all showed up to see us off," my dad said. "They were glad to see us leave," my mum replied. "They're happy to see the back of us."
     Five of us sat in a crowded train carriage, dressed up for a journey into the unknown. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay in Barnet, see soccer games, play with my mates and smoke cigarettes far away from my parents' eyes. I broke down as the train climbed a hill. I cried and cried. A lovely chapter of my life, full of pain but also joy had ended forever. It took me another five years to be so happy again and that period of my life only lasted a year or two.
     Only in the late 1980's 35 years later, would life take me to another stage that I enjoyed as much as I'd enjoyed my life in Barnet.