We had heard Bucky wasn’t too enthusiastic about his new homeland, nor his job with the Forestry Commission

Towards the end of the programme he would say to his listeners: “Now wherever you are, stand up and shake everyone by the hand, whether you know them or not.”

I felt like shouting back, “But there’s no one here to shake hands with!” One night when we had sat up a little later than usual and Ronald was fiddling about with the knobs on the radio, we came across, very faint and far away, another station.

We heard a low voice say: “This is Salt Lake City.” How exciting and mysterious. Salt Lake City – back home this would have seemed a mythical place, unreachable.

It proved to be the most distant radio station we could find and we were only able to tune in late at night.

A closer kind of contact began to filter in to us with the arrival of letters. Muller passed them to Ronald who brought them in at lunchtime.

I had written quite a few not long after we arrived to let friends and relations know our new address.

I gave them to Maud Muller to post for me when she came for us on Tuesday mornings. Encouragement

My mother was the first to reply. Her letter was full of hope, praise and encouragement which was what we needed more than anything else.

Ronald’s father wrote and other relatives from Scotland telling us what had happened there since we left.

They all helped us to feel that the links with home were not completely broken.

Then I got a letter with the postmark, Toronto. I knew the handwriting.

Sheila and I had been close friends from nursing days and had both put our names down for work in a hospital in Kenya when our training had finished.

But I had got married and Sheila went into the ‘Home and Abroad Nursing Service’.

She had spent several difficult and traumatic years in the north of Newfoundland before deciding to work her way across Canada.

Now she was working in a hospital in Toronto and had a flat of her own. I’d told her about the expected baby, asking for information about doctors and hospitals in Canada and how the system worked.

Sheila told me all she knew. Then she made a generous offer.

She suggested that, nearer the time of the birth, I and the boys should come and stay with her. She wrote that she had a gynaecologist and paediatrician all lined up for me.

Besides, my dental appointment was drawing near. I was still much troubled by toothache, especially at night.

Sometimes on such slight threads do big decisions hang.

Ronald and I never really considered this proposal. Toronto was a long way off. It would be costly to get there and anyway, we had planned long ago, if at all possible to stick together.

But it was very kind of her and it made us feel a bit more secure – a friend to call on if things went badly wrong. Difficult

Then came two letters from British Columbia. One from Ronald’s sister Eileen.

She was two years older than him and had come out to Canada with her husband, Harold and young daughter, Hilary several years before.

Harold had got a good job in the grain business in Vancouver and was doing well.

We hadn’t told Eileen we were emigrating to Canada till preparations were well on the way.

When she did hear she wrote us a letter, as we expected she would, saying conditions were difficult in Canada especially on farms and if we were thinking of increasing our family (she knew of my wish for a large one) it would be quite out of the question.

Now, faced with the fait accompli her tone had completely changed.

The letter was pleasant and helpful and she proposed coming to see us at Easter weekend unless they heard to the contrary.

We were delighted but a little apprehensive at the suggestion. How lovely it would be to see them but whatever would they think of the shack?!

The other letter came written in a less familiar hand and was addressed to Ronald. He opened it eagerly. “It’s from Bucky,” he said.

Bucky had been a friend of his in Scotland but had come out to British Columbia several years before. We had heard he wasn’t too enthusiastic about his new homeland, nor his job with the Forestry Commission.

Ronald had written him a short letter letting him know of our arrival and how we had found things.

We weren’t sure if he would reply and we certainly didn’t expect the letter Ronald now read out.

“Dear Ronald and Margaret, How very nice to hear from you. I write by return of post to offer my sincere condolences on your arrival in Canada, this awful country.

“At the moment you will be in a state of severe shock, which will change shortly to thoughts of suicide, and then to the certainty that you must get out of this bloody country at the first opportunity.

“Later one gets to the resigned stage beyond which only morons and lunatics pass.

“It’s typical of the bloody fools – no water in the house and 50 yards away the most up to date pump in use to draw oil from the earth ...” Helpful

Ronald and I couldn’t help laughing at the letter. At least we didn’t feel that bad about Canada – not yet anyway!

After the initial explosion in words, the letter became helpful. Perhaps he would be able to get a better job for us in BC – looking after a herd of pedigree cattle.

The herd was owned by someone he knew and a modern house went with the job.

Enclosed with Bucky’s letter was a short one from his wife. It said that Bucky dreamed of Scotland, night and day, but had adapted himself well to the Canadian way of life. They hoped to be able to come and see us sometime.

When Ronald came in that night and after we had tea, we talked over every aspect of Bucky’s letter. “What do you think of the job he is more or less offering us?” I asked.