IN 1967 Rodney and Judith Senior upped sticks from Huddersfield and emigrated to Canada.
It was a tough decision at the time – but now all these years later they can look back and say it was one they have never regretted.
Rodney was born in Huddersfield on December 20, 1935 to parents Westerman and Edith Senior and his first home was at 319 Blackmoorfoot Road, Crosland Moor.
His father’s roots were deep in the Holme Valley, stretching back to at least the late 1700s. Edith’s parents started Fox’s Academy of Dance on Trinity Street in the early 1920s – a business that lasted into the 1960s.
Rodney recalls: “Huddersfield was always a bustling, busy place, and there were names synonymous with the local industry and commerce such as Broadbent, Ramsden, Denham, Brooke, Thornton, and Lockwood, to name just a few.
“We were still in the coal age and the town was grimy with soot, but how good it looked when the lovely golden local stone was finally cleaned a few decades later.
“There are some lovely Victorian buildings and when I worked at John Mollett Ltd my view was the square, railway station and the George Hotel. I was told as a child that the lion on top of the Lion Buildings would roar when the station clock struck 12.
“I had a happy childhood in Huddersfield. My mother stayed home and my father was a foreman dyer in the woollen mill. “War came in 1939 and we were fortunate we were not affected like so many British towns and cities.
Other than rationing, life seemed normal to me. I have a lot of good memories of the parks where I played for hours, cycling everywhere on my Halford three speed bicycle, playing tin can squat and hide and seek, roaming the Grimscar woods and the fields in Edgerton.
“I lived in Crosland Moor, Marsh, Birkby and Cowlersley.”
Rodney met Judith on a blind date in 1959 and they married a year later.
Shortly afterwards Rodney joined Vauxhall and General Finance Co Ltd as a representative, travelling the north of England and southern Scotland.
After spells living in Luton and Stalybridge the couple emigrated to Canada with their two young sons, David and Andrew, in 1967 after a great deal of thought and soul-searching.
Rodney said: “We knew our families were sad that we were leaving and taking their grandchildren with us, but even so we had their full support. That was important to us.”
Canada was not what they expected at first.
Rodney said: “After leaving Ringway Airport in Manchester the next land we saw was Newfoundland and Labrador – and it was not what we had expected. It was barren and windswept with many lakes and looked most inhospitable. It made both of us wonder whether or not we had made the right decision.”
They first went toToronto.
Rodney said: “Our first impressions were how big the cars were – and how wide the highways. It was as if everything was on a much larger scale and that included items in the grocery stores such as sugar, laundry detergent etc. Even today, when we visit England everything seems so much smaller than we are used to in Canada.”
Rodney added: “The following morning we faced reality. We were new immigrants in a strange country. I had no job and we had little money. We were responsible for two very young children and on reflection we had to have been a little crazy to have done what we did.”
But he managed to get a job with the local General Motors Corporation even though the workforce was on strike.
They bought a home in a suburb called Scarborough and got used to a whole new lifestyle.
Rodney said: “Sport was very different – mostly American/Canadian football, ice hockey, and baseball.
“Only immigrants seemed interested in football or cricket and we went with the flow and followed north American sports on television and radio.
“We settled into life in Canada very well, found new friends and adjusted well to the differences. We enjoyed the difference in the weather which is more extreme than in England. It isn’t as rainy and damp for one thing, but the summers are hot and sometimes humid and the winters cold and snowy.
“Fall (autumn) is spectacular with the trees changing from green to a whole spectrum of yellows, oranges, reds and browns. We love the fall, but spring is slow coming and often wet and dreary.”
Rodney was offered promotion after five years but it meant moving to Newfoundland.
“Here is where you begin to appreciate the vast distances in Canada compared to Great Britain,” he said. “Newfoundland with a population of around 500,000 is a large island off the east coast of mainland Canada and it is just over 1,300 miles as the crow flies from Toronto to the provincial capital, St John’s.”
They moved there in 1973. Judith took charge of the Young Women’s Christian Association nursery school in St John’s and was also president of the Early Childhood Development Association of Newfoundland and Labrador.
“We enjoyed the rugged countryside and beaches but summer weather can be rugged,” said Rodney. “One summer we lost our tomatoes to frost in June and it snowed in July. Winter storms can be horrendous in Newfoundland, with lots of snow and high winds.”
In 1976 the family returned to the Canadian mainland to live in New Brunswick, one of Canada’s maritime provinces on the Atlantic coast.
David studied electrical engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa and is now a manager at global communications company Alcatel in Ottawa. He married a French Canadian called Laurence and they have two children, Ben, 15 and Matthew, 13.
Andrew went to the University of Bishops’ at Lennoxville in Quebec to take science. He became a pharmaceutical salesman in Toronto and is now a self-employed consultant to the industry. He lives with his wife, Sheila, in ‘horse country’ outside Toronto.
Rodney joined Prudential of England as a life insurance agent and financial planner and became one of the top agents in the province and the country.
He said: “The rewards for success are high here and Judith and I enjoyed conference trips to Europe, the Bahamas, Toronto, San Francisco, New York, and Nashville over the years as part of those rewards.
“New Brunswick and the neighbouring provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward island are beautiful. We love living here.
“In 1985 my parents made a huge decision to emigrate and live nearby. My father died in 1988 and mother in 1999, but it had been a good decision for them to move here.
“The people in this part of Canada are the salt of the earth, very friendly.
“We now live in a garden home in Hampton and I retired in 1997.
“Judith and I are busy with hobbies, church, and choral singing. The decision to emigrate was a good one for us and our sons have done well here. We have no regrets. Perhaps one of the biggest differences is the weather and how we cope with it. We have had four major storms in three and a half weeks and temperatures have ranged from -30°C or worse – including the wind chill – to about 10°C and hurricane force winds.
“Canada is a good place to live. it is politically stable and multicultural. We have five time zones which gives some idea of the vast distances of this great country.”
