In 1965, the ‘English Invasion’ was in full swing and for my next recording I thought “why not record in London?”. Although I was still performing and promoting my recordings on TV, I didn’t earn enough to travel to England and also pay for my next recording session. So… I took a job at Simpson’s on Queen at Yonge (now The Bay building) moving stock on their 3rd floor (ladies dresses and accessories). While earning about $57 a week, I cut my housing expenses to $9.00 a week for a small bedroom on Huron Street and resolved to save enough to travel by ship to the the most exciting source of the world’s music, home of the Beatles, Stones, Gerry And The Pacemakers, The Dave Clark Five, etc. RPM’s Walt Grealis kindly gave me a letter of introduction to take with me. In August, I booked a tourist class berth on the Canadian Pacific ship The Empress of England leaving on 19th of August, 1965 bound for Liverpool along with 160 1st class and 898 tourist class passengers plus 464 crew. The ticket cost $214.00 including 21 full course meals and overnight train Toronto to Montreal.
CP Ships was Canada’s largest operator of Atlantic and Pacific passenger and merchant steamships. Many immigrants traveled on their ships from Europe to Canada as early as their founding in the late 1880s. Since the war, travel by ship was really the only way to go to Europe since air travel was only just beginning. And what a great way to travel! Fantastic food and the chance to meet many new friends. This was the era when the word voyage actually meant something. I was sorry to witness that by 1969, CP was forced to terminate regular trans-Atlantic passenger ship service and sold off their fleet to invest in airplanes (CP Air).
The overnight sleeper train arrived in Montreal at 8am and a special bus took us passengers directly to the docks. As passports and tickets were checked, our luggage was whisked away and placed in our cabins while we all were directed to the dining room for our first huge British breakfast. The cabin contained 2 bunk beds for 4 passengers and my fellow travelers were all older Brits who were “returning to the old country to die”, as one of them put it. Upon returning from breakfast the second morning I was shocked to discover that the man in my bunk above me had died during the night and his body had been discretely removed during breakfast.
On deck, as we were leaving, I stood near the bow taking in the experience as the ship headed down the St. Lawrence. A young man my age appeared beside me and said “I’m Rumpelstiltskin. I’m a stowaway.” I didn’t believe him at first but over the next few days it became apparent that some of the ‘below deck’ ship’s crew were giving him food. One evening when it was cold, I lent him one of my sweaters. Since he also had blond hair, rumors spread and a few passengers whispered that I was the stowaway. Eventually, I got my sweater back and the last I saw of him was after we docked in Liverpool, he was in handcuffs in the pursers office as we disembarked.
The trip took 7 days, 6 nights and the many-course meals were fabulous. They grouped us ‘young people’ in the dining room at one large oblong table seating 14; we all got to know each other and I maintained contact with Margaret & Nancy later in London and long after right up until this year. Our server was a short, partially hunchback and very congenial British waiter, dependent in tips at the end of the voyage to supplement his income. At the evening entertainment and sing-a-longs, as word spread, I sang a few songs almost every evening.
Each night, we all stayed up later and later drinking and talking because of the many time changes until early one morning, a friend was able to find Radio Caroline on his transistor radio – and when we heard “Hard Days Night” by the Beatles, we knew that England and Scotland were just over the horizon.
Upon docking at Liverpool, Hugh, a young and apparently redeemed ‘remittance man’ I had met during our collegial meals, offered to drive myself and a few of my new-found friends to the train station in Birmingham to catch the London train. It turned out he was the son of wealthy cotton mill owners and the car was a Rolls-Royce with a uniformed chauffeur. On the way he detoured through his extensive estate to show us his family’s numerous large factories and now empty cotton mills.
While not my first British train experience, the beautiful English countryside was wonderful to see. We arrived in London’s Euston station in the late afternoon, resolved to keep in contact and I took the tube to my prior booked hotel the Adelphi. I was ready for the next step and hopeful to meet some of the key music influencers.