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Rushden Echo, 28th March 1924, transcribed by Kay Collins
A Rushden Canadian
Mr A Upton and Employment Prospects
“Plenty of Work”
One of our Canadian readers, Mr Albert Upton, of Ayr, Ontario (formerly of Pemberton-street, Rushden), sends us the following letter:-
“I have just received the good old Rushden Echo, which I have had without fail every week since I have been out here—three years now. I should not be without it. I buy several papers out here, but they can’t beat the good old home papers. I was quite interested in reading about Mr J Hornsby’s visit out here, also Mr Swindall’s. I should very much like to have seen them, especially Mr Swindall, as I booked my passage through him. He was only about 40 miles from where I live when he was visiting Hamilton.
“Well Mr Editor, you see a lot of reports in the papers about there not being much work out here, but my experience is a man can get work if he wants. Of course, it’s a bit slack in the winter months, but I have never lost a day since I have been here. A man can’t pick and choose his jobs; he has to take the first thing that comes along. I have had lots of different kinds of work. Once I worked on a farm; then I went bridge-building, and as soon as that was finished I went to work on a river dam. That finished, I went into a boot factory, but I was there only five weeks. I couldn’t stick that—I came out here from Rushden for a change of work; so I quit the boot factory job and went to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Next I got a job as a night-watchman. (Nearly all the big factories and mills have a night-watchman). I am at the present making “Force” (a cereal product). I work in the “H.O. Mill” doing the cooking. We use five cookers a day, and each cooker holds 45 bushels of wheat. When the grain is cooked it has to be rolled into flakes and then toasted in a large oven. Everything is done by machinery. The grain in never touched by hand from the time the wheat goes into the mill until it comes out again in the form of “Force.” It is even packed into boxes by machine, and the biggest part of what we manufacture we ship right across to England. So you see there is plenty of work if a man is not particular what he does. Sometimes you don’t get very large wages, but you can always be on the look-out for a better job. I live in a little place called Greenfield, joining Ayr. Nearly everybody here owns either the house they live in or a car. I bought a car last summer, but I am just about to “trade it in” for a new one. I haven’t met any Rushden people since I have been out here, but I know there are a lot around this part. I could write a lot more about Canada, but I must now close, wishing The Rushden Echo every success.”
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