'It was like an adventure': English war bride reflects on journey to Sudbury

May Collison was a young newlywed when she boarded a boat from England, to meet her new husband in Canada.

The couple met in December 1944, towards the end of the Second World War. Collison was at a Bingo night, when she was introduced to a young Canadian sergeant stationed near her hometown of Aldershot.

The two quickly hit it off. He invited her to a Christmas eve dance and she invited him to her eighteenth birthday. By July, they were engaged.

Collison says it didn't really occur to her that she might have to leave her family and friends, and move to a new country.

"When you're young, you don't think," she says. "It was like an adventure, in a sense."

Collison and her husband were only married for a couple of months, when he was repatriated and had to return home to Canada for work.

"It was the next year before I came to Canada, and everyday my husband wrote to me for eight months," she says.

The following year, Collison began her journey to Canada, and finally reunited with her husband at the Sudbury train station.

Collison says life in Sudbury was very lonely at first, but she quickly made new friends and began to start a family. Later, the family moved to Lively, where Collison has lived ever since.

"It was a very happy time," she says.