About 16C at 7:30, now 24C and sunny.
Bowled in pm then about the house for the rest of the day. Early to bed.

  But the Pearce’s did. Within weeks of “V J” day both of the adult Pearce’s had resigned their positions and were on their way to Vancouver. John and I had one last day together at Garden Bay and up on the rocky hill on the south end of the lagoon we solemnly swore to each other that on our twenty first birthdays we would meet on the Gold Coast of Africa!

 
 

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ractically everyone in Pender Harbour was on the dock the day the steamship pulled out with the Pearce family on board. Was it The ‘Chilosun’? I don’t remember but I guess it’s not important anyway.

  The family gathered up in the bow to wave good bye but as the boat went in to her turn to head back out into the Straight of Georgia, I saw them cluster together and the tall figure of Mrs. Pearce was pointing out into the waters ahead. Was she saying, ‘Don’t look back’? Or was it “Look, see where we’re going’.

   They spent sometime in Vancouver then headed by train across Canada. John and I exchanged a few brief boyish letters (oh how I wished I had kept at least one).

  They boarded a ship somewhere in the east, Montreal or Halifax I would guess and departed for England.

  I recall adult discussions about how they had taken up residence in England as they could not get permission at the time to go back to China. Apparently communications gradually dried up and eventually they were heard from no more.

  Some years later apparently an effort was made to trace their whereabouts but each lead ended without success.

  Finally a later try uncovered information that Doctor Pearce eventually became ‘successful’ in being reposted to China and the whole family went back.