Barbara Fairbanks
This interview was conducted at Norfolk Manor on March 13th, 2019. I would just to take this moment to thank Barbara for sharing her stories and Dr. Kim Martin for setting all of this up. ■ Jump to the full interview
 Figure 1: A street in Finsbury Park, 1938 |
Barbara Fairbanks was born in 1931 in England and is from Finsbury Park, North London (see Figure 1). We did not talk too much about her childhood, but Barbara married in her early twenties and started having kids. Barbara is a proud mother of three kids, a proud grandmother to six grandchildren, a proud great grandmother to six great grandchildren and a proud great-great grandmother to a newborn girl named Summer. Barbara is also a big Tom Jones fan and was even the treasurer for the Tom Jones fan club!In 1962 Barbara and her family left England to travel to India with another family named the Price’s. Mr. Fairbanks and Mr. Price thought it would be an amazing experience to travel outside the country and experience exotic India. At first Barbara and Mrs. Price were not keen on giving up their homes in England but as it was discussed more in detail, Barbara and Mrs. Price opened to the idea and were just ask keen to travel to India as the men. |
 Figure 2: Taj Mahal, 1962 |
Throughout her travels in India, Barbara kept a diary and wrote in it everyday updating her travels and putting her experiences onto paper. They did not stay in India long as the company her husband was supposed to work for shut down but during their time there, they got to see wonderful sights like the Taj Mahal (see Figure 2).
Barbara and her family returned to England but were not back for long as in 1964, they made their voyage to Canada. After their experiences in India, Mr. Fairbanks still wanted to travel and live in another country and that is when they talked about coming to Canada. The only thing Barbara knew about Canada at the time was the North West Mounted police and that there were bears. But nevertheless, Barbara and her family were excited to travel to the great white North! |
| To get to Canada, Barbara and her family took the Empress of Britain (see Figure 3). The Empress of Britain was a cruise ship that went from England to Quebec in about 10 days according to Barbara. This was a large ship with tons of activities to do and its own swimming pool. When they arrived in Quebec, they were caught off guard as everyone was speaking French and thought it was going to be hard communicating but soon found out that they could speak English as well. The first place in Canada they lived in was Peterborough, Ontario but their children did most of their growing up in Oshawa, Ontario. |  Figure 3: Empress of Britain, 1952 |
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Barbara and her husband moved to Guelph in the mid-eighties and moved into a home owned by their son and daughter in-law but eventually they had to sell the house and so Barbara and her husband moved into the senior apartments on Waterloo Ave. After her husband passed away, Barbara’s daughter who lived in Guelph did not want her to be on her own, so she moved in with her while her two grandkids were living at home. Since her daughter traveled a lot for work, one grandkid lived with her boyfriend and the other worked overnights, Barbara did not enjoy being on her own that much. That is when they were looking into different senior housing and she found Norfolk manor and loved it since.
The diary that Barbara wrote in about her travels and experiences in India was made into a novel by her daughter (see Figure 4) and titled A Fair Price to Bombay, using their family name and the family they traveled with. This is a really cool piece of family history as it includes pictures and tells the story of an incredible journey. This also reflects the love Barbara’s family has for her and how close of a family they are.
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Figure 4: A Fair Price to Bombay, written by Barbara Fairbanks, made by her daughter. |
It has been a huge honour writing about Barbara Fairbanks' life, and I would just like to say thank you again to Barbara for sharing all these stories with me.
Click here to listen to the full interview.
Click here for the interviewer, Ryan Wilson's page and reflection on this interview.