A YORK paramedic who took his family to a new life across the Atlantic in Canada as part of a TV show says they now intend to stay for good.

Richard Ellis, 34, set up home 4,500 miles away in snowy Bragg Creek, near Calgary, with his wife Andrea, 38, and two children, Taelyr, five, and Reef, two, only seven weeks ago.

But the former North Yorkshire paramedic from Raskelf, near Easingwold, says things have gone so well that he has already applied for permanent Canadian residency.

He says the children and Andrea, who is seven months pregnant, have settled into their new lives "remarkably well" and are enjoying the unfamiliar surroundings.

"It's cheaper here, we don't have the traffic jams and we like the weather. It's a lot healthier existence on the whole," he adds.

The Ellis family were flung into action after years of considering a move abroad after being selected to feature in a TV series called Get A New Life, which started on BBC2 this week. They swapped their semi-rural three-bedroomed house for a larger home in two acres of ground in Bragg Creek, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

Richard has turned his back on grey English weather for the chilly extremes of Canadian winter, where temperatures can reach minus 20 degrees centigrade, and a home only 20 minutes from the spectacular Banff National Park.

But not everything has been easy, with Andrea missing TV soap operas and young Taelyr forced to stop going to school as Canadian children start their education aged one year older than in the UK. Richard also says the family have missed their relatives, who live in Great Ouseburn and Rawcliffe, and he has particularly missed his workmates at Tees East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service.

"It's been harder than anticipated being away from our family and colleagues. You miss the fact that they are there all the time even though we talk on the phone every week," he says.

Updated: 11:04 Wednesday, May 07, 2003