oral histories

Can you tell me a little bit about where you were born?

I was born in a little village called Jamestown, which was part of the Town of Alexandria. I was born May 30, 1934. I had a happy childhood although it took place during the war. I was five when the Second World War broke out. One of the consequences of that was my father had immediately enlisted. My mother was not happy about that, but he did and he left home.  In a way, it was a pretty town, regardless of the dark satanic mills that have been talked about so often. It was along the River Leven. That’s where they got the water to power some of the engines, and the British Silk Dying Company, they dyed silks for manufacturing, how would one say, high-end stuff.

What was your childhood like in Alexandria?

The town itself, when I was a boy, we weren’t too badly damaged by the Blitz which was right next door to us. It was, and I’m looking at it through a boy’s eyes at that time, it was a very nice place. We had some nice parks, Balach Park, which Glaswegians used to come to in the weekend. They called it their Riviera.  During the war, we had a tree that four or five of us, one could be the tail-gunner and the bomber, the other at the front was a pilot and another co-pilot, and then there was somebody else who was a machine-gunner. Your imagination ran with you. Of course, we were in shelters quite a lot during those times. Surprisingly, families held together very, very well. It was a close community. It really was. People looked after one another.

How were you introduced to music, and what happened following this introduction?

My father had an occupation, but he had a passion and that passion was he was a band master and his sons were definitely going to be brass players. So I started playing the cornet at age six. At age seven, I got my first band uniform for the Renton Brass Band and I was so proud of that. Even if my father wasn’t there I practiced diligently. That led to me becoming, for my age, a relatively competent brass musician. I played in a local brass band and then I was approached by the top brass band in Scotland, Clydebank Burgh. I was starting to travel weekends during the summer to Edinburgh, to Crieff, to Saltcoats, all big destinations. Clydebank Burgh used to have a one-week engagement at Aberdeen. I thought I had gone to heaven without dying. From there, being the Scottish champions, contested in the national championships and we were eligible to perform at the Royal Albert Hall. Wow. Over 5,500 people in attendance for two days. Our band became one of five which performed a gala concert before royalty on the Sunday evening.

Even when I immigrated to Canada, I joined the local reserve squadron air force band in Edmonton and I enjoyed that for the five years I was in Edmonton. Then I transferred to Calgary with my job. There were no bands, and then I got lucky and I got transferred to Toronto. In Toronto, I started with a little legion band there – Silver Thorn Legion. We were the ones who used to lead the parade at the cenotaph every year and played the last post. From there, I went to the band with the Governor General’s Horse Guards, which was a delight.

Your career in the airline industry took you all over Canada and beyond.  It even brought you to your wife.  What else is special about this career choice?

I was fortunate enough to have a Sunday school teacher when I was four. Her name was Agnes Sheer. She announced to us that Frank Whittle, a brilliant English engineer, had invented an aircraft that could fly without propellers. At that point, she said, “You know, this is probably going to alter the life of some of you boys in this classroom. Who knows?” Anyway, later on in life, I was able to go back to her and tell her I was in the airline business and it certainly had altered my life.  I thoroughly enjoyed my experiences with Pacific Western Airlines.

You also worked in the travel industry and Tourism BC. What was that like?

Grace McCarthy was given the responsibility for tourism. Grace decided “No, it’s not travel industry as part of something else. This must be a ministry. This must be funded.” We all got happy and we all did weird and wonderful things like bringing the Royal Hudson down to Los Angeles . . . There was a tremendous amount of travel involved. That was the only downside. Catherine once put my photograph on the refrigerator with a note to the children, “If you come home and this man is in the house, don’t call the police. He’s your father.” So that’s still been a joke with our family [laughs]. I eventually had another wonderful minister, Claude Richmond. As we got closer to Expo, I was asked to come to Vancouver and become the director of international marketing and to really promote Expo but other types of traffic as well. That was, probably, one of the most exciting times of my life.

Can you describe a highlight from your life thus far?

Catherine and I were invited to Buckingham Palace for the Garden Party. That was a thrill. When I reflect on where I came from that was never, ever, ever a possibility, but here I was, doing just that. One other very lucky contact I made was Alderman Sheriff Colonel Greville Spratt, one of two sheriffs who are part of the Institution of the Lord Mayors Hierarchy. Greville and I received an invitation to dine with the ten high court judges at the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court. I sat next to a very charming judge who said, “Are you busy this afternoon?” I said, “No.” “I’m conducting a very interesting murder trial. I’m going back there. Would you like to come down? I’ll find you a seat.” So, I got to sit in the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, as an interested spectator and I saw the whole procedure with the wigs. It was marvelous. At the court luncheon, there were only four Canadians: Catherine and I, and two others. This was the special celebration in Westminster Abbey for William Wilberforce. That was the Prince of Wales but Margaret Thatcher and her husband were just sitting across the opposite side from Catherine and I, and I could see her nudging him and saying, “Who is that? I seem to recognize him” [laughs].

When and why did you settle in Richmond?

I was transferred to Vancouver for Expo. When we came we started looking at homes. We went to Kerrisdale, realized very quickly, no, hadn’t won the lotto. We went to Burnaby, we went to North Vancouver, we went to Surrey, we didn’t go to White Rock. Anyway, Jimmy phones me, “Let’s have lunch. Bring Cathy.” So we went to the hotel, you know, on the side of the water? He said, “You looking for a house?” “Yeah.” “Anywhere but Richmond, Jim?” I said, “Yeah.” Well, he said, “You know, I felt the very same way. When we’re finished, follow me.” I thought we were back in California. We had never looked at Richmond. The next day, we phoned a real estate agent and said start looking for stuff in Richmond for us and that’s how it all came about.

How would you describe your community in Richmond?

We can walk to the library, we can walk to the Oval where we always did our exercises, there’s that beautiful park behind that. Now they’re building this other place. We’ve got swimming pools, libraries. We’re very much a part of the community. We would never leave Richmond. [In our building], we have, I would say, fifty-one units, probably a third of them are still occupied by people of the Jewish faith. We have Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, the regular mainland China, Cantonese, we have some Bermudians, some Germans. That building that we’re in, do you know that that was built by a Jewish consortium? And do you know in those days, why they built it? Because they had difficulties, as individuals, getting apartments and moving into certain condos. Just like the golf course. They built Richmond Golf Course because they weren’t allowed to go into the white man’s golf course, the gentiles’. We still have some of the originals there.

Your toy soldier collection is featured in our current exhibit, Obsessions: Every Collector Has a Story. Do you have any special memories connected to this hobby?

I’m going back to wartime. There’s no adult males around, but the Britain’s Company had been making these soldiers for a long, long time. Even poor families would go out of their way to ensure that the male children of a certain age will get at least one at Christmas, if you’re really lucky, two. Now, you could acquire them by swapping things. What would you swap?  “I’ll give you these two pieces of shrapnel for that soldier,” because we had shrapnel collections from the exploded bombs that we’d pick up, not realizing had it hit us it would have taken our head off. Five 303 bullets would get you, at least, two soldiers. Or you would trade something that was of value to you. I did trade quite a bit. We played with them and we played with them very roughly. If somebody had a cannon, and you had matchsticks, well, you would line up, three, four, or five of you, you would line up your soldiers and you would each get a turn at shooting.

If I were to take you up there today and we just did an archaeological dig, they might be gone by now but, I’m sure we would find the remnants of soldiers that just were left there. We would build our own tanks with corrugated paper, and they would go up and down here and the soldiers would be waiting for all of these wonderful games, but, it wasn’t collecting per say. It was playthings.

When did you begin collecting toy soldiers?

I was packing my suitcases to come to Canada, I put my hand in a drawer of mine and I lifted up two handfuls of toy soldiers. There were more, but those were just childhood playthings that I just kept, but I lifted these up, I don’t know why I did that. Maybe that was an umbilical cord, still, but I had two handfuls, I think I was eight or nine. When I got to the first place I lived in in Canada, I put them in another drawer, and when I moved I put them in another drawer. Now, finally, I’m living in Victoria. I’m forty, about that, and we had adopted our son, John. He’s four. One night, he came to me with two handfuls of soldiers. Catherine had been in that drawer looking for something and he saw the soldiers and he came out and his eyes were out like organ stops. So I put them up on the mantel piece. That started it, because I’m in Victoria, and Victoria is a wonderful place for people, or was a wonderful place for people to collect toy soldiers.

How has collecting enriched your life?

You meet so many interesting people and, of course, being in the airline business and going back to Victoria frequently, I would visit pawnshops and you would find them there. I used to find loads of them. Then, you would talk to friends. “Oh, I’ve got a bunch of those. Do you want them?” type of thing. One of my deepest friends introduced me to a man named John. John and I were very plausible types. We found that our backgrounds were very similar. To cut this long story short, John invited my wife and I to come for dinner. When I saw his collection – wowie!  John eventually died, and I delivered the eulogy. His collection was dispersed amongst his sons and daughters and what have you but, when his wife heard about what I was doing she said, “Do you have the Bahamas Bugle Band?” I said, “No, I wish I had it.” She said, “You now have it.” She shipped over a box full of Bahamas Band. So, again, the soldier collection was the connection.