My Life

Howard Norfolk

Families and school days, to Vancouver, to England, and Back

Birth

I was born 6 April 1944, in Northampton England, to Geoffrey Norfolk and Clarice Margaret Norfolk (nee Gale).

Mum & Dad’s wedding

W.W. II was nearing its end. My father and two of his brothers, Alan and Howard, served in the R.A.F. A fourth brother, Ken, had been recruited to the Ministry of Home Security. My mother, trained as a Domestic Science teacher, was in charge of emergency food distribution for the city.

Two brothers, Alan and Howard, were both shot down - Alan (born 1912) flying a Beaufighter over the North Sea in 1940, and Howard (born 1917) in 1942 over Holland, piloting a Halifax bomber returning from a mission. I have visited Howard and his crew’s well-maintained row of tombstones at the site of their crash landing in Holland

Uncle Ken had a baby boy born just before me, who was christened Alan Howard Norfolk, and I was christened Howard Alan Norfolk, in memory of our two uncles who made the supreme sacrifice for England.

Some earlier family history:

Our families had prospered before the War and in late-Victorian times:

The Norfolks

Great-great grandfather John Norfolk was mayor of Deptford, London in late-Victorian times. A 10 foot high portrait of him was displayed in City Hall until the ‘70s. Brother Robert was offered this painting but turned it down since he had nowhere to put it. He has recently attempted to locate it again.

In1894 my great-grandfather Thomas Norfolk established a brewery in Deptford, London - Thomas Norfolk & Sons Ltd. He sold it to the Dartford Brewery in 1904, together with 55 public houses, for a reputed Ł1.5 million.

A family dispute cut my grandfather out of Thomas’ will, but my grandfather did well by owning the Regal Theatre in Northampton during the peak period of popularity of cinemas. He bought property, and a family anecdote says that he once bought a row of ten townhouses without even looking at them! Unfortunately the value of rental properties dropped with the post-war Labour government’s rent control policies. The properties cost more to maintain than the rent that was paid, and my grandmother did not get much when they were sold.

Dad in his prime

The Gales

Our grandpa W.H. Gale was one of six. The others were Wilf, Dorothy, Elsie, Jack, and Herbert Anthony Gale, who died of wounds at Aix in 1918. He was awarded the Military Cross, and bar. (There was also a girl who died in infancy - Clarice Hilda).

W. H.’s father was John Gale (there are still some John Gales in the family). John Gale was born 12 January 1863, in Calne, Wiltshire. His father was Stephen Gale, married to Jane, nee Hazell. John Gale married Amelia Minns on 3 June 1884 in the Baptist church at Frome. W.H. was born 24 May 1885 at 16 Gloucester Road Trowbridge (family home). John Gale was mayor of Calne three times, and was on town council, a magistrate and an alderman.

The Gales. W.H. great grandma, Dora.

Grandpa W.H. Gale married Dora Worgan June 30 1911 at Painswick Church. He was living and working in Bradford on Avon then, and both our mothers were born there. He died 13 October 1951. He was a Freemason, and was Master of his Lodge for some time. He fought throughout the Great War and was at Passchendale, the Somme, Ypres, and even saw the “Angel of Mons.”

Grandfather’s unit WW1

John Gale was a clothing designer and tailor and "made" our grandpa go into the business - I think he had wanted to be a pharmacist or some such - very suitable I should have thought for his exacting character. They designed custom clothes for both men and ladies, and had workshops employing about twenty people who actually made their creations. Army officers from the many nearby army bases were also regular customers.

Our mothers were both privately educated at the well-known St. Mary’s School for Girls, in Calne.

        Mum in lacrosse gear              Grandpa spent a lot of time in these greenhouses.
                                                          The stables/garage are through the door on the right,
                                                               and looming behind is the Harris pork factory.

29 Church Street in 2000. Grandpa’s double shop front is now two establishments.
The stable/garage door is on the right.

Moving, and schooldays

My father, whose career aims had been disrupted by the war, became a Certified Accountant and eventually company secretary of a large fruit importing company based in Central London.

Our new family moved to a house in the City of Leicester for a short time, and then around 1950 to a suburb of Watford, Herts.

I passed my ‘11 plus’ tests and attended Watford Grammar School for Boys.

Myself, age 11

In 1957 our family made its final move, to a nice house in the small town of Burgess Hill, Sussex. Burgess Hill is on the London-to-Brighton railway line, which was convenient for our father who had a one-hour commute to his job in central London, and for Robert and I, who had a ten-mile train commute to attend the Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School for Boys.

17 Park Road in the ‘60s. When I visited in 2000 the paint and Virginia creeper had been stripped prior to repainting.

Playing bridge

My school days were uneventful. I passed the exams. One term at age 16, I came first in my class in both English and maths. My Report Card said I didn’t deserve the maths result. In fact I was not the least interested in maths – but I swotted up the easy formulas used at that level, and simply applied them. I was not attracted to team sports and did not participate. I founded the school Angling Society instead. More about fishing later…

Mum and Dad in the ‘60s

I got my first experiences of overseas travel in this period. About 1956 Dad drove the family through France in our Rover car to Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava, Spain. This was before the days of package air tours. We had some adventures on the way! I also went on a school trip to Paris, and by invitation from my Dutch girl pen friend in Holland, visited my uncle Howard’s gravestone there.

As a lawyer

After leaving school in 1962 I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, to be trained by the articled clerk system. A lawyer in Brighton took me on as a probationer for six months. I found the law to be very dull, with all man-made theories and nothing “real.”

I did not like it at all.

University of Leicester

So I snapped up a place at Leicester University when it was offered. (In those days university education in England was generously funded by the state. Tuition was free, and a grant system, based on one’s parents’ income, provided sufficient money for living expenses. Each place had about twenty applicants competing for it, but we all made about four or five applications. You couldn’t just pay money and attend, except in certain cases).

I graduated with a B.A. Special Degree in the Social Sciences (2^nd Class Hons.). This had involved courses in Geography, Geology, Economic History, Politics, and Social Sciences. As customary in England, it was a three-year course. In my third year I specialised in Geography.

I was Chairman of the Economic History Society, and Secretary of the Conservative Association, in connection with which I went to a couple of conferences and helped at elections. I’m not so sure my politics are quite so right-wing now!

I was also university representative for AISEC, an international student job exchange programme. Companies in other countries offered jobs for our students in exchange for jobs for their students. This position made me a de facto member of the Student’s Union Council.

An aside - Our Student Entertainment Committee was particularly on the ball. They booked up-and-coming groups before they became famous, and one was the Rolling Stones. The Stones honoured their contract even though they by now had two hit records, and appeared at our Saturday night ‘Hop’ one night in Spring 1964, playing on our makeshift 4 foot stage in the cafeteria. Most of us just stood around the stage in awe - including me. I stood about six feet from Mick Jagger. The Beatles were also booked, but found a way to back out of their contract.

I took advantage of AISEC and went as far as I could in Europe – Istanbul, Turkey. Another student signed up for Turkey, and we travelled by special low-fare students’ train across the whole of Europe. The ‘job’ was a nominal office job for one month, but we were paid. My friend left after his month was up, but I stayed for an extra month, looking around Istanbul and its environs.

Turkey was so exotic that it became my ‘favourite country.’ For our graduation dissertation, Geography specialists had to study some aspect of a place, and write a report. Most students wrote about their own home town (although one went to the US), but I went back to Turkey, again c/o AISEC.

After the one month ‘job’ I travelled throughout Turkey with Hassan Tumer, the son of the family we had lodged with the year before. We went by ship along the Black Sea coast, on to the eastern city of Erzerum, and zigzagged back by bus and train, seeing the whole country. Hassan had an aunt who lived in Kirkpinar, an agricultural village near Istanbul, so we went to stay there for a couple of weeks. I investigated the village’s life and economy and wrote my dissertation.

I had financed these trips each year by staying in Leicester for a month to work night shift in a bakery. Official hours were 6 p.m. to 2.30 a.m., but to put in maximum hours I hung around helping the foreman until the day shift arrived at 8:00.

Graduation Day, June 1966

A hitchhike around Europe

After university I had a plan – take a year off and travel around the World. The original idea was to emigrate to Canada first, work and travel there for six months, then across the Pacific to Australia and back home through Asia. My best friend, John Smith, decided to come with me.

We were accepted by Canada Immigration but were told the papers wouldn’t arrive for six weeks, so we decided to spend that time travelling in Europe. In fact the papers came through within a week - before we left - but we still did our trip.

We travelled for two months throughout Europe the way many students did back then, the cheap way - hitchhiking, Youth Hostels, tent, cooking our own food.

We explored many cities, including Antwerp, Brussels, Cologne, Bonn, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich, Saltzburg, Vienna, Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Belgrade, Skopje, Thessalonika, Athens, Corinth. We spent a week resting on the island of Corfu, and then ferried across to Italy, and up through Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan. In Milan we split up – John headed across to Bilbao in Spain where his father was working as a consultant engineer biulding a blast furnace, and I headed home. Finances were tight. I had only thirty shillings ($4.50 at the time) to hitchhike 450 miles to the Ostend Ferry! But I was very lucky to be picked up by a German doctor who was heading to Cologne. He drove me for two days and paid for food and accommodation on the way, so I made it home.

I noticed later in Canada that not many young Canadians were aware of how cheaply Europe could be seen. They thought rented cars and hotels were the way. So I wrote and self-published a booklet Cheapest Europe for Student Travellers. I didn’t promote it much, but some were sold by mail order from ads in student papers, and one university bought ten copies.

To Toronto

John and I sailed to Canada on the S.S. Franconia. It was a stormy voyage. We disembarked in Montreal on 9th November 1966, each with about two hundred pounds in our pockets, and first went to Kingston to look for jobs. We were advised to go to Toronto and were lucky enough to get Christmas sales jobs at Simpsons Department Store. For New Year’s we took a bus to New York to visit a friend of mine from university. His apartment overlooked Central Park.. We met Frederick R. Koch, the art connoisseur, who took us to lunch at the Harvard Club. I kept up a correspondence with Fred for some time, and met him for lunch a couple of times when we were both in London.

It was hard to find good work, but eventually I found a union job as a welder’s helper at $3/hr., and John did commission sales jobs. We each bought a car, and spent the summer exploring Ontario - Niagara Falls, fishing trips - mostly in John’s Volvo.

We hadn’t saved enough to go on to Australia (our plan), but didn’t want to face another cold Ontario winter, so we decided to head for Vancouver.

To Vancouver
We left in October 1967. We didn’t take the direct route across Canada. We took the long way….

Expo 67 was still on, so first we headed east through Ottawa to Montreal and visited Expo. We then turned south through New England to Boston. We by-passed New York because we had already been there, and went on to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C.

When we reached Washington on October 21, we found ourselves amidst 70,000 demonstrators taking part in the first of what was to become huge bi-annual anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. We had no idea it was going to take place, although as we drove towards Washington the atmosphere had seemed very strange and tense. At the Pentagon we saw hippies putting flowers in the guns of the guarding soldiers, and we attended the speech by Dr.Benjamin Spock at the Reflecting Pool. We saw the Washington and Lincoln Memorials, but were disappointed that the Smithsonian Museum was closed and we could only view the White House and the Pentagon from a distance!!

Finally we turned west towards Vancouver, and visited Charleston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita. We were particularly keen to see the old cowboy towns from the movies and comics, so Dodge City was a highlight.

From Salt Lake City we turned northwards to Vancouver, taking the Boise, Spokane route.

We took John’s Volvo car on this trip, since the seats folded down to make a sleeping platform. We slept mostly in the car, using motels occasionally to clean up and rest properly. Our plan was to average 400 miles/day. Having visited a city, we would drive as far as we could towards the next one that evening. Waking early, we would usually arrive at the next city with a day to visit all the sights….then on towards the next.

Vancouver

We arrived in Vancouver in November, and rented an apartment in Kitsilano. It had a view of Kits Beach. We immediately took a liking to Vancouver, for its beauty and scenery. But jobs are hard to find in winter in Vancouver, since many young Canadians migrate there for the warm weather, and this was the ‘60s – the hippie era.

We ran out of money by Christmas. We lived on baked beans and toast with no butter. Our Christmas dinner that year was the nuts and fruit on the table of some girls we visited! We didn’t have a dime for a paper or for a phone call, so a couple of times we walked two miles to the public library and its free newspapers, then begged to use the library phone! No jobs though. We were too proud to write home for money and admit we were failures.

In early January, John had the idea of knocking on doors asking for odd jobs. He went to West Vancouver, a wealthy residential suburb. The first day he swept leaves. Finally we had a way to make money! I went along the second day and we were asked to clean windows. The customer gave us some Windex and paper towels, and we assumed this was how pros cleaned windows. So we bought our own Windex and paper towels and knocked on doors telling people we were window cleaners. We were soon told that pros use ammonia and special brass squeegees, so we bought these. Our initial investment in business was $3.50.

January was hard going with several snowstorms that interrupted our work. Sometimes our water froze on the outsides of the windows before we could squeegee it off! But we soon built up a window cleaning (and later grass-cutting) round, with repeat customers. We regularly made about $4/hour, which was good money in those days (beer was $1.60/case, cigarettes $2.10/carton, gasoline 23c/gallon, 3 course restaurant meal $1 or less, coffee 10c, rent $90/month, nice house $18,000).

At first we did not own a ladder, but relied on the customer having one . If they didn’t have a ladder we canvassed the neighbours for one we could borrow. In April, a customer asked if we could paint his house for $4/hour. We had no idea how to paint a house, so we read books about it. We were far too thorough and slow however, so he fired us. But we started telling our window cleaning customers we were also painters, and successfully painted some houses. We put up our rate to $5/hour.

Every weekend we drove out of town and explored ‘Beautiful B.C.’, particularly its rivers and lakes, since we were both very keen on fishing.

In October a customer offered us jobs as surveyors’ helpers at a proposed new ski resort (Brohm Ridge). We moved to Brackendale (50 miles north of Vancouver). I didn’t like this work, so carried on window cleaning, commuting every day back to West Vancouver.

I wanted to return to England by Christmas, so we advertised our window cleaning business, and sold it for $1000!

John stayed on in Brackendale, and I flew home. John returned in April, looking very sun-tanned.

With John Smith at Vancouver Airport

Back in England

After an interesting sojourn in Canada, it was time to start a career. I thought I would try the travel business, and immediately got a well-paid (Ł2500 p.a.) position as Manager of the Costa Brava Administration Section at Clarksons Holidays, in London.. I had a secretary and eight staff. I commuted to London with Dad for a while, then rented an apartment in Bromley.

Clarksons was a pioneer of package tours to Europe and was growing very rapidly, doubling every year.

One benefit of the job was that if there was an empty seat on a plane, employees could fly free for an ‘inspection visit’. I took advantage of this and made half a dozen trips to different Mediterranean resorts.

For my ‘real holiday’ a friend and I went somewhere Clarksons didn’t go - Morocco. We flew to Gibraltar, ferried to Tangier, visited Rabat, Casablanca, and Fez, and explored the High Atlas Mountains by donkey.

But two years of commuting and sitting in an office in Central London was enough for me. I yearned for the scenery and wide open spaces of British Columbia! I quit Clarksons. (And by coincidence Clarksons went bankrupt soon after. They over-extended themselves by investing in their own fleet of planes, which proved uneconomical).

I went back to Vancouver in spring 1970. John, meanwhile, was living in the Seychelle Islands. His father had some property there and he had gone to inspect it. He liked the Seychelles so he got some kind of office job there and was thinking of settling down.

Drive – New York to British Columbia

Someone had told me about the “Auto Drive-away” system in the US, where one is given a car to deliver to an address, and the only cost to the driver is fuel and oil. I decided to drive across the US again using this system, and it worked.

I flew to New York and was given a Volkswagen to drive to Atlanta. In Atlanta I was given an air-conditioned top-of-the-line Ford Mustang to drive to Portland Oregon! The only condition was that I couldn’t enter Nevada.

I decided to take the southern route - through New Orleans, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco.

I didn’t mind driving on my own. I met people along the way including hitch hikers (less risky then), saw many interesting places (such as the Kennedy assassination site), and had some interesting experiences (such as being invited to a catfish BBQ on the Mississippi).

I dropped the car off in Portland, and caught a bus to Vancouver.

Back in Vancouver

I had to make an income while looking for a career, so contacted some of our old painting customers to say that I was back, and started painting again.

I checked out the travel business, but found it undeveloped at that time in Vancouver – just lots of small travel bureaux. A customer/friend was a big wheel in insurance, and offered to get me into that, but it sounded boring so I didn’t follow up.

When John heard I was back in Vancouver he decided the Seychelles were not perhaps for him, and decided to return to Vancouver too. He arrived a couple of months later and we were business partners again. After a few months he brought his girlfriend Susan over from England. They decided to move to Victoria, a beautiful city on Vancouver Island, in Spring 1971. They were married in Victoria on 29 April 1972, and I was Best Man.

At some point in this period I thought that Australia might be a better bet, so I actually bought a plane ticket there. I had arranged a week’s stopover in Hawaii and during that time I chickened out, cashed in my ticket, and went back to Vancouver! At least I saw Hawaii.

Work

So John Smith and I had been partners again for about a year, advertising ourselves as ‘student painters’. We were self-taught and learned all the tricks of the trade from scratch, since neither of us had ever worked for another painter. Business was good, and we were earning more money than any of our friends who had regular jobs.

After John left for Victoria I took on an assistant and began to build up my own business. Eventually I had about eight employees in summer, and less in winter. It was not a high prestige business to be in, but one way or another it suited me:

- I was the absolute boss, inspectors or anyone else to report to.

- We worked outside in the summer and inside in the winter.

- I did not have to wear a suit or go to the same office or shop every day – we moved around to different locations constantly.

- I was free to arrange my time however I liked (for a while I tried a 4 day week). I was not committed to regular hours. I could take holidays or days off whenever I wished. (I took four to six weeeks off at Christmas time in order to travel). I could switch my company’s long weekends to a different date when the weather was better or the roads would not be so crowded.

- It was a challenge to organise jobs in the most efficient way.

- I enjoyed meeting the customers, and advising them about colours and design.

- I enjoyed relating to my employees. I paid them generously and reliably, so I got the best and they remained loyal. Many of them stayed with me for years at a stretch..

- Overhead was low, and there were lots of tax write-offs (office in home, storage, vehicles, etc.)

I did it just for the money, so that I could pursue my many other interests. The money was good, steady, and quite adequate for my needs. My policy was to charge for labour double what it cost me. So minus some expenses, my income in summer was the equivalent of the total of the wages of up to seven skilled tradesmen, and in the less busy winter season, that of two or three, plus the work I did myself at full rates. I had no office or secretary to pay for, and recently calculated that recently my fixed overhead (generously calculated for tax purposes) was only $840/month – less than a day’s work..

I didn’t make a quick fortune, or attempt to. Naturally I sometimes thought I should be doing something else and had a few ideas over the years, but nothing I considered seemed so good, or it would have required more commitment than I wanted to give.

We did not do new construction, with all its mess and dirt (and interfering builders, architects and designers) but concentrated on high quality residential and some commercial work, dealing directly with the clients. We worked entirely on the prosperous North Shore of Vancouver and met lots of interesting people – entertainers, TV and radio personalities, hockey and football players, authors, well-known businessmen, and others not so famous but still interesting in their own right.

We did a few commercial contracts. We were the painters of choice for the City of North Vancouver, and painted City Hall, the Library, the Police Station, the Fire Hall, the Museum, the Social Centre, the Works Yard, and other buildings they owned.

An interesting job was the very ornate interior of the Freemason’s Lodge, a four storey building built in the ‘20s and not much changed since then. A few secrets in there – hidden strings that make things move, boxes with skeletons……

I would like to thank the following employees in particular, for their long service and good work: Derek B., Scott B., Dan C., Clayton C., Paul F., Chad K., Steve L., Chris P., Jim M., Dan P., Norm R., Orville S., Dan S., Jeff S., and most especially Clint M., who has taken over the business, with help from his wife Tammie. Tammie has helped me with my medical care, I don’t know what I would do without her

Company golf tournament, 1999

Company golf tournament, 2000

Deaths of Parents

My mother died, after battling breast cancer, on 10 August 1970.
Father died, of a brain hemorrhage, on 20 May 1972.

Hobbies and Interests

Angling

I still vividly remember the exact moment I became infatuated with fish! I must have been about five or six years old. I was walking with my parents along the banks of the River Gade in Cassiobury Park Watford, and we stopped to watch an angler. He caught a fish – a little perch about four or five inches long. As it wriggled on his line and then flopped on the grass I thought how beautiful it was. I had no idea that such iridescent jewels were hidden in those murky waters, and wanted to see more.

I did see more. From the age of about eight I went fishing whenever I got the chance, either with friends or on my own. (Things were simpler then). Grandfather Gale had been an angler, and I inherited all his tackle, which was of the highest quality – split cane rods and Hardy reels.

Grandfather Gale with a large pike

At school, Wednesday afternoons were reserved for playing sports, but I went fishing in our local rivers and lakes or from the West Pier at Brighton, with friends or by myself. From the age of sixteen I owned a two-seater 49cc moped, so could comfortably range within about 10 miles from home, often with a friend. Local fish were all coarse fish, so they were all returned alive.

Two of my fishing friends at school, Michael Trosh and M.J. (“Midge”) Brooks

My ‘art’ at school tended to be mostly about fish. I made and painted some plaster casts of fish (which I bought from the fishmonger).

I had an aquarium in my bedroom, in which I kept and observed some fish I caught, including once, a little 8” pike.

I founded an Angling Society at my school in Brighton, and arranged saltwater outings on our piers and breakwaters, and had competitions with prizes. We once rented a fishing boat to try some off-shore fishing.

School Angling Society outing, July 1963

I joined the Burgess Hill Angling Society, which had fishing rights to certain waters and went on Sunday coach outings to other clubs’ waters. I was junior representative on the Committee and wrote the minutes for them, and went on most of their outings.

Heading to a club outing, 1960

When our family went on holiday to seaside resorts I made sure I took my rods, and fished from piers or rented boats.

I took my little brother fishing on my moped.

My friend John Smith was also a keen angler. His family came from the fly-fishing fraternity. His father once invested Ł10,000 for the fishing rights to 3 miles of the Wye River, a famous salmon stream. (He hired keepers and agents who sold day tickets to rich people who wanted to pay hundreds of pounds to catch a salmon). That investment would be worth much more now. We took camping holidays to Dartmoor, where we fly-fished.

Fishing in B.C.

John and I of course fished when we were in Ontario, and I particularly remember the good carp fishing.

But of the main reasons John and I were attracted to British Columbia was its reputation for fishing, and that was our main recreation while we were together there. At every opportunity we took off and explored the province’s rivers, lakes and salt waters.

Coho from Cowichan Bay

We tried fly-fishing for rainbow and cutthroat trout in the rivers, renting boats in the lakes, and ‘mooching’ for salmon in the salt waters.

But our favourite place to fish became the Cowichan River at Duncan on Vancouver Island. It is considered one of the finest rivers in B.C. It flows from a weir at Lake Cowichan into the sea at Cowichan Bay, and there are about 20 miles of fishable waters. As well as rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, steelhead, chinook and coho salmon, it contains a stock of brown trout, which were introduced about a century ago.

Fly fishing the Cowichan River

The brown trout were what we were after. We bought a rubber boat and drifted the very scenic upper part of the river down to Skutz Falls. Fly fishing only, we would catch lots of rainbow trout and usually two or three large brown trout of three to four pounds. The largest brown trout I caught weighed over 8 lbs. We camped beside the river. They were most enjoyable weekends.

Brown trout Coho salmon

But after John moved to Victoria I needed some new fishing friends, so I joined the North Shore Fish and Game Club. The club held entertainment meetings each month, and arranged outings and competitions, mostly saltwater, which I attended.

A North Shore Fish & Game Club outing

I became secretary of the club, and also wrote the newsletter. I dropped out of the club in the early ‘80s, partly because of their attitude against gun control. I am against hunting – I think animals should be able to live their lives in peace.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s I became interested in the history of angling, and amassed a substantial collection of old fishing tackle. I had old rods and reels hanging on my stairway wall, reels on display on shelves, and lots more tucked away.

In later years I restricted my sport fishing almost entirely to the Cowichan River, and took the ferry over there four or five times each season, at first with John and later with other friends. Kevin M. has been a regular companion in recent years. I taught him how to make fishing flies.

With rainbow trout. Kevin M.

Later, in connection with my ponds and aquariums I was interested in the non-sports fish and water plants in our rivers and streams. I always kept a dip net in my car and would often stop to investigate interesting waters.

Mountaineering

John and I were exploring the rocky canyon on the Cowichan River below Skutz Falls and had to negotiate an almost perpendicular rock wall with some technical climbing difficulties. We just made it, but I thought perhaps some training in rock climbing might be advisable in case we were trapped in future. So in 1975 I signed up for a mountaineering course, having no idea what it would lead to.

It led to a major new interest that occupied me until about 1981, when I was no longer able to keep up with the younger guys.

The mountaineering course was taught by Milan J. It encompassed both rock climbing and Alpine climbing. Culmination of the course was a successful ascent of Mount Baker, a 10,778 ft. ice-clad semi-active volcano in Washington State. We had to use crampons and ropes to negotiate the cliffs and crevasses on the way up.

On the peak of Mount Baker

Milan arranged another, week long, trip to the Tantalus Range. We climbed Mount Alpha but were turned back from our attempt at Mount Tantalus, due to foggy weather.

I joined the Alpine Club of Canada and participated in, and led, some of their trips.

The most ambitious expedition I took part in was an Alpine Club attempt on Mount Waddington, at 13,186 ft. the highest peak in the Coast Range of B.C. We flew into a lake and hiked up to base camp. Meanwhile food and supplies had been dropped by air for us onto the slopes of the mountain. But were foiled again, due to bad weather. Even when we got back to the lake, we had to wait four days before the float planes could land and pick us up.

One summer two friends and I went to Jasper, hoping to climb Mount Robson, at 12,972 ft. the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies. Yet again we were foiled by bad weather, but were able to ascend Mt. Edith Cavell (11,032 ft.). We decided to head south to Banff and the Bugaboo Range. The weather was bright and sunny there, and we had a wonderful week exploring this spectacular mountain range.

I did do lots of successful day, weekend, or long weekend ascents of local mountains. In fact I can drive along most of our roads and highways and point out that I’ve climbed most of the mountains in view. I went mountaineering almost every good weather weekend when I wasn’t fishing. When up a mountain looking down at a river I wished I was down there – and when on a river looking up at the mountains I wished I was up there!

Regular companions were John H. and his friend John O., two young hikers whom I introduced to mountaineering. John Howe developed his interests and went on to write about climbing, and is now head of Mountain Search and Rescue for Squamish. He owns a forestry consulting company there. I was touched when, visiting me because of my illness, he brought a framed photo of three of us atop a peak, which he keeps on his desk to this day.

John H., John O. and me on top of Welch Peak.
Photo by Danny W., John keeps it on his desk at work to this day.

Rapelling Peak of Mount Frosty

Skiing
Skiing was naturally my winter sport, and I skied at every opportunity during the ‘70s and ‘80s. I never had a season ticket at a resort, preferring to go to different ones each time. I skied every resort in B.C., Washington State, and Banff and Jasper, taking many weekend or week-long trips with friends. I preferred to ski off the runs in the powder snow and explore as much as possible.

I also did ski-mountaineering – climbing mountains uphill on special short skis with hinged boot bindings and removable ‘skins.’ This involved some overnight trips, staying in Alpine Club cabins in the mountains.

I did a course in Nordic skiing, but did not really take to it.

One winter John H., John O. and I wanted to be at the top of a mountain for New Year’s Day. We were to drive to a lake and from there climb the mountain - a three day trip in all. But there had been recent heavy snowfalls and the road that passed by the lake was not ploughed. (That road has since been paved and would be ploughed daily now). My 4WD Jeep, even with chains, got bogged down. It took us a whole day to hike to the lake. We found the snow on the trail up the mountain was too deep and soft, so we had to abandon the climb. We camped by the lake for two nights in sub-zero weather and explored the nearby surroundings.

Photography

Photography has been a major interest. I saved up while at university to buy a quality camera – a Voigtlander. It served me well for many years. I took mostly slides.

Unfortunately all my early slides were lost. When I moved back to Canada I left a trunk of possessions with my brother Robert and they were stolen from his flat in London.

I later bought a better quality Canon camera with a full set of lenses.

In the ‘70s I took up Super 8 movie making. I filmed most of my mountain climbing and other trips, and spent hours editing the films and taping sound tracks that played in conjunction with them. I showed the films at Alpine Club and Fishing Club meetings.

Super 8 became outdated with the coming of video cassette recorders. I started with 8 mm but changed to the better quality 16 mm cassettes. I like to show friends the films, and in fact my video camera was the only camera I took on many trips, so I still don’t have still photos

When digital photography came along and I had a computer, I bought a digital camera and immediately loved it. ‘Film’ cost nothing so I could take as many photos as I liked. Photos could be edited on the computer, and could be printed out whenever required.

I gave away all my SLR equipment to my friends in India.

Houses

829 Ridgeway Avenue.
I bought my first house, on Ridgeway Avenue North Vancouver, in 1976.

829 Ridgeway Avenue, with my 2^nd Jeep, a Jeep Commando

It was a wooden-frame house built in 1915, and rather run-down. With the help of friends, sometimes paid and sometimes not, I completely remodelled it by stripping all the later modifications and starting afresh. We re-did the electrical, the plumbing, the kitchen and bathrooms, the roof, the fireplace, sanded the pine floors, and built new cupboards. Luckily most of the original 1915 doors, windows and trim were still in place, so these were carefully refinished in gloss paint.

At that time I was a fan of 1960s/70s modern pop art style of decorating, and had lots of books on the subject. There were no ‘off-white’ rooms in my house.

The living room was wallpapered in a brown/black paper, and the furniture was modern. Part of my brass fishing reel collection can be seen on the glass shelves in the corner.

Hanging the wallpaper

My bedroom had gloss black walls, with a white circle on the ceiling, two white rectangles on one wall (seen here), and two white triangles behind the bed (a waterbed).

The bathroom was a mess when I worked on it, but turned out quite well.

The kitchen door was plain, so I painted a ‘window’ on it.

The most spectacular room was the spare bedroom, or “Whaam room.” one wall was covered with a mural - a copy of a famous Roy Liechtenstein pop art painting. The yellow and red were done with fluorescent paint, and the room was lit with a black light. The ceiling was wallpapered with a tin roof texture, and painted with aluminium paint. The rest of the room was blue, with no pictures or ornaments. All my visitors wanted to go upstairs and look at this room.

The Whaam mural was inspired by this one of cave paintings I painted on my bedroom wall when I was 16.

The basement was a challenge. Previous owners had never used it. The house still rested on its original 12” x 12” wooden posts, with no concrete foundation. The floor was gravel. I had a foundation laid and built a recreation room, with a bar, pool table, dartboard, and pinball machines. It was like a small pub, and friends would be there almost every evening. I don’t have any photos of it.

I landscaped the garden, of which the main feature was a large fishpond and rock garden.

The house was featured as the ‘Sunday Feature Home’ in our local newspaper, because it was so unusual. Seen here are: house from back with pond, living room, “Whaam room,” rec. room with pinball machines, fishpond.

Emerald Drive:
House prices boomed in the late ‘70s. Then in 1981 there was a crash. This was good for me, since the price difference between my house and more expensive ones was also dropping. I decided to move upwards, and initially listed my house at $150,000. I eventually sold it for $98,000 and bought one in a nicer area of town for $125,000.

Emerald Drive - front door and deck

It was a beautiful house; a ‘Panabode.’ Panabodes are essentially kit houses made of cedar logs, which are shaped to fit together. They are intended to be assembled as recreational cabins or other buildings in places where conventional construction is not applicable. Kits can be flown to remote islands or camps. There are not many in Vancouver, although on the North Shore as well as houses there is a church and a golf club house in Panabode style.

The walls were solid 4” cedar, with no drywall or insulation required. Ceilings, doors and windows were all wood. Nothing was painted. I was living in a log cabin!

The house was beside a stream and the grounds nicely landscaped.

None of my furniture from the old house fit the log cabin style, so I became interested in Canadian antiques (more later).

The basement was unfinished, so I built a new recreation room, where I also did lots of entertaining.

Lynn Valley Road:

I liked Emerald Drive, but a break-in and other incidents put me off living alone. I decided to buy a house with a self-contained rental suite. I did not need the rental income, but wanted tenants for security and as watchdogs.

On impulse I bought an unusual modern house. It stood on two blocks joined together by a glassed-in bridge that crossed a 15ft fast-flowing stream. It had an elevator and a shiny chrome and leather bar room.

It was impressive, but I soon realised that this was not to my taste.

So I looked again, and found a house on a bank of the Seymour River, where I had long hoped to live. My offer was accepted and I prepared to move, but at the last minute the vendors changed their minds and tried to back out of the sale. My lawyer made a technical mistake, and I lost the case in Appeals Court. (The case is considered a test case, which realtors-in-training have to learn).

Due to this I was in limbo for two years, living in a rental house. Eventually the Law Society gave me $93,000 for malpractice, and I could house-hunt again.

Capilano Road:

It was March 1991. I had found another Panabode, and moved in. I was back in a log cabin. I have lived happily there ever since.

4342 Capilano Road

Fish pond in Spring.....and at the other end of the garden a rustic shed that I had custom built.

Over the years I have landscaped the garden, built a fishpond, paved the patios, rebuilt the garage, added a large custom-built wooden shed (complete with power, telephone and cable – it could be used as a summer office), re-done the deck, added normal and video security systems, added a bathroom downstairs by dividing up the laundry/utility room, and renovated the inside.

My tenant idea worked. The house has a two-bedroom self-contained rental suite, and I have had mostly good tenants. A ten-year resident was Andrew Watson, who has since moved to Edmonton where he is getting married and saving up for his own house. Other especially good long-term tenants include Stephen R. and Chad K.

I did not really need the rental income, so made it a reasonable price and did not collect it too rigorously. The suite is a good income-tax write-off and helps pay for itself that way. I helped a number of young men who were struggling to get a start in life.

The tenants were always available to help around the house and garden. I have not had to mow my lawn or rake leaves since!

Indoor recreation

I had a separate rec. room in each house except the present. They had a bar, pool table, dartboard, and pinball machines. Friends came to drink beer, play games and listen to records. I now have much the same set-up in my living room, which is quite large.

We would also play board games and card games. Those were the days of Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly and Risk.

I used to buy two new albums every Friday and amassed a collection of them. My favourites were, and are, Pink Floyd and Supertramp.

Pinball

I bought a modern pinball machine for my first rec. room, and then picked an ‘antique’ one from the 1950s. That sparked an interest in the history of pinball and other games, and I started to collect and research them. At one time I had four pinballs from the early 1930s, a 1937 Bally “Bumper”, two 1950s ‘Bingo’gambling pinballs, as well as the original two and some other arcade games.

I corresponded with foremost authority Dick Bueschel of Chicago, who wrote a book: Pinball 1: Illustrated Historical Guide to Pinball Machines. 1988. Hoflin Publishing.

There are several photos of my machines in this book, and I am thanked in the Preface.

The North Vancouver museum once had a special exhibition of arcade games, and I lent them some of my collection.

1931 "Whiz Bang&