Going to Vancouver in 1936 – riding the
rails, moving horses, making telephone poles, stacking wood for food outside
the bakery, sleeping alongside hobos.
1939 returning to Walsh to work in the
munitions plant, arranged by his father so he could avoid going overseas to
join his brothers. He belonged to the
Home Guard.
He tells a funny story about going to a
meeting of the Home Guard and his hat.
He was living with his sister, Sue and her husband, Boulter. above the
tinsmith’s shop. He had a uniform and
liked to polish the badge on his hat because it was “important”. To steady it while polishing, he put a table
fork underneath it. One night, he was
leaving for his duty and glanced at this reflection in the tinsmith’s darkened
window, probably to check his jaunty uniform.
That was when he noticed the fork – still stuck in his hat!
He first told me this story in June 2010
after I told him about going to his bank to pay the bills and realizing later
that I had roller in my hair!
So motors and war, they sealed Dad’s
fate. He joined the Navy in 1942,
escaping his father’s thoughtful plan to keep him out of trouble. HMCS Discovery on Deadman’s Island in
Vancouver was his place of enrolment.
Then diesel mechanic training back east and then on to the Royal Navy
and the adventure with the landing craft industry.
Next came the story of crossing the
Atlantic in one of those flat crafts, because they wanted to test the
possibility to save time! Up until then,
the parts were shipped and they were assembled closer to the war theatre. Amazingly, they survived the Atlantic
perils.
And the on again, off again romance with
Clare Borth, who by now was working by day in the Department of Defence in
Ottawa, and dancing at night with the prairie boys who were getting ready to go over seas. She wrote letters. She expected some back. That didn’t happen. But I found some poems written by Dad. I don’t think he wants me to put them out in
public but he was clearly smitten and determined.
~ Dianne
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