Charlie B
Conversations with Students
I once listed a few of the conversations with students and came across it years later. Some of them are kind of funny but often were a...
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Charlie B
May 21, 202013 min read
The Return of the Wanderers
We landed back on the Coast in late November 1960 and spent Christmas with Joan’s parents Harry and Linda Fisher in Victoria. I had...
Charlie B
May 13, 202012 min read
Britain and Beyond
Graduating with an MD in 1958, interning at Vancouver General Hospital in 1958-59, and completing a Resident year at Shaughnessy Hospital...
Charlie B
May 9, 202011 min read
The Role of the Dice
Old age sneaks up on you. Who is old ? Not me. It’s that old guy next door wobbling down the hall on his walker. It’s the old lady...
Charlie B
May 2, 202011 min read
The Big Fish: January 1970
“Look Woody. Anyone who would want to go fishing in January in the middle of a blizzard in an open boat has to be nuts. Besides I planned...
Charlie B
Apr 28, 202011 min read
Scrum Down: 1947-1953
As a prairie kid I had never heard of English rugby until I moved to Victoria from Alberta in the fall of 1944 and attended Mount View...
Charlie B
Apr 24, 202011 min read
The Helicopter Kid: Surveying 1951
In the spring of 1951 after my mediocre two years at Victoria College, at the urging of a couple of friends I joined a Provincial...
Charlie B
Apr 20, 202010 min read
Adventures of a Bamfield Doctor
I returned to Bamfield in the 1990s as a tourist years after my commercial fishing. When the children were small, as a family we spent...
Charlie B
Apr 18, 20203 min read
Bamfield
It was decided that Dick and Noreen would live in Bamfield which was close to the fishing grounds. It had a store and repair services...
Charlie B
Apr 18, 20204 min read
Fishing at Sea 1947-1956
In the decade or so that the Jean B was fished by brother Dick he targeted mainly salmon but when a tuna run developed after the war,...
Charlie B
Apr 18, 20203 min read
Summers in Bamfield
Bamfield was still the centre of operations. Access was only by boat or the occasional plane. There was no road until, I think the mid...
Charlie B
Apr 16, 20205 min read
The Jean B
The resettling of the family in Victoria BC in 1944 was more or less completed in the spring of 1945. Dad became thinner and more sickly....
Charlie B
Apr 14, 20203 min read
Senior Years at Mount View
I was an indifferent high school student. Getting good marks was not tolerated by the guys and would label you as a “suck hole”. So...
Charlie B
Apr 14, 20204 min read
High School inVictoria
My mother, father and I arrived in Victoria to 3493 Lovat Ave around Thanksgiving. The small bungalow was brand spanking new and sat on a...
Charlie B
Apr 9, 20202 min read
Last Vignettes on the Farm Years
From the time of my birth until I started school in grade one I was called “Junior” named after my dad, Alexander - as in Alex junior.
Charlie B
Apr 8, 20203 min read
The Farm House
On any prairie farm the nerve centre is the farmhouse. On our Vauxhall farm this was certainly the case. It was a source of warmth and...
Charlie B
Apr 7, 20204 min read
The Vauxhall Farm: 1920-1944
The Vauxhall farm was born in the early 1920s when my folks moved from the unirrigated Saskatchewan homestead to irrigated land seven...
Charlie B
Apr 5, 20202 min read
Homesteading: The Loverna Years
The details of early days at Loverna, Saskatchewan are a bit sketchy for me. However there are several detailed descriptions by Alberta...
Charlie B
Apr 5, 20202 min read
Ola Muriel Brumwell (neé Mulligan): 1894-1974
My mother Ola was born in Omemee, Ontario near Peterborough to George Mulligan and Effie Maude (nee Turner). George was said to have been...
Charlie B
Apr 3, 20202 min read
Cancer
My dad was a chain smoker. He rolled his own. One large green can of Ogden’s fine cut per week. He rarely had a cigarette out of his...
Charlie B
Apr 3, 20202 min read
Tragedy 1942
Early in the war the government in consultation with our Allies established the Commonwealth Air Training Program designed to train...
Charlie B
Apr 2, 20204 min read
Farm War: 1939-1943
On September first Hitlers Germany invaded Poland, and Britain immediately gave Hitler an ultimatum which expired the same day and war...
Charlie B
Apr 1, 20203 min read
The Countdown: 1936-1939
We younger kids were very little affected and unaware of the events in Germany leading up to the outbreak of WWII . Maybe my parents knew bu
Charlie B
Mar 30, 20202 min read
The Pit Toilet
Another outhouse calamity happened when a small “wiener” pig who had the run of the yard decided to explore inside the outhouse.
Charlie B
Mar 30, 20204 min read
One Room School House
Grade two close your scribblers and open your story books. Grade three close your books, open your scribblers and pay attention to the blac
Charlie B
Mar 30, 20202 min read
Fishing & Hunting
The lived in a sod hut the first winter until the house was finished.
Charlie B
Mar 30, 20203 min read
The Farm
We kids all had farm duties. My first job at age four was gathering eggs. It took a fair amount of courage to retrieve a warm egg out from u
Charlie B
Mar 30, 20202 min read
“I kept me ‘ead down, me mouth shut and I didn’t volunteer for nuthin”
“I kept me ‘ead down, me mouth shut and I didn’t volunteer for nuthin”
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