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 chirping nonsense to anyone who wants to listen. It’s the glum old guy that eats alone, never smiles, never converses with anyone even when approached. No, that’s not me. That’s those “old” people. Attributed to Charles DeGaul is the statement that “ old age is a shipwreck”. I was not much of an admirer of him, particularly as related in Churchill’s memoirs of his behaviour and statements while being given sanctuary in Britain after France was over run by Hitler in 1940. Actually, if he said it, it’s a very good analogy. As an aside, his other relatively sensible statement said to be from him when he became post war President of France facing all the turmoil was “ how can you govern a country with 600 different cheeses." A glimmer of humour !

Exploring the shipwreck concept, some ships hit rocks and go down in minutes with no hope of rescue. Others develop a slow initially hidden leak which gradually fills the ship until is slips between the waves in spite of all efforts to plug the hole or keep up with the rising water with pumps. No lifeboats available for rescue. Thus old age life and the ship slip away, with sadness and mourning. On a more positive note I have speculated on the role of how luck, chance, circumstance plays a big part in many lives. In mine it played large many times and in many ways.

Consider. I was born in December 1931, the worst month of the worst year of the Great Depression. My parents were struggling on their farm in southern Alberta with their four young kids. Catastrophe struck in 1929 when one of their cherished daughters Jessie age 4 or so suddenly died of meningitis. My mother was inconsolable. She went to see her doctor, pioneer doctor Gershaw in Medicine Hat lamenting that whatever could she do ? He said “go home and have another baby." But, she said” doctor I’m forty." Do it anyway he is said to have replied.

Sisters Jessie and Jean.

Instead of a replacement cute little girl, they got me. A monster sized guy almost 13 pounds Partly as a result it was claimed that she believed she had to eat for two and gained a enormous amount of weight during her pregnancy. If Jessie hadn’t died I doubt that I would be here. Reverse luck ? The roll of the dice. In 1942 or so on the farm my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. As a result he faced the inevitable. He decided to sell the farm and move the family to Victoria in 1944 when my life changed completely. He died in 1946 or 1947. If I had remained on the farm I very much doubt that I would have had the opportunity to live a similar life to Victoria or attend post secondary education. Fate? Roll of the dice. In spite of a very mediocre high school academic performance and not much money I was able to enter Victoria College. Work on brother Dick’s fishing boat provided a big part of the money to be able to do so. In later times with the greater competition for university spots there is no way that I would have been accepted. However as bad as my marks were I could still get in . The attitude of the College was that anyone who could graduate from high school would be accepted. This opportunity was a windfall. This experience was a wonderful transition rom high school to higher academia. As old time comedian, Jack Benny ,said lamenting about the demise of vaudeville , that it gave young people somewhere to be bad before they became good. In retrospect that was certainly the role of Vic College for me . In first year I took an elective- psychology 100-and as part of the course the prof had us undergo a written IQ test to demonstrate the concept. I found it very easy and I sailed through the task of spotting number sequences, interpreting and unscrambling sentences etc and completed it well before the three hour designated time for it.

I handed it in and departed. Later each student was interviewed one on one to go over the test and discuss any implications. The prof seemed to be reacting to something when I sat down He looked up and asked if realized that the test was designed not to be finished in the allotted time and he hadn’t had anyone complete it, especially early and I was exceptional. I wondered if he had the wrong guy. He asked what my academic aim was and I said that I had some thoughts about medicine but I wasn’t sure that I could handle the heavy course. He looked at me carefully and said “ you can be successful in any field that you chose”. A revelation. A confidence builder. I always thought that I was a bit dumb. A real aspirational game changer. Maybe Medicine was not out of the question after all. Roll of the dice.

My write-up in the Vic College Yearbook, 1951.

Meeting future wife Joan in high school. She was a bright energetic very smart gal who was a good athlete- no one could beat her in the sprints and broad jump. No one could catch her running down the wing on the field hockey team. She worked as a server in the family fish and chip shop on weekends. She used to tease me that I was attracted to her because she smelled like a potato chip. For school competition the students were divided into “ houses” depending on your birthday ie: January was Cascade, February was Olympic and March was Selkirk and repeat. All names were mountain ranges. Joan was March, I was December, therefore we were both Selkirks. I was house captain and she was the go to gal arranging events etc. We had a lot of laughs and I started to take her to school dances which must have been a trial for her considering my dancing skills. She never complained. She was a year behind me and attended Vic College the year after me and then UBC where she took a degree in nursing. So we continued to see each other through those times and of course married in 1959 and had three great kids. Meeting by circumstance Roll of the dice.

Joan and I at my high school graduation

Joan at Gordon Head, Victoria

When I was attending UBC I was playing rugby and generally drifting along in mediocrity as far as my studies went. One afternoon I hitched a ride out Marine drive on my way to my sisters and a small portly older man with a stutter who was a prof of some kind picked me up. He reminded me of the 1930s cartoon character “Porky Pig.” He asked me about courses and school and I told him that I wasn’t doing that well . He then said that he was in a similar position In his earlier university career but he turned things around and was awarded the Governor Generals medal for highest standing in his grad class. He attributed this turn round to his discovery of the SECRET. I was all ears. There was an answer. So I blurted out “ so what was the secret”. He looked at me and with his stutter said “ c-c-c- copious a-m-m-m amounts of hard work”. Oh that, I thought. Later I began to think about it and damned if he wasn’t right. Sort of a game or attitude changer. It worked. Roll of the dice. Thanks Porky. There are a number of other significant life changes that occurred by by chance or fluke. My entry into medical school in the fall of 1954 was a good example. When I finished my undergraduate degree in the spring of 1954 I went to work for the Federal Fisheries Research lab at 898 Richards St in downtown Vancouver. I worked with Bob McLeod a biochemist on research projects related to the fishing industry. My project was to investigate whether herring products could be used for for fattening cattle as the dried meal was very high in fat and protein. Herring were in profusion up and down the Coast and easily collected by seine boats by the hundreds of tons so there was interest in finding more uses for them. So I was submerged in test tubes etc. Initially it was interesting but after a while it became unchallenging and even boring. Later they did a cattle feeding test with the herring meal and- eureka- there resulted some wonderfully big well nourished animals. Their meat and milk all smelled and tasted like a herring. Back to the drawing board.

Posing at my sister Jean's, where I lived up until my acceptance to medicine.

I had long harboured an urge to go to medical school. Competition was very stiff. The UBC medical school had inducted its first class in the fall of 1950 and they graduated in the spring of 1954. I figured that I would tough out the fisheries job and maybe do the Mcats next winter and apply to the class entering in the fall of 1955. Fate intervened. One day in late August at work I ran into Al Patterson that I took some grad courses with. He was visiting Bob McLeod and I remember I ran into him on the stairs. His boss Marvin Darroch was vice dean of medicine The Dean was away with a prolonged illness. Their office was in chaos trying to get the new entering class settled with Darroch doing two jobs and Al as his assistant was dragged into it to help.

So after a chat I remarked that I had this med school plan. He looked at me kind of funny and then said “ would there be any chance that you could go into this class starting next week ?” I was speechless. The story unfolded that one of the new class members coming from Australia was denied entrance to the country for some reason. So here the med school office was faced with dropping everything to search through the waiting list etc. for a replacement. I was well known in biochemistry and microbiology UBC programs and my thesis advisor was a colleague of Darroch. I guess they thought they could take a chance. Roll of the dice ++ The scramble was on. I was staying in my sister Jean’s basement. Emotional parting from Bob as he was such a nice guy and I was leaving on such short notice. Borrowed money for first term fees from sister- $ 200 - call to mother- letter to Joan working in Kelowna as a Public Health nurse - shock all around. It was Labour day weekend and the first lecture was set for the following Tuesday at 1:30 pm. At 9 am Tuesday I was in the Faculty of Medicine office filling out forms and being interviewed by Darroch. Whew !! Just time for some lunch at the old bus stop coffee shop just next door.

As I munched away with my mind swimming who but a friend from rugby sat down beside me and we had a pleasant chat. After lunch he looked at his watch , stood up and said that he was on his way to his first medical school lecture. I had said nothing about my plans. I asked where it was held and he pointed at the large white hut next door. The devil made me do it. I’m going that way sez I so we departed together. He kept on trying to say goodbye but I stuck with him right up the steps into the lecture room and sat down much to his gathering confusion. I said nothing. The anatomy prof appeared lordly and regal, scanned the class and looked at a class list and suddenly called my name. I responded and the lecture proceeded. My friend said afterward that I was the only first year med student whose name was written in pencil on the bottom of the class list. I was in. Another roll of the dice !!

3rd-year clinical group in orthopedics: Bud Burgoyne, me, Jeff Burton, Ashley Copland, Eugene Chan, Warren Cunningham

Medical school was characterized by a tidal wave of information the engulfed me starting with the first lecture . The pace was terrific. Lectures and labs all day including Saturday morning. Evenings were devoted to reorganizing an absorbing notes from the day. You couldn’t put it off to later as tomorrow night you had that days stuff to deal with. No time to take a day off or even go to a movie. There were sixty in the class. By Christmas we were down a half a dozen people. When we graduated in may 1958 we were forty seven. This grind improved a bit in third year when we moved to the hospitals for small group clinical teaching. Here I hit my stride.

Mid way through first year I came to know George. He was a very bright guy who had a talent for organizing and boiling down information. We began to do review sessions together. It was a revelation to me as we covered the material much quicker by dividing a subject, organizing it and then presenting it to each other. I was boarding with the Hunsleys at the university gates in a small bedroom upstairs under the eves George and I developed a system. George lived with his parents in a ranch style home at 32nd and Cambie. He had a beautiful study in his basement which he never used. He studied leaning against a pillow on his bed.

I would get back from classes and have dinner at Hunsleys, then jump into my old Morris Minor and drive over to George’s, me in his basement, he upstairs. We would divide the current topic in two eg. the thyroid gland. He would go over the gross and microscopic anatomy. I would concentrate on the physiology , biochemistry and clinical aspects. About 9:30 we would get together, he to cover his area and me mine out loud with questions. At about 10:45 we would jump into his Ford Meteor and roar down to get the last call for a beer in the Georgia Hotel beer parlour before it closed.We always parked in the Archbishops spot next door to the Pub behind the church. We followed this method right through medical school. We both did well exam wise. Meeting George ? Roll of the dice.

I was awarded a number of bursaries and prizes which helped with the finances. In third year I was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha, the International honour medical society, one of three in third year and presented with an engraved gold key similar to the Phi Beta Kappa society one. I won the paediatric medal and graduated third in the class. C-c-c-c copious amount of hard work, George and the sudden opportunity all paid off. Dice again ? Maybe. Thanks again Porky.

My graduation from medical school in 1958.

The years rolled by and there were many minor examples of how fate and chance occurred, mainly in my favour.Sometimes the dice rolled “snake eyes” but we survive them. I retired from full and later part time practice in the first decade of the 2000’s. Joan and I bought a big old house on Wiltshire street in 1962 which we loved and where we raised our family. We looked at a lot of places before we chose this one. A Victoria real estate guy known to Joan’s parents had chosen the poorest time to relocate to Vancouver. The real estate was in the doldrums. He took us on with a vengeance and showed us a number of multiple listed places which we didn’t like.

He was so desperate for a sale that he actually took Joan grocery shopping and wheeled baby Anne around in the shopping cart !! Somehow he heard of one at 5888 Wiltshire which was listed six months previously and didn’t sell so it was taken off the market and not listed again. We drove by and it looked interesting for a number of reasons. Years later we were told that the number 8 was a lucky number in the Asian community. Somehow on bended knee our guy convinced the elderly lady and dour daughter allow us to tour the house and we decided that it was for us. A bit of negotiating and we got it at a very good price, thanks to a $ 5000 loan from Joan’s parents for the down payment. Another turn of good luck. In October of 2017 I sold the house near the peak of the Vancouver real estate market. I became concerned that the high prices could not persist and there was likely to be a significant correction before long.Besides the house was needing a lot of upgrades- new roof, wiring, plumbing heating system. With an address full of “lucky 8’s” and the choice of a fireball young realtor, the house sold within a week. I was out the door into my comfortable rental at UBC. . Roll of the dice. Keep rolling. Charlie the alleged old guy May. 2020

Realtor Mark Weins and I after the sale of the house at 5888 Wiltshire Street in 2017.

The Big Fish: January 1970

Woody (John Woodward) and the 50 pound Spring

“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 to work in the basement this afternoon , not exciting but warm and dry.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see the heavy black cloud out my kitchen window in the Vancouver suburb of Kerrisdale and a few snow flakes whipped around the eves.It was nearly noon but dark enough to be dusk. My mind raced ahead of our conservation , thinking of alternative arguments to present to my fishing partner and medical classmate John Woodward . His infectious chuckle came back over the phone. I realized that any more objections were hopeless. When Woody felt the urge to fish, nothing but a tidal wave would discourage him. With a sigh I hung up the phone and glanced at the clock.The allotted fifteen minutes to be ready just allowed time to find my long underwear and the thermos for hot coffee. My tackle box showed neglect. Tucked in the bottom there were two hand tied mooching leaders left over from Pender Harbour coho fishing in September, nestled in their foil wrappers. Only ten pound test with two tandem number eight triple hooks . No problem. Enough for this exercise in mid river diversion. Oh yes mustn’t forget me heavy gloves and boots.Too bad I didn’t have a tackle box size psychiatrist to come along.

Front Page of The Province, January 19, 1970

Horseshoe Bay outside Vancouver across the Lions Gate bridge is narrow and a depot  for the car ferries serving Vancouver Island. The view from the crest of the entry hill looked like an add for an Iceland airline. A line up of cars loaded the ferry under a cloud of steam and exhaust. Short puffs of cold wind ruffled the trees next to the boat rental. One one thing that could be said about the scene was that parking was not a problem. Feeling a bit self conscious we packed our gear down the long float to the boat rental office. “Sign the book, Woody and I will will rig up.Better get a rental boat with a canopy on it. It could be a long afternoon.” . The rental engine started sluggishly after the fifth pull. Disturbing, but as the man said, it’s cold and damp today. “Oh yes, we need some bait. Strip or whole herring will do. I suppose that you don’t have any live ones do you ?”  We were going to motor mooch for winter springs and the live ones were like candy for them. The young attendant looked glum with his hands buried deeply in his pockets. Low and behold there was a live herring pond which looked empty. Vigorous stirring produced seven or eight cheerful live herring who slowly became sleepy in the smallish bucket that we stored then in and if they died fresh strip could be cut from them which could be effective. Our boat quickly demonstrated its own perverse personality. Boarding over the stern, under the low slung canopy, in bulky clothing together with eleven foot mooching rod, thermos and herring bucket was reminiscent of an old Laurel and Harvey movie. More problems arose as I lowered my bulk on to the fibreglass seat only to have it slither around loosely on its attachments. It had at sometime come loose and was only connected to the floor by one corner. It was only with some gymnastic skills that I was able to keep my balance. To compound  the problem, the worn soles of my rubber soles refused to grip the slippery deck. The net result was a posture like a Japanese Sumo wrestler only with a blue cold nose since the canopy prevented us from standing upright. Woody finally fared a little better sitting with his back to the engine and his backside wedged in the corner of the stern. The trip across the bay out past the mouth to the popular “ hole in the wall” fishing spot was memorable mainly by the number of times that a live herring sloshed out of the bucket. This resulted in a hilarious scramble to retrieve the flipping slippery little monsters . Added to this was evading a large ferry coming into its berth and increasing amounts of snow to illustrate the scenario and our mood when we were ready to fish. The memory of the next several hours comes back to me mercifully as a blur. The other three of four boats seemed intent in fishing with us in the same square feet of water requiring deft maneuvering. A big cruiser came and anchored right in the middle of the fleet so we all had a stretched out anchor line to avoid. No one caught a fish.  The gloom descended. The engine gradually attracted our attention. It had been beautifully matched to the boat and the weather. It kept on stalling. The hold down mechanism gave up so pulling the starter rope was a two man job- one to hold the engine down and the other to provide the muscle for multiple yanks on the rope. Otherwise with each pull the engine would flip up with the propellor out of the water. It was exhausting. The occupants of the cruiser had their side flaps down and with hot toddies in hand watched us with what seemed to be a mixture of amusement and pity. Two solemn Asian men in an open boat concentrated on fishing and keeping the snow out of their eyes. The coupe de grace was finally delivered. The seat on which I was balanced came loose from its remaining tether with a crack and to Woodys amusement the seat with me firmly aboard slowly departed toward the bow and then turned sideways and returned to the stern with me clutching for something to grip to stop me. The herring bucket levitated and did a half summersault in the air and deposited it’s flipping contents on to the snowy slippery floor. At this point with the wind freshening noticeably we decided to retire from the field of battle, at least that was the consensus. The one dissenter was the engine which had quietly expired without a whimper. It could not be resuscitated in spite of the wonders of modern medicine. The east shore of Horseshoe Bay has a magnificent display of cliffs and rocks, especially when viewed from thirty feet in a blizzard. Only one other boat remained which gave me some comfort as they could relate where to find the bodies. Intermittent engine rope pulling and choke twiddling gave way to frantic paddling to keep us off the rocks. My reel whirred as the weight snagged on the bottom so I managed to release it and put it in the boat. Woody retrieved his almost up to the boat. On to the paddling. We could see the rental dock in the distance so we were hoping that they would notice us waving. So the chilly minutes ticked by as we inched our way along the rocks hoping for rescue.There were no passing boats and mercifully no arriving ferry.  “Hells bells” said Woody.” I came to fish and all I am doing is nursing a boat. My herring is still flipping “ He let out about twenty feet of line and put the rod in a rod holder.and paddled. I tried to sneer but my face was freezing and the boat required paddling. Any closer and we would need wheels or get out and walk.As to a fish, I had noticed a half hitch in his light leader which meant that it was likely to break with much stress.  But what would it matter. Nothing was going to happen.

It was now 3 pm and getting noticeably darker. Our one fishing rod languished in the rod holder and conversation lagged as we moved slowly along the shore toward the cribbing of the ferry dock. We suddenly noticed that the rod had developed a slow bend and then as the drag released the reel began to tick over, slowly at first. That’s my fish thatI told you about he grinned . The bottom, I sneered.  From a slow start the reel clicked faster and faster until it was shrieking. The line melted off the reel at an incredible rate and the line in the water pulled sideways in the direction of the light house across the bay. Still no ferry in sight.

“Well if that’s a spring you can kiss it goodbye” I commented. “ We can’t follow it and besides the line has gone slack already “.  So he began the long retrieval of his spool full of line. He wound away glumly and I paddled along. Suddenly he sat bolt upright and exclaimed “ he’s still on”. Sure enough the line had tightened up and the fight was on.

The fish had made a U turn away out in the bay and swam all the way back to within a hundred feet of the boat. There he lay and we saw a large salmon tale emerge several times. Panic stations.

“Here, take the rod “he said urgently.  Why sez I ?  “ My hands are frozen, I need a cigarette and I need to pee”. He managed to handle ( so to speak) all of these challenges and even managed to light his soggy cigarette. He was a chain smoker and needed his fix.

Our first glimpse of our adversary after twenty minutes of give and take was the sight and sound of a large tail slapping the water like the blade of an oar. We were both astonished at the power of the fish through the stout fibreglass rod. He did as he pleased, even after his initial run that almost emptied the large reel.The knotted leader, the wind and snow,, the tiny hooks, the powerless boat were all hazards that made the odds very long in his favour. So we sort of relaxed, and in the long run this worked in our favour. Woody smoked, I kept tension on him, and we waited him out.

The next fifteen minutes were rather interesting. The next hurdle in this comic opera was a butterfly sized net and it was obvious that there was no way this was going to do the job. Hand gilling was out of the question . A frantic search of the boat miraculously turned up a battered rusty but usable gaff.

I was used to gaffing fish on my brothers commercial troller so I had no qualms about how to use it. It was lashed in a stout handle which, obviously home made. You had to have the fish on its side, belly toward the boat. Then with the gaff pointing down drive the heavy head that the gaff point was lashed in and haul back in one motion stunning the fish and sinking the point deeply at the nape of the neck. I would have one chance.

The big moment arrived. Ten feet out. Tired ( both of us) with him flopping weakly on its side. Rod to Woody. He handed me the gaff with the comment that he had never gaffed a fish and he didn’t plan to start with this one.

In preparation we folded the snow laden canopy back and I stood up. The deck was like a skating rink.I skated over to the railing, gaff in hand,. The next ten minutes seemed endless. Several times the fish approached but repeatedly sounded just out of reach.I needed him on his side with his back on the outside so I could reach his head. I needed a clear swing at the hard tissues at the nape of the neck.

Finally he turned toward the boat. Just as it came within gaff reach He rolled on its side and started to sound. The footing was impossible, the visibility poor. I swung the gaff down as hard as I could and felt it hit home like an axe in a stump. The fishes big kick almost tore the slippery gaff out of my hand. My legs began to slip apart and I slowly did the splits still holding on to the thrashing salmon. The seam of me pants parted with a disconcerting sensation.A second frantic yank brought it up on the railing. The gaff had only gone through about an inch and one half of tissue and was pulling through. A final tug and the fish and I landed on the deck in a shower of snow, blood and slime. We were within a couple of paddle lengths from the rocks.

We both stared at the huge silver winter spring salmon. It was well hooked with the rear hook in the tongue. We both were panting and speechless. The lights from the rental float glimmered through the gloom. Our sister boat putted into the dock, the occupants disinterested in our tribulations I presumed.

We contemplated this wonderful fish and were both talking at once. Finally I looked at the closeness of the rocks and we grabbed the paddles.To our vast relief the whine of an outboard announced the arrival of a rescue boat and the young friend from the herring pond arrived with a tow rope to rescue the pair of dingalings out of the blizzard. Our laughing and cheerful banter undoubtedly made him think that it wasn’t coffee in the thermos.

Another moment of truth arrived when I slipped my fingers under the gill cover of our trophy and attempted to dead lift it onto the float over the stern. For an instant it appeared that it would go overboard and return to the deep. An ironic twist of fate looming. Several vigorous heaves were required before it was safely on the float. Mr herring guy took off to the office and the boss and a couple of other guys rushed down the dock. Balance scales were produced and with new muscle the fish was hoisted up for weighing. The sliding weight came to rest at exactly fifty pounds- not an ounce more or less, confirmed by onlookers. There was no “ rounding off”. A true weight.

Neither of us felt the cold any more but we must have been hypothermic. I did t even notice the breeze blowing through my crotch less pants. What a crazy day. The boat was a shambles and we were cold and exhausted. As we were leaving I said told the boat boss about the inadequate net for salmon but said it was great that there was a gaff. He looked surprised and said these boats were not equipped with gaffs and someone must have forgotten it !! Woody and I looked at each other then turned and wheeled the fish up to his new Lincoln Continental and put it in the trunk.  It was time to go home.

Group Shot

Epilogue

The fish hit the front page of the Vancouver Province the next morning with a  picture taken by Vic Faulkes, a friend who took a series in  his back yard later that evening in the snow. In the paper one they cut me off the other end of the pole on which we suspended the fish. Such is fame. He was a friend of Mike Crammond who was outdoor editor for the Province and called him about the fish. Hence the story. Lee Straight and a photographer from the other paper the Sun appeared later the next day at Woodys house to get a picture but Woody wasn’t there . He and the fish were away some where n the Continental. The Sun never did get their picture.

Crammond in his article claimed that it could be a “world record” midwinter feeder spring especially one caught on light mooching gear. He and Lee Straight never saw eye to eye on anything and so he set out to prove him wrong and did a lot of research.Also Lee questioned the accuracy of the scales until it was pointed out that they were the same ones used in the Sun salmon derby. I don’t know if it was ever resolved. I really couldn’t relate to all of the controversy as there were numerous bigger spring salmon caught up and down the Coast every year. I suppose the mid winter bit was the unusual aspect.

After the weekend Woody took his fish to Gander taxidermy in Surrey where a lovely mount resulted. It was a white male fish and we actually ate some of it. Delicious. He wanted it over his fire place but his wife made him put it in the basement. A few years later he left to a practice in California and claimed that he bought it a seat on the plane. He and his wife had split up so he hung the fish over his new fireplace. He put that house on the market and the real estate lady thought it would be nice to show it with a roaring fire. He wasn’t there. The heat melted all the fins etc off of it so he threw it in the garbage.  Finis Charlie Brumwell. April 2020 Originally written. January 1970

Close-up of Mike Crammond's article in (The Province, January 19, 1970)

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 High School at age 13 in grade eight. Initially there wasn’t any rugby at the school but when I was in grade eleven a team was formed and entered into the recently formed Senior B league, competing with other B teams at surrounding high schools. The senior A league really had just Oak Bay High and Victoria High who played each other and some mainland teams.

The Mount View rugby team in our inaugural season

Initially no one at Mt.View had the faintest idea of rules, tactics or team play. None of the teachers had played rugby but one of them was assigned to sponsor the team and “coach” it. Fortunately, a parent from England volunteered to help and gradually we learned the fundamentals. We just had one old leather ball which when it got wet, was like kicking  a rock.The heterogenous group of guys were a mix of tall and short, fat and scrawny. The crowd thinned considerably when scrum and tackling practice began and suddenly there could be pain and playing in the rain on muddy fields which was not for them. I think some moms interfered and extracted their little darlings from the melee. When son Craig was a little boy years later he asked me one time what I did in rugby and I told him I ran around the field falling on people.

Teachers had no rugby background at Mount View

I was a big kid by grade eleven - over six feet and two hundred pounds. I wasn’t very fast and rather clumsy. I was attracted by the toughness and competitiveness of the game. I was so much bigger than a lot of the kids that they stuck me at the back of the scrum as eighth man and third man in the line out. The initial few practice games against similarly inept teams versed on slapstick. Gradually we got the hang of it and actually developed simple tactics. We also began to win some games which gave us confidence.

In grade twelve we hit our stride. I was elected captain and took my position seriously. Our play improved steadily and we ended up winning the Senior B Cup. We had gold patches to sew on our sweaters which announced to the world that we were winners. The highlight of the final game was when Leo the “Monk” had his shorts torn off in a tackle but ran for a try in his jock strap to the cheers of the spectators, especially the girls! He touched the ball down and kept on going. The only time my mother a failing father ever came to a game they left after ten minutes. They didn’t want to watch their little boy get hurt.

Our Mount View team featured in the daily newspaper

The senior A league finished with Oak Bay high winning the cup. I was on the track team (shot and discus) and knew quite a few of the Oak Bay guys. As a lark I challenged them to an exhibition game. After considerable sneering and comments they finally agreed. We played them on their home pitch with real cheerleaders. We beat them 8-3. They were stunned and a list of excuses emerged. We canvassed to be allowed to advance to the senior A league next season but I don’t think it ever happened.

We were approached by the Fifth Regiment, a military unit centred in the Bay Street armouries who wanted to sponsor a rugby team in their name. Before the war they, the Canadian Scottish Regiment ,and the personnel at the Esquimalt Naval Base all played against each other regularly and had a keen rivalry. They wanted to restart this rivalry and wanted our high school team to form the nucleus for a new team representing them. They supplied jerseys and shorts but we had to buy our own boots. About then, the Australian Wallabies played an exhibition game at Macdonald Park against the Victoria Crimson Tide. We were in awe at their skills. They won 48-0 and didn’t work up a sweat. They were on their way to Britain for their first tour after the war.

The Fifth Regiment team

This Fifth Regiment team was a joke. We were kids playing men. I think that we only won one game and that was against the Navy. It was a Sunday morning and the sailors were all very hung over from their Saturday night. We had a great time - you couldn’t take it seriously. Harry an older Brit who was a fighter pilot during the war joined us. He had a large repertoire of jokes and rugby songs. For example, sometimes his voice would emerge from a pile-up complaining that someone was clutching his manhood. We were often convulsed with laughter at his antics.

Line out, Fifth Regiment style. I am second from the front

The Vikings in caricature

In September of 1950, I started Victoria College with poor motivation but at the urging of some of the guys from the Oak Bay and Vic High teams who planned a great college rugby team. This appealed to me. Away I went for two years where I majored in rugby, beer and socializing. I even went to the occasional lecture! And yes we did have a good team, winning the cup. To my astonishment I was invited to try out for the Victoria Crimson Tide the city senior rep team. Campbell Forbes was coach and chair of the selection committee. Low and behold, here I was a lock in a red jersey playing home and home games against Vancouver, North Shore , Burnaby. We had some good games but didn’t prevail. I scored my first rep try against North Shore - a winner in a push-over scramble. My picture was in the paper much to my mothers delight.

I got to know a lot of fellows and had a good time. I was surprised at the greater pace and harder tackling. I came to know two British arrivals, Derek Hyde Lay and Dave McKenzie - a member of the British Olympic relay team. Both were skilful backs. Dave, with his speed, played on the wing. Derek later joined the staff at Shawnigan Lake School and coached rugby there. Dave became headmaster at Brentwood College. He was a pilot and I heard that he actually gave flying lessons.

The Tide forwards with coach, Campbell Forbes

Me and Frank, you wold later be my best man

Local coverage of rugby has always been excellent in Victoria

In the fall of 1951 I returned from climbing mountains in Northern BC with the Provincial Survey Party. I was down 40 pounds to about 180 and very fit. I moved to my sister Jean’s basement in Vancouver and with credits from Vic College, registered in the sciences. Frank Gower, an older guy who also played on the Tide, moved over at the same time. He became a close friend and eventually best man at my wedding. We turned out for the UBC Thunderbirds rugby under Albert Laithwaite, a short Lancashire man who had played county rugby in England. He was aware of the three or four guys from the Tide coming to UBC that fall and we were welcomed. Gerry Main, first five- eighths, Bob Hutchinson and John Newton - both wingers - and Frank and I. We all became first team members immediately. I remember the first week Albert had the whole team run to the University gates and back. A lot of the guys had been lounging around on the beach all summer. Me with my the mountain climbing fitness took off like a scalded rabbit and arrived back to Albert at the stadium close behind one of the wingers. Both Albert and I were impressed.The question was where to play me. I hoped it would be break, but I had not played there before and competition was keen. I was put in as a second row lock.

Playing for UBC against my former team, the Tide

My first match with UBC was an exhibition game against the Vancouver Rowing Club, a good opponent with a number of very good British ex-patriots. A recent arrival was Graham Budge, a powerful ex-colonel with the Black Watch and a choice for the Scottish national team. I understand he never obtained a cap because of the suspension of play during the war. Buzz Moore got him a job with Hydro assisting the linemen. Later he became a successful real estate agent on Bowen Island.

The game was played at Brockton Oval in mid September. I don’t remember the score but I think that we won. However, I do remember encountering Graham. One time I had the ball in the loose and he picked me up and shook me like a rat, extricated the ball and dumped me like a sack on the turf. I was impressed, as no one had ever done that to me before.

The Vancouver league games began in later September and were played each weekend, usually on Saturday. I think that there were five or six teams including the Rowing Club, Meralomas, Burnaby, North Shore - maybe others but I don’t recall. The Provincial cup competition, for the McKechnie Cup was played later and included the Victoria Crimson Tide, my previous club. Our UBC Thunderbirds club had a tradition going back well before the Second World War as did most of the other clubs. Competition was vigorous and we had some very good matches. The games were at 2 pm and I remember having a chemistry lab on Saturday one term which often extended into the early afternoon. If the game was in North Van or Burnaby I would be rushed there by car, changing into my strip on route.

Coach Albert Laithwaite, myself and Bill Mulholland

Our team came together with a lot of very good players. Front row scrum was Bill Bice, a 230 pounder in law who worked as a bouncer in dad’s hotel in Alert Bay in the summers. He sometimes came back to school with his nose rearranged. Good training for the front row. Bill Mulholland, our hooker, was a scrappy and vocal recently arrived Scot in forestry, and Ralph Martinson, a match for Bill. Locks were me and Derek Vallis, a tall raw boned English guy all sharp elbows. Eighth man and breaks rotated between Ray Cocking, another tough lawyer, Peter Grantham - later a med school classmate - Hugh Greenwood, Jim McNichol, Jim McWilliams, Bob Morford, and Gerard Kirby - an older guy who had been a  commando in the war. Others filled in from time to time.  Our scrum half was Danny Oliver, another lawyer. Gerry Main, Stan Clark, Bob Hutchison, later a judge, and wingers George Puil and John Newton were usually the three line. Full backs were Bill Whyte, Stu Clyne or Dave McFarlane. There are others that will be apparent in the team picture. In my second year on the team we won all three cups including the Miller, the McKechnie and the Little World Cup. The latter was a home and home series against the University of California Berkley and Stanford.

The 1952-53 UBC Thunderbirds

Our commemorative mug from a championship year

The California series was kind of the high light of the spring season. The rivalry was high and fostered partly because Albert and the Cal coach hated each other. I think he was Australian. We travelled over night by train to Berkeley and billeted in fraternity houses, an experience in itself. The American guys were friendly enough and we saw the sights of San Francisco including my first and only strip show. I went to the Zoo , Fisherman’s Wharf and the Marine Park which I enjoyed more.

We played Cal in their huge bowl that held 60,000 people. The field was as hard as a rock. One year attendance was about 2000 which surprised me as I expected no one in this football Mecca. The Cal team had quite a few football All-Americans. The scrum guys were huge and purposely unshaven, I suspected. The set scrums smelled of after shave rather than the usual sweat and farts. They tended to slip you a fist if the ref wasn’t looking. One of the big football stars was their All-American linebacker who I had to check in the line out. Busy afternoon. He did something dirty to our commando Gerrard Kirby, resulting in him leaving the field shortly after with assistance. Kirby kept mum.

Oakland Tribune coverage of Thunderbirds win over Cal Berkeley

George Puil, on the wing, put on a show. He dipsy-doodled around the football hero opposite him and scored a couple of tries. The Cal paper next day compared his moves to a classic previous football star who was famous for his evasiveness, named Buddy Young. We usually came out on top against Cal. After one win in Berkeley, when we went back to the frat house and came down for dinner the assembled frat guys all gave us a round of applause. Nice but unexpected. I had overheard earlier one of them refer to us being “candy asses” because we said please and thank you etc., and tried to be pleasant and accommodating. Suddenly we had respect. Nice.

My final game against Cal at UBC was a very tight one. The series and the game were tied. With five minutes to go we were awarded a penalty kick from the sideline forty yards out. Bob Morford, later head of UBC Faculty of Phys Ed, was taking the penalty kicks. He was about 6 foot four, was rather erratic in accuracy but had decent distance if he got a good strike. He was one of the first to place the ball pointing at the goal posts. He was formerly in the British army serving in Burma, so he was used to performing under pressure. He wound up and put it right through the uprights for the win. We were kind of astonished but ecstatic. The Cal guys were, of course, devastated. We won by one point. One of the memories that made me chuckle whenever I still think of it was when I caught a Cal kick off and - facing a closing herd of elephants - I tossed a cemetery pass to Puil standing near the sideline. “Here George” I said. The stars of the game - all backs - were listed in the papers. Us forwards fighting it out in the trenches with future pro-football players got no respect!!

My final game for UBC or ever was against Queen’s University from Belfast, Northern Ireland. They played inter-university matches there. Notable were the number of Irish international players who attended that school. When they arrived they had four or five of these alumni. Jack Kyle was the Irish first five eights and the powerful Noel Henderson was their centre three quarter. Some of them were med students and I think that Kyle had already graduated and was a qualified physician. We had two very tall guys who matched as locks so I played tight head prop against John Smith, another doc who subsequently emigrated to Vancouver and I think married a local girl. He was a very nice guy, as were the others. We had a nice social time and put on a dinner at the Hotel Vancouver which was a jolly event.  At that dinner they had a speaker who turned out to be Jimmy Sinclair, the Minister of Fisheries. His daughter Margaret married Pierre Trudeau. He gave a stirring speech about Canada, BC, and suggested that they pack up and move here - some of them did. However, a bunch of the Irish guys stood up and heaved crusty buns at him.

Charles the Aggie

So ended my rugby career. I was taking a very full course in my final undergrad year preparing to pursue a masters degree in microbiology. I was interested in soil and food production as broad subjects and for some strange reason this meant registering in Agriculture. I ended up being an Aggie grad. This involved 18 units of lectures and what amounted to two theses. I had absolutely no free time to train or play. Albert tried to convince me and even suggested that I didn’t need to practice but just come out on game days. I would have none of that, as there was a line up of guys competing to join the team. I would not be able to keep fit and besides I didn’t think it was fair to them. As a final ploy he said that he was going to make me captain. Tempting, but still no.  Later he appointed Bill Whyte, an excellent choice, who became a principal in Vancouver and hired my son Craig at Kitsilano High School in 1988.  I guess Albert didn’t hold it against me as I saw him as a patient some years later.

Looking back, rugby did a lot for me.  It instilled confidence and goal attainment skills. Above all I met a lot of great people who were friends for years. I have enjoyed watching games such as the World Cup and Six Nations competitions. The modern game is very different from when I played. We spent a lot of time training to dribble the ball at our feet. The job of the scrum was solely to get the ball out to the backs. There was very little falling and heeling the ball back. Except for the breaks, we kept together like a bunch of bananas going from scrum to scrum, line out to line out.There was more kicking. The modern game is much faster in my opinion.

Later there was pressure to play club rugby. Graham Budge tried to get me to join the Old Boys group but my life had moved on with med  school, marriage, medical practice, family etc. I turned out for a couple of practices for the Rowing Club my heart wasn’t in it.

My life had truly moved on.