Dulwich College. London. 1904 - 1913 - Lower Canada College. Montreal. 1914 - 1920
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Dad's ( front row third from right ) Phi Delta Theta fraternity photo 1921-22 Mc Gill University. Quebec.
Dad holding me, mum and Sheila. Arvida. 1944
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Sam Hopper and the Hoedowners
I have tried to describe my father. Perhaps he was a ‘ boulevardier ‘- a handsome, hardworking, hard drinking playboy type. An alcoholic in his early ‘20’s he may have been pretty reckless at times. He told me he had had several car accidents. The most sensational one involved a neighbour who may have been a friend or a girlfriend, Norma Shearer, who became a famous silent screen movie star. Her face was cut up a bit and a lot of money was paid out to sort things out. Mother would not allow the family to have a car so I grew up using buses, trains and bicycles.
Dad lived in New York for a period in the mid to late 1920’s. His best friend was his cousin Morton Woodcock who was a Broadway actor. When I last saw Morton in 1966 ( in Reading, England ) he said that he and dad had many adventures, but there were few details. The roaring 20's and there was my father in the thick of it. He told me once that ‘ bathtub gin ‘ would get the better of him and I guess it did.
Being handicapped didn’t slow him down too much. He played football ( gridiron ) at McGill, ran a dog team in the subarctic and probably his good looks, his intelligence and his audacity got him through reasonably.He met Laura McCann in Drummondville Quebec in the mid 1930’s. Mother was 22 when they met. He was 36. Mother was stunningly beautiful and very capable. She had been looking after people since she was five when her father died suddenly at 31 years old. Put bluntly, my father needed someone to look after him and my mother needed someone to look after. A match made either in heaven or hell. That was the family dynamic that I swam in. Aloof, but caring. Open, yet closed. Always supportive, always affirming and always solidly there.
I am the third wave of immigrants to leave my home, family, friends and places familiar and journey to the most far away place on the planet. My story begins in Canada where I lived for twenty three years and brings me to the present in New Zealand where I have lived for nearly sixty years. Where I married and raised my family.
A lifelong romantic, I am inquisitive and curious. When I was around 10 I remember Dad told me to question everything otherwise you will know nothing. I went to church and Sunday school. I questioned and got no answers. The stories seemed preposterous. I became an atheist at 11 years old.I read every book I could find. Our home was full of books and periodicals. I think we subscribed to a dozen magazines and I read them cover to cover. Boys adventures, historical works, everything John Buchan wrote, philosophy, history and so on. I was intrigued with Africa and with China. I was probably a liberal and a socialist before I ever heard the words.
My first twelve years were typical for a country kid. School, sport, bike riding, hanging out with my friends. School was easy and generally fun. I was becoming more self aware. Occasional trips to Montreal, Boston and New York gave me a glimpse of a world outside the ‘ Cantons ‘. It is amusing to remember the long hard winters. When you know nothing else, winter is simply winter. Wear more clothes than you need, stay indoors if the temperature is below 30* and don’t fall into ponds or rivers or you’ll probably die. I developed an interest in weather as a survival matter. In New Zealand, summer is like Canadian autumn and winter is like Canadian spring. I learned that I was living in a country where you didn’t have to ski and where you could play golf anytime.
I seemed to wake up in my thirteenth year. Television arrived and I was mesmerized. So was dad. We had Christmas and New Years in New York and dad wanted me to understand a bit about him. He took me to the oyster bar in Grand Central Station, to the Algonquin Hotel for lunch when he told me about the Roundtable gathering of journalists, writers and actors who met there every day to drink, chat and argue. He scalped tickets for Broadway shows and enjoyed being with his family.
We watched television like addicts. Plays, sports, news from everywhere seemed to open the world to a curious kid. I remember a show about a journalist covering the 1956 Hungarian uprising which got me reading about democracy, communism and revolution. I developed an idea of justice, fairness, oppression and developed a framework of thinking that has been bedrock for me in all my pursuits. Change was everywhere. Elvis frightened my parents, but excited me. I began to sense pulsing movements in Africa, in Europe and in North America. Dad was a student of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War in the United States and I became aware of the civil rights movement in the USA.
While I was processing all these things going on I began to sense that there were a range of things I couldn’t do very well. Today I would be diagnosed dyslexic. Unknown in the 1950’s. An example would be my English and Maths grades in grade 11 ( final year of high school ) 98% in English and 4% in Maths. I learned to memorize, I developed acute listening skills and I avoided things which I knew I’d struggle with. Rote learning. Hours pouring over texts, articles, notes and books. I navigated 4 years of university persevering and succeeding in my scaled down style.
I started working at Hovey Manor in North Hatley when I was 13. Travelling the four miles by bus in the winter and bicycle in the summer I got a glimpse of the glamour that hotels offered.I was a busboy and occasionally I worked in the Taproom bar. I looked older than I was and somehow got away with lots of things. Guests came to Hovey for several weeks in the summer. In 1961 a guest ( Mr. Warren ) , who came to Hovey for a month every summer, asked me if I was interested in travelling to the Rocky mountains to work at Chateau Lake Louise or the Banff Springs Hotel. He held a major position with the Canadian Pacific Railway and he ensured that I was offered a position in 1962. I spent six summers at CLL and made friends with a range of people many whom I still correspond with some sixty years later.
My life between 1961 and 1967 bounced from Bishop’s to Lake Louise with a nine month interlude in Europe and a four month stint travelling to Mexico and back. It was like a big triangle.
We were given return rail passes. Three days and two nights from Montreal to Lake Louise. For the first time I actually realized how big Canada was and there was still a lot more on either side. My first trip was memorable. Ten minutes after leaving the station I started talking with a guy who was a one year veteran at CLL. He was a gardener and turns out he was my boss as I was a gardener my first year. Hudson Vipond became a close friend: at Lake Louise, together on our nine month trip to Europe, in Vancouver when we were studying at Simon Fraser University, in New Zealand where he came to Christchurch for a year and some time later came again on his honeymoon with Lise, in Montreal where we ate, drank and wandered about, at his summer home at Lake Orford and on a fantastic trip through the Maritime Provinces. When it comes to friendships they don’t get better than Hudson. The last time we met was in 2019 when he and daughter Stephanie picked us up in the heaviest of rainstorms. Hud was not well having survived a major heart attack, but he was still Hudson and I loved him dearly. A couple of years later he died. I miss his correspondence, his wit and his presence. The train picked up CLL people along the way. Frank Cole joined us in Toronto. He was to be my roommate for 5 years and we got to know each other at close quarters. He was like the brother I never had. The man was loud. He was loud even when asleep. He was loud when he tried to play the banjo. He was tone deaf and finally I had to hide the banjo. We developed a deep friendship at CLL, in Toronto, in Vernon BC where he practiced law, in Vancouver where he became a Supreme Court Judge, an alcoholic, a fantastic cook, in both New Zealand and Australia where he and Lesley ( Aussie second wife ) visited often. He too died a few years ago and I still talk with Heidi his daughter who refers to Stephanie and I as her ‘ NZ parents ‘
I mention Frank and Hudson for several reasons. One thing that bound us together was that our fathers died when we were in our mid teens. There were many other guys at CLL whose dad’s had died early. We were aware that there were missing parts in our lives and perhaps we found something in our friendships that in some way compensated. Working and playing with that young group was like being in a large family. We had a lot of fun and it was always sad at the end of the summer to say goodbye, but it was equally exciting meeting up with everyone seven months later.I will discuss this further into this tale, but in my fifty year career as a counsellor and mediator I met many individuals and families where fathers were absent. Growing up without a father scars a child and creates a vacuum that never really gets filled. Growing up with a poor father equally leaves other scars and problems. THE GUITAR My parents and sister played the piano. Not for me. Too complicated. As a consolation I was given a ukulele and I was able to master some basic chords and strum away happily. A couple of years later I got a nylon six string guitar and learned a bit more. I began playing in a school band. There were guitars and fiddles and usually a drummer. We were doing country tunes suitable for dancing and we were a bit of a hit. I began playing a Hawaiian style ( open tuning and a slide bar ): not quite a pedal steel or a dobro, but a sound that worked well enough in a country band. When I was 13 I was approached by Sam Hopper who had a popular country band and a weekly radio programme on the local radio station CKTS. He asked me to join the band. He also bought me a beautiful Gretsch guitar and for the next 18 months I played slide guitar with Sam Hopper and the Hoedowners. We played local dances most weekends and recorded the half hour radio show every Tuesday evening. I can’t remember if we practiced much, but I do recall that we sounded pretty good and had quite a following in a 50 mile radius. I got better and bought my own steel six string guitar and began collecting sounds and developing a repertoire of my own. Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seegar, the Weavers soon morphed into Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Peter Paul and Mary and so on. I could sing a bit and I emerged as the ‘ folk song ‘ guy at University and at Lake Louise. The guitar was my companion in Europe and through Mexico. I bought a 12 string guitar in Paracho when Bernie Evans and I were singing for our supper in Jocotepec. Paracho is a village high up in the Sierra Madre mountains that specialize in guitar production.
Dad lived in New York for a period in the mid to late 1920’s. His best friend was his cousin Morton Woodcock who was a Broadway actor. When I last saw Morton in 1966 ( in Reading, England ) he said that he and dad had many adventures, but there were few details. The roaring 20's and there was my father in the thick of it. He told me once that ‘ bathtub gin ‘ would get the better of him and I guess it did.
Being handicapped didn’t slow him down too much. He played football ( gridiron ) at McGill, ran a dog team in the subarctic and probably his good looks, his intelligence and his audacity got him through reasonably.He met Laura McCann in Drummondville Quebec in the mid 1930’s. Mother was 22 when they met. He was 36. Mother was stunningly beautiful and very capable. She had been looking after people since she was five when her father died suddenly at 31 years old. Put bluntly, my father needed someone to look after him and my mother needed someone to look after. A match made either in heaven or hell. That was the family dynamic that I swam in. Aloof, but caring. Open, yet closed. Always supportive, always affirming and always solidly there.
I am the third wave of immigrants to leave my home, family, friends and places familiar and journey to the most far away place on the planet. My story begins in Canada where I lived for twenty three years and brings me to the present in New Zealand where I have lived for nearly sixty years. Where I married and raised my family.
A lifelong romantic, I am inquisitive and curious. When I was around 10 I remember Dad told me to question everything otherwise you will know nothing. I went to church and Sunday school. I questioned and got no answers. The stories seemed preposterous. I became an atheist at 11 years old.I read every book I could find. Our home was full of books and periodicals. I think we subscribed to a dozen magazines and I read them cover to cover. Boys adventures, historical works, everything John Buchan wrote, philosophy, history and so on. I was intrigued with Africa and with China. I was probably a liberal and a socialist before I ever heard the words.
My first twelve years were typical for a country kid. School, sport, bike riding, hanging out with my friends. School was easy and generally fun. I was becoming more self aware. Occasional trips to Montreal, Boston and New York gave me a glimpse of a world outside the ‘ Cantons ‘. It is amusing to remember the long hard winters. When you know nothing else, winter is simply winter. Wear more clothes than you need, stay indoors if the temperature is below 30* and don’t fall into ponds or rivers or you’ll probably die. I developed an interest in weather as a survival matter. In New Zealand, summer is like Canadian autumn and winter is like Canadian spring. I learned that I was living in a country where you didn’t have to ski and where you could play golf anytime.
I seemed to wake up in my thirteenth year. Television arrived and I was mesmerized. So was dad. We had Christmas and New Years in New York and dad wanted me to understand a bit about him. He took me to the oyster bar in Grand Central Station, to the Algonquin Hotel for lunch when he told me about the Roundtable gathering of journalists, writers and actors who met there every day to drink, chat and argue. He scalped tickets for Broadway shows and enjoyed being with his family.
We watched television like addicts. Plays, sports, news from everywhere seemed to open the world to a curious kid. I remember a show about a journalist covering the 1956 Hungarian uprising which got me reading about democracy, communism and revolution. I developed an idea of justice, fairness, oppression and developed a framework of thinking that has been bedrock for me in all my pursuits. Change was everywhere. Elvis frightened my parents, but excited me. I began to sense pulsing movements in Africa, in Europe and in North America. Dad was a student of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War in the United States and I became aware of the civil rights movement in the USA.
While I was processing all these things going on I began to sense that there were a range of things I couldn’t do very well. Today I would be diagnosed dyslexic. Unknown in the 1950’s. An example would be my English and Maths grades in grade 11 ( final year of high school ) 98% in English and 4% in Maths. I learned to memorize, I developed acute listening skills and I avoided things which I knew I’d struggle with. Rote learning. Hours pouring over texts, articles, notes and books. I navigated 4 years of university persevering and succeeding in my scaled down style.
I started working at Hovey Manor in North Hatley when I was 13. Travelling the four miles by bus in the winter and bicycle in the summer I got a glimpse of the glamour that hotels offered.I was a busboy and occasionally I worked in the Taproom bar. I looked older than I was and somehow got away with lots of things. Guests came to Hovey for several weeks in the summer. In 1961 a guest ( Mr. Warren ) , who came to Hovey for a month every summer, asked me if I was interested in travelling to the Rocky mountains to work at Chateau Lake Louise or the Banff Springs Hotel. He held a major position with the Canadian Pacific Railway and he ensured that I was offered a position in 1962. I spent six summers at CLL and made friends with a range of people many whom I still correspond with some sixty years later.
My life between 1961 and 1967 bounced from Bishop’s to Lake Louise with a nine month interlude in Europe and a four month stint travelling to Mexico and back. It was like a big triangle.
We were given return rail passes. Three days and two nights from Montreal to Lake Louise. For the first time I actually realized how big Canada was and there was still a lot more on either side. My first trip was memorable. Ten minutes after leaving the station I started talking with a guy who was a one year veteran at CLL. He was a gardener and turns out he was my boss as I was a gardener my first year. Hudson Vipond became a close friend: at Lake Louise, together on our nine month trip to Europe, in Vancouver when we were studying at Simon Fraser University, in New Zealand where he came to Christchurch for a year and some time later came again on his honeymoon with Lise, in Montreal where we ate, drank and wandered about, at his summer home at Lake Orford and on a fantastic trip through the Maritime Provinces. When it comes to friendships they don’t get better than Hudson. The last time we met was in 2019 when he and daughter Stephanie picked us up in the heaviest of rainstorms. Hud was not well having survived a major heart attack, but he was still Hudson and I loved him dearly. A couple of years later he died. I miss his correspondence, his wit and his presence. The train picked up CLL people along the way. Frank Cole joined us in Toronto. He was to be my roommate for 5 years and we got to know each other at close quarters. He was like the brother I never had. The man was loud. He was loud even when asleep. He was loud when he tried to play the banjo. He was tone deaf and finally I had to hide the banjo. We developed a deep friendship at CLL, in Toronto, in Vernon BC where he practiced law, in Vancouver where he became a Supreme Court Judge, an alcoholic, a fantastic cook, in both New Zealand and Australia where he and Lesley ( Aussie second wife ) visited often. He too died a few years ago and I still talk with Heidi his daughter who refers to Stephanie and I as her ‘ NZ parents ‘
I mention Frank and Hudson for several reasons. One thing that bound us together was that our fathers died when we were in our mid teens. There were many other guys at CLL whose dad’s had died early. We were aware that there were missing parts in our lives and perhaps we found something in our friendships that in some way compensated. Working and playing with that young group was like being in a large family. We had a lot of fun and it was always sad at the end of the summer to say goodbye, but it was equally exciting meeting up with everyone seven months later.I will discuss this further into this tale, but in my fifty year career as a counsellor and mediator I met many individuals and families where fathers were absent. Growing up without a father scars a child and creates a vacuum that never really gets filled. Growing up with a poor father equally leaves other scars and problems. THE GUITAR My parents and sister played the piano. Not for me. Too complicated. As a consolation I was given a ukulele and I was able to master some basic chords and strum away happily. A couple of years later I got a nylon six string guitar and learned a bit more. I began playing in a school band. There were guitars and fiddles and usually a drummer. We were doing country tunes suitable for dancing and we were a bit of a hit. I began playing a Hawaiian style ( open tuning and a slide bar ): not quite a pedal steel or a dobro, but a sound that worked well enough in a country band. When I was 13 I was approached by Sam Hopper who had a popular country band and a weekly radio programme on the local radio station CKTS. He asked me to join the band. He also bought me a beautiful Gretsch guitar and for the next 18 months I played slide guitar with Sam Hopper and the Hoedowners. We played local dances most weekends and recorded the half hour radio show every Tuesday evening. I can’t remember if we practiced much, but I do recall that we sounded pretty good and had quite a following in a 50 mile radius. I got better and bought my own steel six string guitar and began collecting sounds and developing a repertoire of my own. Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seegar, the Weavers soon morphed into Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Peter Paul and Mary and so on. I could sing a bit and I emerged as the ‘ folk song ‘ guy at University and at Lake Louise. The guitar was my companion in Europe and through Mexico. I bought a 12 string guitar in Paracho when Bernie Evans and I were singing for our supper in Jocotepec. Paracho is a village high up in the Sierra Madre mountains that specialize in guitar production.
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Bishops University. Quebec. 1962
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