The Gorge House: Friends and Neighbours

We never really knew our neighbours unless they had children we could play with. For instance, the old couple who lived next door to us on Parkview Drive were complete strangers to us. We did know the Farrants, who lived next to us on the Gorge Road, because their daughter, Bunny, was of an age with Faith. Bunny used to come over to visit Faith in her room, where the two girls would buff their nails, experiment with hairdos, and giggle. Us Three Little Ones were not welcome. One day, Bunny came over wearing slinky new beach pajamas, the latest thing. Mum sniffed. “Common,” the ultimate put-down. Ladies did not wear trousers or shorts no matter what the weather.

Frank had a friend who lived halfway up Parkview Drive, Ron Neilsen. Ron’s father was a ship’s captain. Ron had an older sister who used to drape herself over their front steps, wearing a skimpy bathing suit, working on her tan. Ron had a lovely auburn­ haired Irish Setter, I forget his name. I used to like to wrestle with this dog in our back yard. Unfortunately, he always left me with a million fleas, which would plague me for weeks.

Ron was a member of Frank’s model airplane building club. Frank had commandeered a small room in our basement, next to the sawdust bin. This was strictly forbidden territory to us. He had stenciled a sign on the door:

AERO CLUB
KEEP OUT

but I did manage to sneak in there sometimes when I was sure he was not around. It was a lovely room. The floor was thickly covered in sweet-smelling balsa wood shavings, there were counters along the walls strewn with half-built planes and plans, and bits of brightly-coloured tissue paper which was used to cover the wings. Finished planes dangled from the ceiling on threads, lazily drifting in the currents like exotic, brightly coloured insects. The whole room was permeated with the exhilarating smell of the “airplane dope” that was used to seal the tissue paper. No wonder we often heard raucous laughter emanating from this room when the club was in session.

Frank’s Winery Clip

Every spring Frank and Ron got busy building or refining the “23 Skidoo”, their soap box racing car. The 23 Skidoo had the wheels of Chris’ old pram, and a streamlined body designed to give maximum speed. It was painted bright yellow with dark blue trim. They would take it for test drives on Parkview Drive, causing Mum’s hair to turn greyer each time they raced down the dangerous hill. The actual Soap Box Derby was held on Harriet Hill, which was closed for traffic during the event. Frank, being small and light, was always the driver; the older Ron made an excellent pusher-offer. They won consistently, and Frank soon had an impressive collection of silver trophies. One year they even made it to the Provincial Finals in Chilliwack.

Frank adds: an update on Felicity’s memoire on Soapbox derbies. “Back in 1939, I had a friend, Ron Neilson, who lived a couple of houses up the hill from us on Parkview Drive. His father was the Chief engineer on the CPR steamship Princess Marguerite and had a nice workshop in his basement. Ron, who was a couple of years older than I, saw the old pram in our basement and got the idea that we should build a soapbox racer using the wheels and axles from the pram – so we did, with much help from his father. It was very fast, had a nice streamlined body, was painted yellow with the number 23 on the tail. We entered it into the 1940 races in Victoria which were held on the Yates street hill just up from Johnston. I was picked to be the driver as Ron was too old to comply with rules – so he was the pusher – – too bad!

Well, I won the race and got a nice silver cup (which I still have) engraved VI Champ -1940.  After that success, we were invited to compete in the B.C. championships held in Stanley Park in Vancouver later that summer. It was to be held on the road from Brockton Point down to English Bay. We almost got disqualified because our racer did not have any brakes! But Ron’s father came to the rescue and we somehow got some brakes installed just in time. The Vancouver champion showed up with a very professionally built racer – almost like a real racecar!

Off we went and I was having a hard time keeping up  but was close behind. Finally we got to the finish line and he was about 25 feet ahead. The small crowd of spectators closed in behind him without looking to see me coming – I grabbed the brake handle but found they were not very effective to slow me down. Luckily I managed to avoid hitting anyone – but lost the race!

Incidentally, a year later the Princess Marguerite was commandeered by the Navy, turned into a troopship and sent to the Mediterranean. A year later it was torpedoed by the Germans and sunk. Mr. Neilson as Chief engineer went out with her, and later received a medal for bravery for his efforts to help save the crew. His son Ron joined the RCAF and trained as a bomber pilot. He also survived the war. I was always too young to volunteer.  Instead we had an Air Cadet squadron at Victoria High school and that is how I got into the glider club which we started up – but that is another story.”

Connie and I had many friends scattered around the neighbourhood. At least Connie did. I always let her make the initial moves, then I would just tag along. Our most constant friends were Joan and Betty-May Bird, our doll-playing companions. We also swam with them at Heath Landing in the summer holidays. One day their whole family was in a severe car accident on the Gorge Bridge. Joan and Betty-May were in hospital for some time, then stayed with relatives until their mother was well enough to come home. They told us their mother “broke every bone in her body”. I found this idea intriguing, and couldn’t wait to see her when she finally came home. Disappointingly, she looked the same as always.

Then there was Muriel Pearse. We didn’t count her as a friend, really, perhaps because she didn’t seem to know how to play, but she was around from time to time. Muriel was a bit older than Connie. She had curiously pale, flaky skin, eyes that were almost colourless and never seemed to look directly at you, and a tawny frizz of hair held back by the kind of barrette I longed for. (But barrettes were “common”, and I was stuck with my draggled hair ribbons.) Muriel sometimes wore clothes her mother had sewed for her, by hand, with big uneven stitches showing in the seams. Once, however, she showed up in a wonderful bias-plaid circle skirt from the Eaton’s catalogue, and this I did truly crave, common or not. This was at a time when Connie and I were wearing hand­ me-down Private School tunics of scratchy navy-blue serge, with box pleats and sash.

Muriel lived with her mother at the top of Parkview Hill. We were shown pictures of her father, handsome in his officer’s uniform. He had died a hero in the Great War, but if this were so, wouldn’t Muriel have been a lot older than she obviously was? Their house was small and dark, and incredibly untidy, things piled on top of every available flat surface. Mrs. Pearse was a large, sallow-faced woman with lank dark hair drooping over her ears. She always had a hand-rolled cigarette sticking to her lip, the ash falling where it might. This was especially distressing when she leaned over the cooking pot to stir the stew. She had a liking for discussing her most personal problems of feminine hygiene, a habit I found fascinating even as it disgusted me.

Mrs. Pearse had been trained as a nurse, and in order to supplement her income, she took in a boarder who needed nursing care. This was Henry Brand, who was connected to my mother’s family. It seems the Brand children had been orphaned when their parents died in a train crash. Since Mum’s parents had been good friends of the elder Brands, they took the children in to bring up along with their own family. All the Brands had brilliant minds, including Henry, but Henry suffered from a strange malady that Mum called “sleeping sickness”. This meant that he would go into dreadful spasms without any warning. Nowadays this would have been controlled by drugs, I imagine. Henry was still quite a young man, and I sort of liked him, possibly because he always had sticky, gritty candies in his pocket. He walked with a curious hopping gait.

He would come lurching down the hill to have tea with Mum. He would be sitting at the table, full teacup in hand, in the middle of an animated conversation, when suddenly his whole body would go into spasm, and he would be shaking violently from head to toe, emitting a dreadful gagging noise. He would shudder rhythmically from side to side, tilting ever more dangerously toward the floor, teacup rattling in his outstretched hand. We would watch, mesmerized, as he leaned closer and closer to the floor. Suddenly, he would recover, sit upright again, and resume the sentence that had been interrupted, taking a sip of his tea. Mum would sit through this impassive, as if she didn’t notice our gaping mouths. I’m sorry to say Frank became quite adept at imitating Henry, to the great mirth of the rest of us.

When was 8 or 9, the Bar-B-Q was built on the Gorge Road, only a vacant corner lot away from our house. This was an early fore-runner of the White Spot style of eatery. Customers would park outside, blink their lights for service, and eat their hamburgers and milkshakes in their cars, while listening to greatly amplified Juke Box music. We fell asleep nightly to the strains of “String of Pearls” and “Chiribiribin”. We loved it, but Mum started her campaign to persuade Dad to move house.

                                              The BarBQ and Morley

Burger Drive-In Clip

The Bar-B-Q was run by the Suttons, who had a son my age called Morley. Morley used to play cars with Chris in the sandy space by the road that Chris had transformed into an everchanging network of roads, tunnels, overpasses and bridges for his collection of Dinky toys. I liked to play Tarzan with Morley. I was allowed to be Jane while Morley swung from branch to branch of the old chestnut tree opposite his house. Morley would pound his chest and yodel most convincingly; he had seen the movie. I always loved that chestnut tree: it was lovely in May with its scented white candles, then throughout the summer as the sticky green fruits developed, only to gift us in the fall with shiny conkers.

 

The Chestnut Tree

Since we were close in age, Morley was thought to be my special friend, but in actuality, he was Connie’s slave. He was a stodgy, agreeable child, a bit on the gullible side, and Connie relished getting him to do whatever she wanted. Connie was always full of inventive schemes. She read that you could make a telephone from two soup cans and a length of string. We tried this, threading a ball of string from our bedroom, across the road and over the vacant lot, and up to Morley’s window.

The telephone did not work, but since the string was already in place, Connie had to try another communicative device she’d heard about. She would tie one end of the string to her big toe at bed time, Morley would do the same at his end, and she would be able to signal him with a jerk of her foot, which would send a jerk across the wire to waken Morley. This would be used to summon Morley to a Midnight Feast, something Connie was determined to try. Well, we made all our plans, scavenged some food for our feast, and agreed that Connie would waken Morley at midnight. She overslept, but did manage to wake up around 5 am.

When there was no response from Morley’s end of the string, she decided to go ahead anyhow. She roused me, we dressed silently and crept down the stairs, shoes in hand, avoiding the noisy treads in just the way we’d read about. We made our way to Morley’s through the pearly dawn, shivering with cold and excitement. Pebbles thrown on his window pane eventually roused Morley, who finally appeared at his back door, drowsy and disheveled.

Where to have our feast? Well, the obvious, most dangerous place–the middle of the Gorge Road! There was no traffic at that hour, so we were able to huddle on the yellow line, shuddering, thrilled with the daring of it all! I don’t remember what we ate for our “feast”, that wasn’t important; the big thing was that we were out in (almost) the middle of the night, on forbidden territory. An early driver honked at us, and we beat a hasty retreat.

As we crossed the road, we saw a long fat garter snake zigzagging across the asphalt. Morley picked up a stone and threw it at the snake. Soon we were all three pelting the poor creature, which flung itself around in ever more erratic lunges. Finally, the unthinkable occurred. The belly of the snake seemed to split open, and out emerged scores of tiny wriggling snakelets. What had we done? Suddenly it was time to go home. Without a word we crept shamefacedly away, heading back to our warm beds. We never spoke of that snake again.

Some time after this, the Farrant’s lot was subdivided, and a small new house was built next to us where they used to have a tennis court. Connie and I supervised the building of this house. Sometimes a kindly carpenter could be persuaded to make a long curl for us out of wood shavings. But it was best when the workers were not around. Then we would sneak into the place and furnish it in our imaginations. Connie had maroon damask draperies over Venetian blinds. There was a matching three-piece chesterfield suite, also in maroon, and a room-sized carpet. That bedroom had the latest in mahogany bedroom suites, complete with elegant vanity, as featured in the Eaton’s catalogue. Once we’d decorated it to our specifications, we had to people it with our families. Connie was married to a tall, dark and handsome playboy millionaire, who plied her with orchid corsages to pin on her slinky, bias-cut evening dress, cleverly draped to emphasize her curves, worn of course with her mink stole. My imaginings were far less exotic. All I could come up with was a daughter named Poppy, who, like Honeysuckle, was disadvantaged in that she couldn’t speak. She made up for it with her mischievous tricks and sunny personality that made all who knew her, love her.

The new house was finished and the Allen’s moved in. They did not decorate as nicely as we would have done. Gordie Allen was Connie’s age, a wiry, much-freckled red head. He liked best to play Cops and Robbers in the top field, a game where girls were not allowed. It was essential to keep on Gordie’s good side, because otherwise we would not have managed to listen to the radio serial “I Love a Mystery”. This 15-minute program came on every weekday just before supper. We were not allowed to listen to it at home because Mum felt it was violent and unedifying. But it was such fun to follow the absurd plots day by day. Somehow, we always managed to need to go over to Gordie’s, just in time to catch the latest installment. I don’t know whether Mum guessed what we were up to or not.

One radio serial we were allowed to listen to was “Little Orphan Annie”. This being much more suitable for our ears, if boring. The thing about this program was that you could join the “Little Orphan Anne Radio Club”. If you sent two labels from Ovaltine, the program’s sponsor, you could become a member. You would receive Annie’s Secret Decoding Badge, and with this, you could send messages to your friends who were also members, and decode the secret messages which were sent on every program.

Several kids in my class already had these badges, and I was desperate to have one too. The problem was getting the labels. I persuaded Mum to buy a tin of Ovaltine, but no one liked the stuff, and it was a very large tin, so there seemed no way to get the second label. Connie took over. We’d get the label from someone else – Morley! Morley, however, was not likely to want to drink Ovaltine when he had access to as many chocolate milkshakes as he wanted, from the kitchen of the Bar-B-Q. Connie was not stumped.

At this time Ovaltine’s magazine ads took the form of a comic strip telling the story of a mother, at her wit’s end because her child was so puny and frail, learning from a kindly neighbour how Ovaltine at bedtime would cure all his problems. The final frame showed a healthy hearty child, and a relieved mother – “and we owe it all to Ovaltine!” The idea, Connie figured, was to get Morley to pretend to be pining away, at which point she would kindly suggest to Mrs. Sutton that Ovaltine might just do the trick.

Ovaltine Clip

Now Morley’s acting ability was not too marked, and it would be difficult to make him look the part, he was so round and pink, but it was worth a try. Connie coached him thoroughly in how to act languid and peevish, how to appear to lack appetite, how to be snappish and ill-tempered. Given Morley’s disposition, this seems like an impossible feat, but we were desperate, we needed that Ovaltine label. Morley obligingly whined a little, refused a second hamburger, asked to go to bed early. Connie showed up with her spiel. “Ovaltine!” snorted Mrs. Sutton. I never did get my Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoding Badge.

Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring Clip

Next:

The Gorge House: Ruth Price