The Gorge House: Dad

We were lucky to have such an easy-going Father. He never seemed less than cheerful, he seemed to thoroughly enjoy his family. To Mum’s chagrin, he rarely disciplined us; that was her department. Only once do I remember him even raising his voice to any of us, and that was once when Frank had spoken cheekily to Mum. Dad grabbed him by the collar and bundled him out the back door, to everyone’s surprise and horror. Such an incident was not likely to be repeated. Mostly I remember Dad’s smile. He had a brilliant, urgent smile that came out of nowhere, full of enjoyment and mischief. He was enormously proud of his family, though he would not say so in words.

Dad had a great love of Victoria, especially the Victoria he’d known as a boy. Every Sunday afternoon, on our way to supper at Clovelly, he’d drive us around town, showing us the places he’d known and loved as a boy, telling us fascinating stories of what his childhood had been like. The Woodwards had been a pioneer family, coming to Victoria at the time of the Gold Rush, settling first in the Fairfield district, where my Grandfather started the Nurseries. Dad and his brothers and sisters were free to roam wherever they liked in the growing town, and he had many wonderful stories to tell of those days. There was the time sewage pipes were being laid in town.

Dad and his brothers managed to climb down a manhole on a Sunday when the men weren’t working. They crawled along inside the pipe, then found they couldn’t easily crawl backwards to get out, so had to keep going, for miles, until they found a way to exit, on the other side of town. There was the day, after a storm, when they went down to the beach by the graveyard, only to find the soil of the bluff had eroded, and coffins were lying exposed on the sand. There was the time his wild older brother, John, rode his horse into their house, and upstairs, only to find the horse balked at going back down. Or the horse that died in the field (same horse?) and the boys were ordered to bury the corpse. They dug a grave right beside it, but, though they thought they had dug deep as necessary, when the horse was tumbled in, its stiffened legs stuck straight up. Try as they might, they couldn’t quite cover it all up, so left it, hooves sticking out of the ground. Sir James Douglas School was later built upon this grave.

How about the time Dad and his younger brother Gerald were crossing a railway trestle when they heard a train coming? Realizing they had no time to reach either end in safety, they had to duck under the sleepers, hanging on for dear life, dangling in mid-air, Dad having to hang on with one hand only, because he was supporting his screaming brother with the other, and the train pounding over them!

Dad would regale us with wonderful tales like these, while driving us around town to show us all the important places that made Victoria what it was. He would take us to the Chinese graveyard, particularly after a recent funeral, where we’d see the food left out for the departed Chinaman. He’d take us out on the breakwater to look for great red octopi crawling around just under the waterline.

He’d drive along Dallas Road in a windstorm so that the waves could thump right over the car causing shrieks from Mum. He took us to see the whaling fleet when it was in town, docked by the Johnson Street Bridge. He took us out to Goldstream to see the Salmon running in the fall. He took us far into the Sooke Hills, on very wobbly logging roads (bridges made of two logs, Mum in hysterics!) to visit an old prospector who was still mining for gold on the Sooke River.

He took us out to the country to watch motor-cycle trials on a very muddy hill. He took us to the Observatory to look at the stars. Always he took us to the parade on the 24th of May, the Scotties with their pipes skirling, and to the Cenotaph on November 11th. Dad knew every nook and cranny of Victoria, and loved it. He could tell you why a street had a certain name, who built a particular house, and he had a story about everything.

Parents Clip

Next:

The Gorge House: Auntie Lilian’s Wedding