The Gorge House: Seasons

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Part 2:

Every spring the papers would print dire warnings about the dangers of swimming in the Gorge. After all, more and more factories and mills were dumping their waste into the waters upstream. There was a large shingle mill, and Bapco Paint; the water must have been full of pollutants. But Mum said “Nonsense”; nobody ever got sick from swimming in water that had such a strong tidal influence; it was perfectly healthy; and no one was going to tell her where her children could or could not swim. And it’s true, we never heard of anyone getting sick from swimming in the Gorge. In fact, it was ideal swimming. It was shallow, warm, pleasantly salty, and very buoyant, with no waves to make swimming difficult, save for the wake of an occasional pleasure boat. We all learned to swim there, a robust dog-paddle, but mostly we just played in the water, doing duck-dives and cartwheels, torpedoes, and fancy jumps off the wharf, cannonballs and dead soldiers.

There were a number of private docks, where people kept their rowboats, etc. Some owners didn’t appreciate kids playing on their wharf, but the owner of Heath dock didn’t seem to mind, as long as we didn’t mess with the rowboats he kept lashed to the dock. We never saw him – there was no evidence that he ever actually used his rowboats.

The first few swims of the season were horrible. Nasty green ribbons of weed had grown up over the winter, and they caught at our legs like slimy ropes. Also, we had to search the bottom carefully for broken glass. But after a few days of us thrashing around, we had driven the weeds away from a nice large area around the dock, and had established a good firm sandy bottom. The water was about chest deep, just right for our swimming activities. There was never any supervision. None of the mothers could see the dock from their houses, but we could all hear Mum calling us in for lunch.

The supreme test of courage was to swim to the other side.

                                                                                      The Gorge

It was not really very far; Connie had done it frequently, but I had always held back, until the scorn of the others finally forced me into it. For some reason no one came with me. It was an ordeal I had to face alone. I was none too sure from the very beginning whether I would have the strength to make it to the other side, but at least I’d be able to rest awhile on the opposite bank. I’d seen the others climbing out on to what looked like a smooth rock. I set out grimly, discovering to my horror that the middle stretch was very shallow, and dogged with disgusting seaweed, uncomfortably warm. But there was nothing for it but to struggle on to the far shore, where a well-earned rest awaited me. At last I made it, only to find, horrors!, that the bottom there was not the firm sand I’d been expecting, but thick oozing silt, up to your knees, and no other way to reach the rocky shore than to wade through this filthy muck. There was nothing for it but to go back unrested, panting and sobbing, back through all the horrible weed and slime. I got there at last, only to find there was no one there on the dock to acknowledge my triumph, let alone congratulate me. They’d all gotten bored with swimming and gone off to do something more interesting.

Swimming Across the Gorge Clip

Some of the swimming stunts we did at the dock were really dangerous. We realized it was way too shallow for real dives, but we did all sorts of fancy jumps. Once in a while some older boys would join us, tiring of the “Free” for a few days. One of their tricks was to swim under the dock itself. This was something even Connie did not dare to do. One time, Jack Campbell was a very longtime underneath. When he finally appeared, he was floating upside down on the water, doing the cork float, we figured. We watched for a while, marveling at how long he could hold his breath. Finally, Norm Dunnett became uneasy. “He’s going on too long”, he said, and jumped in after him, just in time to save his life, I suspect. Jack had hit his head on one of the beams underneath the wharf. Norm saved his life that day. Both these boys risked their lives more dangerously in Europe a few years later.

One of our summer occupations on the wharf was the Sun Tan. Everyone in our family had that thin fair skin that burns bright red, then peels off in long damp strips, only to burn again the next time we went out. That didn’t deter us from trying to cultivate a fashionable tan, however. Connie and I would have contests to see who could peel off the longest strip of moist dead skin. We also tried to write our initials on our backs by blocking off an “F” or “C” with Band-Aids, and wait for the hoped-for tan to produce a white initial. It never worked.

It was a Saturday morning, school had started, swimming season was over. We were attracted to the wharf by unusual shouts and a knot of people gathered by the water. As we arrived a police car drew up. A body had been found floating in the Gorge. His skin was a horrible grey colour, and his eyes, wide open, were blue where they should have been white. We were right down on the dock as he was pulled out, water streaming from his business suit. “Maybe he’s dead”, whispered Chris. The police were questioning the two boaters who bad hooked him with their boat hook and towed him ashore. They turned out all the pockets of his wet suit. We heard snatches of their muttered talk: “probably two weeks at least…..” Clarice Tupman belatedly decided this was not a fitting sight for her three-year-old brother, and took him virtuously home. We heard Mum calling.

“Lunchtime!” yelled Chris, “And it’s Pork n’Beans today!” so we were off to more important things.

Other summer activities at the Gorge House were blackberry picking, from the bushes growing over our side fence, a penny a punnet, and making houses in the tall grass of the field across the road. The boys would play “Cops and Robbers” there, no girls allowed. We were sometimes invited to play “Tarzan” in the big chestnut tree overhanging the water. I was sometimes allowed to be Jane. That chestnut tree is still there, but it has disappointingly shrunk. It was always one of my favourite places; its smooth bark made climbing a pleasure, and there was one particular branch which was ideal for curling up with a book. We all carved our initials in this tree, made swings, harvested the conkers. The chestnut has always been one of my favourite trees.

We always got away for part of the summer. In early days, we camped right on the beach at Cordova Bay. We camped in a sort of half-canvas hut, possibly surplus Army supplies from the Great War. The floor was wood, and the wooden walls waist-high, the roof was rather mildewed canvas. I believe this tent belonged to the Woodward family, and was more or less permanently there, right on the sand at the bottom of a steep wooden stairway leading down from the road. It had a wood stove, but I don’t know what we did for water, etc.

Dad would only be able to camp there on weekends. Week days he’d come after work, and have to get up very early to make the long commute to the Store. Cordova Bay was real country in those days; it was a long drive for him. He would get up before anyone else, make his porridge on the stove, and be gone before the rest of the family stirred. I have a vivid picture of him getting the fire started, stepping carefully about on the wood floor in his bare feet, dodging the numerous fat yellow banana slugs that had come in overnight. I’m told I first camped there at the age of six weeks. I’m also told I learned to swim there, my water-wings having deflated without my knowing.

In later years, we graduated from the beach tent to Auntie Dorothy’s cottage, about l0 minutes’ walk away from the beach, up by the railway tracks. This was a proper house, with two or three separate rooms, but it did have an outhouse, a hand-powered pump for the well, and kerosene lamps which had to have their chimneys cleaned of soot every morning. My memories of this cottage always call up the scent of sun-warmed bracken, which surrounded the house. I remember Mum, taking wood from the woodbox next to the kitchen stove, finding a nest of baby mice, all pink and squirming. Without a moment’s hesitation, she picked up the nest and thrust it into the fire.

Auntie Dorothy had a very old and pampered dachshund, fat and irritable and not fond of children. His name was Rowie, and we were warned to steer clear of him; he was not pleased to have to share his cottage with all these rowdy children. Now Connie and I had to share a bed at the cottage, so we had carefully drawn a line down the middle of the bed, so we didn’t trespass on each other’s territory. I came into the room late one night, Connie was already in bed, and sure enough, there was a large lump on my side of the bed! “Aha, here’s my chance; caught you on my side!” I picked up “The Yellow Book of Fairy Tales” and gave that lump a tremendous whack. I would teach her a lesson she’d never forget! Only it wasn’t Connie’s legs, it was Rowie – she’d stowed under the covers. His snarl was terrifying, and as for anyone never forgetting, Rowie was my sworn enemy to the end of his days, and I lived in terror of his growl.

Near the cottage were the train tracks. The E&N went by twice a day, and we liked to wait at the roadside and wave at the engineer. Frank showed us how to put our ear to the track to gauge how far away the train was; Connie would do it, but not me. I did like putting a penny on the track to see how it flattened, however. Across the track there was an Indian Burial Ground, according to Dad, but as we were not allowed over there without an adult, we never found any arrowheads. There was also an abandoned gravel pit about a mile away. Here we were strictly forbidden to go, but Frank went anyhow, sometimes taking Chris as well. They would come back with their knees all grazed, sand in their hair, and rips in the seat of their pants. Mum would shriek and carry on, hand at heart, when they appeared, but I don’t think she made much of an impression on Frank, who continued to be a dare-devil at every opportunity.

Go Carts Clip

There was a farm across the road from Auntie Dorothy’s. We used to go to a spring on this property, which had a nice little wooden bridge over it, and water-cress which we would gather and bring home for sandwiches. The farmer kept a baby bull in a cage by the barn. His teen-aged daughters used to feed him with a baby bottle. He was such a sweet little animal we could never understand why Auntie Dorothy was so mortally afraid of bulls. We always went for a picnic at Sayward’s Beach at least once during our holiday. The only way there was a long trek through bull-infested fields, everyone carrying something for our picnic. Auntie Dorothy and Mum had a fine time of it, being terrorized by fierce bulls. I could never understand why we had to go to Sayward’s anyhow; the beach was not so sandy as Cordova Bay proper, there were no swings, no other children to play with, hordes of wasps, and, worst of all, no McMorran’s with the possibility of ice-cream cones.

Auntie Gwladys was a part of these Cordova Bay vacations. She would hold a two-week Vacation Bible School class on the beach, having made a sort of shelter with logs and a canvas awning. We were required to show up every day, missing out on swim time, while she told Bible stories and taught crafts. She had a little portable organ, which she played when leading us in choruses,

“Jesus Loves Me”, and
“Wide, wide as the ocean,
High as the Heavens above,
Deep, deep as the deepest sea, Is my Saviour’s love.
I, though so unworthy,
Still I’m a child of His care,
For His word teaches me,
that His love reaches me, Everywhere”

This last, with appropriate actions, was my favourite. The Vacation Bible School was a drag, on the whole, and I think the five of us made up the bulk of the enrollment, but it did have a glorious finale: a Torchlight Parade, a la Hitler Youth, but with us marching around, singing our choruses, holding wonderful Japanese paper lanterns with candles in them, suspended on Bamboo poles.

In later years, as we grew older, we started going on motor trips, all of us somehow crammed into Dad’s little Ford, and taking off for who knows where, always a high adventure. Dad was always so busy at the Store all year, that when he did take his annual two weeks’ vacation, usually in August, he threw himself into it with enormous zest. We might start off by taking the Black Ball Ferry, the “Kala Kala”, to Port Angeles, and mess around the Olympic Peninsula and Puget Sound, staying in Auto Courts along the way. Faith and Frank would have fun making outrageous comments about the place names we came upon–Sequim, Puyallup, Tulalips. We would drive for about half a day, always ending up at a spot where we could get a good swim. I remember what a long way we had to go to finally get to the Pacific Ocean. The first time we’d seen it, I believe at Neah Bay, and what a disappointment it was – a rather bleak stony beach, where we weren’t allowed to swim because of the undertow.

Once we made a trip to the Okanagan, stopping at Oliver to visit an old school friend of Dad’s, who had an orchard there. We traveled via the Fraser Canyon, which was not the safe highway it is today, but a very precipitous winding, often gravel, road, hugging the side of a cliff. As we were driving on the outside curve of the narrow, winding road, we were obliged to inch out to the very edge of the chasm to let oncoming traffic (often a logging truck!) pass, as there was nothing but steep cliff on the other side of the road. Mum was in mortal terror all the way. She kept threatening to get out and walk, taking us children with her – if Dad wanted to kill himself, that was his business, but she wanted none of it herself. Of course, her screams and shrieks only made Dad more daredevil. It’s easy to see where Frank got his teasing ways. We had a hard time getting up some of the hills, too, of course. Everyone had to lean forward, and there were actually times when we had to get out and push the last few yards of a particularly steep slope.

On another holiday, on the Olympic Peninsula again, we discovered the Olympic Hot Springs, now closed because of a mountain slide. This was such an idyllic place that we returned there next year; with Granny and Auntie Gwladys, Phyllis and Lilian, and several assorted cousins, and spent the whole holiday just basking in the beautiful waters. It was a lovely place, a large hot spring (but not too hot!), the open pool surrounded by green mountain slopes, with snow-covered peaks beyond, and eagles lazily circling overhead as you lay back in one of the many inner tubes available in the pool. The hit song on the Juke Box that summer was “Melancholy Baby”, and it seemed to be playing all the time. We each got some spending money every day, so we sampled the exciting American chocolate bars and all-day suckers. I was really cheesed off one day when the Aunts decided to climb the trail to the top of the mountain, taking everyone except me and Chris, who had to stay behind with Granny. Lucky Connie was first back down, whooping and hollering, having run all the way down the mountain.

In later years, we often went on holiday up-Island. This meant driving over the dreaded Malahat, another occasion for palpitations from Mum. We could never determine where the exact summit was. Dad told us stories of driving the Malahat when he was a young man, when the road was even worse. Once we went to Alberni to visit Dad’s cousin Norman and his family. They lived in a very inadequate house; it was not even painted outside. Mum thought this was disgraceful, but all the houses were the same in Alberni. “They’ve got the Bush-Eye”, said Dad. Norman’s father, Dad’s Uncle Harry, had been a pioneer in Alberni. He had come to Victoria at the time of the Gold Rush, done well breaking horses for use as pack animals in the Yukon, and later settled in Alberni, hiking in with all his belongings on his back. His son, Norman, had a wife, Auntie May, a plump, jolly Irish woman. They had an enormous family, mostly girls, one of whom was disturbingly cross-eyed, and one boy, Harry, my age, with a shock of red hair and torn pants. The older girls had attempted to bring some culture and finesse into their rough home. They had collected wooden spools from thread and strung them on wires to make a four-poster bed for their room. I immediately resolved to start saving spools.

Anyhow, this family told Dad we should have a look at Sproat Lake, about twenty miles from town, so we made our way there (it was a lot further than twenty miles–the “Bush Eye”); we fell in love with the place, and returned there for several years. We stayed in the usual Auto Court, but this time, because we were such a large family, we got to stay in a converted boat house right on the shore of the lake. This was a great place. We could hear the water slapping under the verandah. There was a big wood stove, lots of comfortably sagging couches, and piles of ancient magazines, even jigsaw puzzles with tantalizing missing bits. We Three Little Ones would fish off the dock for bullheads, which we sold to the owner for a nickel a can full. There were rowboats we were free to use, and we all learned to row there, after a fashion. Sometimes Dad would send me to the store in the next bay to buy a newspaper. This was a long, arduous row, and I would be exhausted when I got back. Dad wanted the paper because this was August of 1939.

At last one day he said we had to cut short our holiday and head home; there was going to be a war. The grownups were particularly worried because Granny and Auntie Gwladys were in England that summer. Would they get home safely? On Labour Day of that year, the various branches of the Woodward family held a joint picnic at Ardmore, a lovely spot near Victoria, smooth rocks and arbutus trees leaning over the still warm water of Brentwood, the last swim of the year. But the adults were very worried and subdued, thinking of family in England and of cousins who were of an age to fight.

With September came a new feel to the world, even though we often had weeks more of warm sunny weather. We were back in school, with its smell of freshly oiled floors. We each had a new pair of shiny black Oxfords, and summer was over. Mum always said this was her favourite time of year. Was this because it was her birthday month, or because her children were back in school? She could be found, when we got back from school, actually sitting on the front porch, doing nothing but relaxing. This was rather unsettling, Mum was always busy, she didn’t take time off.

A nice thing about autumn was the maple leaves that piled high on the path to school, especially at the Bend; it was lovely to scrunch through them, knee high in crackling leaves. October brought Chris’ birthday, always with a Hallowe’en theme, and the excitement of Hallowe’en itself. One year I went out dressed as a fairy, in someone’s handed down ballet tutu, arms and legs covered in goose flesh.

Christmas was the high point of the year, of course. With us, it began officially on the first Sunday in December. Since the Store was so busy all month, this was the last time Dad could take any time off. Nothing would do but we had to go out to the Sooke Hills to get our tree, so, this first Sunday, after Meeting and Sunday School, we all bundled up and piled into the car. We had to go for miles, it seemed, until we found the perfect stand of trees, and chose the perfect tree. Faith was in charge here, pacing around each candidate tree, measuring up its good points. Finally, she had made her selection, and Frank had the honour of chopping it down, then we all took turns dragging it to the car, where Dad tied it to the roof. One year we had a light snowfall on the way home, which certainly added to the Christmas spirit, as we tootled along, singing carols. Another time it was so foggy that Frank had to run ahead of the car, so Dad could see the road! Once we had the tree, of course, it had to be put up without delay. Here, also, Faith was in sole charge. Us Three Little Ones could only watch from the doorway as she placed each ball in the exact right spot, and, I swear, hung each strand of tinsel individually. One year, Mum bought us each a ball of our own. Faith graciously allowed us each to hang our own ball, under her supervision, of course. Mine was a blown-glass sailing ship, pink, with glass wire rigging. We used to be able to get fabulous ornaments, hand-made in Germany. With the onset of the war, of course, these were no longer available.

Once the tree was up, shimmering silver in the living room, the Christmas season was really upon us, even though it was still only the first week in December. Connie and I had the Doll’s Concert to prepare, there was the School Concert, and finally the Sunday School Concert. Connie and I used to go out at night singing carols in the neighbourhood, along with two or three friends. We were collecting money for some unspecified worthy cause, mostly financing our own Christmas shopping, I’m afraid. Some households didn’t appreciate us, sending us away quite rudely; others, even worse, made us come in and sing properly in their living rooms. Mum used to encourage us to make our own gifts, but I can’t remember anyone showing much enthusiasm for this. I do have a picture of Connie and me, having made the arduous decision to get Mum a tiny blue bottle of Evening in Paris perfume, waiting impatiently at the counter of the Fifteen Cent Store, carefully counted money in hand, while the clerk pretended she hadn’t seen us.

The Doll’s Concert kept me and Connie busy for some weeks. The whole family had to attend the performance. Each doll had to recite or sing; we even decorated a miniature tree for them.

The School Concert was another event. One year my class were gypsy dancers. All the girls wore bright-coloured full skirts (mine was pink trimmed with ric-rac braid), and we carried a tambourine which had lots of ribbons streaming from it, which we were to shake over our heads at appropriate moments in the dance. I just loved my tambourine! Alas, on the Big Night, I dropped it a few bars into the dance. What a disaster! In the end I was able to get myself together enough to go through the motions without the tambourine, but not before I’d stumbled about the stage for several minutes trying to retrieve it from under people’s feet. One year we put on a fairytale pageant of some sort, and I had been chosen to be the fairy princess! Was I puffed up about that! But measles intervened, and I didn’t even get to see the play.

A big part of the season was the Sunday School Concert, boring and exciting both. The children would arrive at the Hall basement, where we would be served supper by our teachers. This was enormous platters of sandwiches and bread-and-butter, and mug after mug of cocoa from big enamel pitchers. Later the parents would arrive, and we’d do the Concert. Our family was always a major part of the program. We never got away without a long Recitation. I remember Connie one year doing a particularly pathetic Edwardian poem about an insufferable child who wore a fur tippet, whatever that was, and wanting to go to Heaven, put a stamp on his forehead and rushed out to mail himself at the pillar-box, only to be run over by a huge horse, thus getting an express delivery to the Hereafter. She used to memorize this interminably in bed at night. Mum would coach us in the proper elocution, making us put lots of emotion into it. The Concert would conclude with each child getting a brown paper bag with a Japanese Orange and lovely striped peppermint candies, of a sort we never got otherwise.

When Christmas Day arrived, it was always a bit frustrating. We had our stockings in bed, but Dad had to go to the Store to finish up late deliveries, and no presents could be opened until he got back. Plants and cut flowers, though ordered in advance, were not to be delivered until Christmas Eve, or preferably Christmas Day itself, so even though Dad had been terribly busy for days, there were always last-minute deliveries to be finished up. It was a wonder he ever got through the Presents and turkey. Boxing Day must have been heaven for him. One dreadful year, his regular delivery man, Bill Cave, could not do all the deliveries for some reason, and Dad had to hire a couple of High School seniors to do the late Christmas Eve run. Taking an order to one house where a party was going on, they were invited in and joined the party, leaving a truck full of plants and flowers shivering in the sudden frost. An hour or so later they resumed their work, but by that time the flowers had all shriveled up with the cold. That meant that next morning irate customers were on the phone to complain, and Dad had to somehow replace all the orders himself. It was late afternoon before we were allowed to have even one gift.

Christmas at Woodward’s Florist Clip

One year, Christmas Day fell on a Sunday. This was a disaster. Plymouth Brethren held that nothing was more important than observing the Lord’s Day, and that religious observation of Christmas and Easter was mere popery anyhow, and only the secular aspects of the holidays were allowed. Therefore, Sunday would be observed in the usual way, and Christmas would have to wait for the next day. Loudly we protested. Surely Santa Claus made only one trip. What would happen to our stockings? But Mum was adamant, we had to wait. Our friends had all had their tree and dinner, we felt horribly deprived. We went to Sunday School as usual. It just wasn’t fair. Winnie Burge’s family, though not allowed to have their tree until the next day, like us, had at least had lovely stockings to open that morning. Somehow, we survived until the next day, and all was forgotten. Christmas didn’t fall on a Sunday again for another 7 or 8 years, when we were all in our teens. Mum seemed to have forgotten the strict observance of Sunday for once, and we celebrated along with everyone else.

On Boxing Day there was always a beautiful children’s party at Clovelly, organized by the Aunts, at which the whole family got together. All the cousins and second cousins would be there. We were the Uncle Laurence’s; there were also the Auntie Dolly’s, the Uncle Edmund’s, the Auntie Beth’s. Clovelly would be very festive for the occasion, one of the few times we would actually enter at the front door, rather than the back entrance. The drawing room would be opened as well as the large dining room and the hall, and great fires crackled in every room. We saw people we hadn’t seen since last year’s party. One year, it was decided to have real candles on the tree, for one last time. It was a very tall tree, set up in the hall, which was a large room, in its own right. Dad was in charge of lighting the candles, which were fastened to the branches with clips from which hung flocked glass balls in the shape of cabbage roses. Everyone was banished from the room while Dad lit the candles one by one; then he opened the door, and for a few minutes we all crowded in to gaze in awe at the wonderful sight. It was a magical thing – not only were the candles glittering and shimmering all over the tree, hundreds of them, it seemed, but the smell of candle wax mixed with fir tree was unforgettable. It lasted only a minute or so; then the candles had to be quickly snuffed out, and the magic was gone. At these parties we always played old-fashioned games like “Spin the Bottle”, (a decorous version), “Hunt the Thimble”, and our own family version of “Charades”, where the syllables were spoken, worked into the skits, not just mimed.

Living in Victoria was a definite drawback if you wanted snow, which we did, desperately, all winter. Save for a couple of exceptional years, we were lucky to get more than a day of it. More often we’d get bitter winds, ice cold rain, and when it did turn into soft airy flakes, it was likely to melt away as soon as it touched the ground. “Will it settle?” we’d ask ourselves, hoping against hope that this was our lucky day. When at last the miracle happened, Parkview Drive became the perfect sledding hill. One block long, as steep as could be wished, with hardly any traffic, it was ideal except for one drawback; the slope ended abruptly at busy Gorge Road. Consequently, when we went sledding, Mum would post herself at the bottom of the hill, ready to throw her body between us and the passing cars.

Occasionally we’d have a cold snap which resulted in shallow lakes freezing over. Then somehow, we’d find enough well-worn, hopelessly dull skates for the whole family, and we’d get a chance to try our luck on the ice. I remember Dad taking us one starry night to Swan Lake, where a crowd of people were skating around, and there was a blazing bonfire on the shore where we could warm ourselves up. Then when we got home Mum had hot cocoa for everyone, and we’d take a brick, heated in the oven, to warm our beds delightfully.

But winters were short in Victoria. The first snowdrops would appear in January, and suddenly we were anxious for the days to get longer and spring to arrive. There used to be thousands of “Easter Lilies” growing wild in every wooded corner. At school we used to vie with each other who could pick the biggest handful to bring back to the teacher after recess. The poor flowers would be wilted in minutes, and never return next year. Now they are very rarely found, thanks in large part to our efforts. In June we would risk prickled hands to pick bunches of wild roses for Mum, her favourite flower. They grew abundantly all along the edge of the Gorge. When the roses bloomed, we knew it wouldn’t be long before we were swimming every day again.

Next:

The Gorge House: School