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My Life Howard NorfolkFamilies
and school days, to Vancouver, to England, and
Back Birth I was
born 6 April 1944, in Northampton England, to Geoffrey Norfolk and
Clarice Margaret Norfolk (nee
Gale).
Two
brothers, Alan and Howard, were both shot down - Alan (born 1912)
flying a Beaufighter over the North Sea in 1940, and Howard (born
1917) in 1942 over Holland, piloting a Halifax bomber returning from
a mission. I have visited Howard and his crew’s well-maintained row
of tombstones at the site of their crash landing in
Holland Our
families had prospered before the War and in late-Victorian
times: The
Norfolks Great-great grandfather John
Norfolk was mayor of Deptford, London in late-Victorian times. A 10 foot high portrait of
him was displayed in City Hall until the ‘70s. Brother Robert was
offered this painting but turned it down since he had nowhere to put
it. He has recently attempted to locate it again.
In1894
my great-grandfather Thomas Norfolk established a brewery in
Deptford, London - Thomas Norfolk & Sons Ltd. He sold it to the
Dartford Brewery in 1904, together with 55 public houses, for a
reputed £1.5 million. A
family dispute cut my grandfather out of Thomas’ will, but my
grandfather did well by owning the Regal Theatre in Northampton
during the peak period of popularity of cinemas. He bought property,
and a family anecdote says that he once bought a row of ten
townhouses without even looking at them! Unfortunately the value of
rental properties dropped with the post-war Labour government’s rent
control policies. The properties cost more to maintain than the rent
that was paid, and my grandmother did not get much when they were
sold.
The
Gales
Our
grandpa W.H. Gale was one of six. The others were Wilf, Dorothy,
Elsie, Jack, and Herbert Anthony Gale, who died of wounds at Aix in
1918. He was awarded the Military Cross, and bar. (There was also a
girl who died in infancy - Clarice Hilda). W.
H.’s father was John Gale (there are still some John Gales in the
family). John Gale was
born 12 January 1863, in Calne, Wiltshire. His father was Stephen
Gale, married to Jane, nee Hazell. John Gale married Amelia
Minns on 3 June 1884 in the Baptist church at Frome. W.H. was born
24 May 1885 at 16 Gloucester Road Trowbridge (family home). John
Gale was mayor of Calne three times, and was on town council, a
magistrate and an alderman.
Grandpa
W.H. Gale married Dora Worgan June 30 1911 at Painswick Church.
He was living and working in Bradford on Avon then, and both our
mothers were born there. He died 13 October 1951. He was a
Freemason, and was Master of his Lodge for some time. He fought
throughout the Great War and was at Passchendale, the Somme, Ypres,
and even saw the “Angel
of Mons.”
Grandfather’s
unit WW1 John
Gale was a clothing designer and tailor and "made" our grandpa go
into the business - I think he had wanted to be a pharmacist or some
such - very suitable I should have thought for his exacting
character. They designed custom clothes for both men and ladies, and
had workshops
employing
about twenty people who actually made their creations. Army officers
from the many nearby army bases were also regular
customers. Our
mothers were both privately educated at the well-known St. Mary’s
School for Girls, in Calne.
Mum in lacrosse
gear
Grandpa spent a lot of time in these greenhouses.
Moving,
and schooldays
My
father, whose career aims had been disrupted by the war, became a
Certified Accountant and eventually company secretary of a large
fruit importing company based in Central
London. Our new
family moved to a house in the City of Leicester for a short time,
and then around 1950 to a suburb of Watford,
Herts. I
passed my ‘11 plus’ tests and attended Watford Grammar School for
Boys.
17 Park Road in the
‘60s. When I visited in 2000 the paint and Virginia creeper had been
stripped prior to repainting.
My
school days were uneventful. I passed the exams. One term at age 16,
I came first in my class in both English and maths. My Report Card
said I didn’t deserve the maths result. In fact I was not the least
interested in maths – but I swotted up the easy formulas used at
that level, and simply applied them. I was not attracted to team
sports and did not participate. I founded the school Angling Society
instead. More about fishing later…
I got
my first experiences of overseas travel in this period. About 1956
Dad drove the family through France in our Rover car to Lloret de
Mar on the Costa Brava, Spain. This was before the days of package
air tours. We had some adventures on the way! I also went on a school trip
to Paris, and by invitation from my Dutch girl pen friend in
Holland, visited my uncle Howard’s gravestone
there.
As a
lawyer After
leaving school in 1962 I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, to be
trained by the articled clerk system. A lawyer in Brighton took me
on as a probationer for six months. I found the law to be very dull,
with all man-made theories and nothing “real.” I did
not like it at all. University of
Leicester
So I
snapped up a place at Leicester University when it was offered. (In
those days university education in England was generously funded by
the state. Tuition was free, and a grant system, based on one’s
parents’ income, provided sufficient money for living expenses. Each
place had about twenty applicants competing for it, but we all made
about four or five applications. You couldn’t just pay money and
attend, except in certain cases). I
graduated with a B.A. Special Degree in the Social Sciences
(2nd Class Hons.).
This had involved courses in Geography, Geology, Economic
History, Politics, and Social Sciences. As customary in England, it
was a three-year course. In my third year I specialised in
Geography. I was
Chairman of the Economic History Society, and Secretary of the
Conservative Association, in connection with which I went to a
couple of conferences and helped at elections. I’m not so sure my
politics are quite so right-wing now! I was
also university representative for AISEC, an international student
job exchange programme. Companies in other countries offered jobs
for our students in exchange for jobs for their students. This
position made me a de facto member of the Student’s Union
Council. An
aside - Our Student Entertainment Committee was particularly on the
ball. They booked up-and-coming groups before they became famous,
and one was the Rolling Stones. The Stones honoured their contract
even though they by now had two hit records, and appeared at our
Saturday night ‘Hop’ one night in Spring 1964, playing on our
makeshift 4 foot stage in the cafeteria. Most of us just stood
around the stage in awe - including me. I stood about six feet from
Mick Jagger. The Beatles were also booked, but found a way to back
out of their contract. I took
advantage of AISEC and went as far as I could in Europe – Istanbul,
Turkey. Another student signed up for Turkey, and we travelled by
special low-fare students’ train across the whole of Europe. The
‘job’ was a nominal office job for one month, but we were paid. My
friend left after his month was up, but I stayed for an extra month,
looking around Istanbul and its environs. Turkey
was so exotic that it became my ‘favourite country.’ For our graduation
dissertation, Geography specialists had to study some aspect of a
place, and write a report. Most students wrote about their own home
town (although one went to the US), but I went back to Turkey, again
c/o AISEC. After
the one month ‘job’ I travelled throughout Turkey with Hassan Tumer,
the son of the family we had lodged with the year before. We went by
ship along the Black Sea coast, on to the eastern city of Erzerum,
and zigzagged back by
bus and train, seeing the whole country. Hassan had an aunt who
lived in Kirkpinar, an agricultural village near Istanbul, so we
went to stay there for a couple of weeks. I investigated the
village’s life and economy and wrote my
dissertation. I had financed these trips each year by staying in Leicester for a month to work night shift in a bakery. Official hours were 6 p.m. to 2.30 a.m., but to put in maximum hours I hung around helping the foreman until the day shift arrived at 8:00.
Graduation Day, June
1966 A
hitchhike around Europe
After
university I had a plan – take a year off and travel around the
World. The original idea was to emigrate to Canada first, work and
travel there for six months, then across the Pacific to Australia
and back home through Asia. My best friend, John Smith, decided to
come with me. We were
accepted by Canada Immigration but were told the papers wouldn’t
arrive for six weeks, so we decided to spend that time travelling in
Europe. In fact the papers came through within a week - before we
left - but we still did our trip. We
travelled for two months throughout Europe the way many students did
back then, the cheap
way - hitchhiking, Youth Hostels, tent, cooking our own food.
We
explored many cities, including Antwerp, Brussels, Cologne, Bonn,
Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich, Saltzburg, Vienna, Zagreb, Dubrovnik,
Belgrade, Skopje, Thessalonika, Athens, Corinth. We spent a week
resting on the island of Corfu, and then ferried across to Italy,
and up through Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan. In Milan we split up – John
headed across to Bilbao in Spain where his father was working as a
consultant engineer biulding a blast furnace, and I headed home.
Finances were tight. I had only thirty shillings ($4.50 at the time)
to hitchhike 450 miles to the Ostend Ferry! But I was very lucky to
be picked up by a German doctor who was heading to Cologne. He drove me for two days and
paid for food and accommodation on the way, so I made it
home. I
noticed later in Canada that not many young Canadians were aware of
how cheaply Europe could be seen. They thought rented cars and
hotels were the way. So I wrote and self-published a booklet
Cheapest Europe for Student Travellers. I didn’t promote it much,
but some were sold by
mail order from ads in student papers, and one university bought ten
copies.
To
Toronto John
and I sailed to Canada on the S.S. Franconia. It was a stormy
voyage. We disembarked in Montreal on 9th November 1966, each with
about two hundred pounds in our pockets, and first went to Kingston
to look for jobs. We were advised to go to Toronto and were lucky
enough to get Christmas sales jobs at Simpsons Department
Store. For New
Year’s we took a bus to New York to visit a
friend of mine from university. His apartment overlooked Central
Park.. We met Frederick R. Koch, the art connoisseur, who took us to
lunch at the Harvard Club. I kept up a correspondence with Fred for
some time, and met him for lunch a couple of times when we were both
in London. It was
hard to find good work, but eventually I found a union job as a
welder’s helper at $3/hr., and John did commission sales jobs. We
each bought a car, and spent the summer exploring Ontario - Niagara
Falls, fishing trips - mostly in John’s Volvo.
We
hadn’t saved enough to go on to Australia (our plan), but didn’t
want to face another cold Ontario winter, so we decided to head for
Vancouver. To
Vancouver Expo 67
was still on, so first we headed east through Ottawa to Montreal and
visited Expo. We then turned south through New England to Boston. We
by-passed New York because we had already been there, and went on to
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. When we reached Washington on October 21, we found ourselves amidst 70,000 demonstrators taking part in the first of what was to become huge bi-annual anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. We had no idea it was going to take place, although as we drove towards Washington the atmosphere had seemed very strange and tense. At the Pentagon we saw hippies putting flowers in the guns of the guarding soldiers, and we attended the speech by Dr.Benjamin Spock at the Reflecting Pool. We saw the Washington and Lincoln Memorials, but were disappointed that the Smithsonian Museum was closed and we could only view the White House and the Pentagon from a distance!! Finally
we turned west towards Vancouver, and visited Charleston,
Cincinnati, St. Louis, Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita. We were particularly keen to
see the old cowboy towns from the movies and comics, so Dodge City
was a highlight. From
Salt Lake City we turned northwards to Vancouver, taking the Boise,
Spokane route. We took
John’s Volvo car on this trip, since the seats folded down to make a
sleeping platform. We slept mostly in the car, using motels
occasionally to clean up and rest properly. Our plan was to average
400 miles/day. Having visited a city, we would drive as far as we
could towards the next one that evening. Waking early, we would
usually arrive at the next city with a day to visit all the
sights….then on towards the next. Vancouver We arrived
in Vancouver in November, and rented an apartment in Kitsilano. It
had a view of Kits Beach. We immediately took a liking to Vancouver,
for its beauty and scenery. But jobs are hard to find in winter in
Vancouver, since many young Canadians migrate there for the warm
weather, and this was the ‘60s – the hippie
era. We ran out
of money by Christmas. We lived on baked beans and toast with no
butter. Our Christmas dinner that year was the nuts and fruit on the
table of some girls we visited! We didn’t have a dime for a paper or
for a phone call, so a couple of times we walked two miles to the
public library and its free newspapers, then begged to use the
library phone! No jobs though. We were too proud to write home for
money and admit we were failures. In early
January, John had the idea of knocking on doors asking for odd jobs.
He went to West Vancouver, a wealthy residential suburb. The first
day he swept leaves. Finally we had a way to make money! I went
along the second day and we were asked to clean windows. The
customer gave us some Windex and paper towels, and we assumed this
was how pros cleaned windows. So we bought our own Windex and paper
towels and knocked on doors telling people we were window cleaners. We were soon told that pros
use ammonia and special brass squeegees, so we bought these. Our
initial investment in business was $3.50. January was
hard going with several snowstorms that interrupted our work.
Sometimes our water froze on the outsides of the windows before we
could squeegee it off! But we soon built up a window cleaning (and
later grass-cutting) round, with repeat customers. We regularly made
about $4/hour, which was good money in those days (beer was
$1.60/case, cigarettes $2.10/carton, gasoline 23c/gallon, 3 course
restaurant meal $1 or less, coffee 10c, rent $90/month, nice house
$18,000). Every
weekend we drove out of town and explored ‘Beautiful B.C.’,
particularly its rivers and lakes, since we were both very keen on
fishing. I wanted to
return to England by Christmas, so we advertised our window cleaning
business, and sold it for
$1000! John stayed
on in Brackendale, and I flew home. John returned in April, looking
very sun-tanned.
With
John Smith at Vancouver Airport After
an interesting sojourn in Canada, it was time to start a career. I
thought I would try the travel business, and immediately got a
well-paid (£2500 p.a.) position as Manager of the Costa Brava
Administration Section at Clarksons Holidays, in London.. I had a
secretary and eight staff. I commuted to London with Dad for a
while, then rented an apartment in Bromley. For my
‘real holiday’ a friend and I went somewhere Clarksons didn’t go -
Morocco. We flew to Gibraltar, ferried to Tangier, visited Rabat,
Casablanca, and Fez, and explored the High Atlas Mountains by
donkey. But two
years of commuting and sitting in an office in Central London was
enough for me. I yearned for the scenery and wide open spaces of
British Columbia! I quit Clarksons. (And by coincidence Clarksons
went bankrupt soon after. They over-extended themselves by investing
in their own fleet of planes, which proved
uneconomical). I went back
to Vancouver in spring 1970. John, meanwhile, was living in the
Seychelle Islands. His father had some property there and he had
gone to inspect it. He liked the Seychelles so he got some kind of
office job there and was thinking of settling
down. Drive – New York to British
Columbia Someone had
told me about the “Auto Drive-away” system in the US, where one is
given a car to deliver to an address, and the only cost to the
driver is fuel and oil. I decided to drive across the US again using
this system, and it worked. I flew to
New York and was given a Volkswagen to drive to Atlanta. In Atlanta
I was given an air-conditioned top-of-the-line Ford Mustang to drive
to Portland Oregon! The
only condition was that I couldn’t enter
Nevada. I had to
make an income while looking for a career, so contacted some of our
old painting customers to say that I was back, and started painting
again. So John
Smith and I had been partners again for about a year, advertising
ourselves as ‘student painters’. We were self-taught and learned all
the tricks of the trade from scratch, since neither of us had ever
worked for another painter. Business was good, and we were earning
more money than any of our friends who had regular jobs.
- We
worked outside in the summer and inside in the winter.
-
I did not
have to wear a suit or go to the same office or shop every day – we
moved around to different locations constantly.
-
I was free
to arrange my time however I liked (for a while I tried a 4 day
week). I was not committed to regular hours. I could take holidays
or days off whenever I wished. (I took four to six weeeks off at
Christmas time in order to travel). I could switch my company’s long
weekends to a different date when the weather was better or the
roads would not be so crowded. -
It was a
challenge to organise
jobs in the most efficient way. -
I enjoyed
meeting the customers, and advising them about colours and
design. -
I enjoyed
relating to my employees. I paid them generously and reliably, so I
got the best and they remained loyal. Many of them stayed with me
for years at a stretch.. -
Overhead
was low, and there were lots of tax write-offs (office in home,
storage, vehicles, etc.) I did it
just for the money, so that I could pursue my many other interests.
The money was good, steady, and quite adequate for my needs. My
policy was to charge for labour double what it cost me. So minus
some expenses, my income in summer was the equivalent of the total
of the wages of up to seven skilled tradesmen, and in the less busy
winter season, that of two or three, plus the work I did myself at
full rates. I had no office or secretary to pay for, and recently
calculated that recently my fixed overhead (generously calculated
for tax purposes) was only $840/month – less than a day’s
work.. I didn’t
make a quick fortune, or attempt to. Naturally I sometimes thought I
should be doing something else and had a few ideas over the years,
but nothing I considered seemed so good, or it would have required
more commitment than I wanted to give.
Company
golf tournament, 1999 Company
golf tournament, 2000 My mother
died, after battling breast cancer, on 10 August 1970.
Hobbies and
Interests
Angling
I
still vividly remember the exact moment I became infatuated with
fish! I must have been
about five or six years old. I was walking with my parents along the
banks of the River Gade in Cassiobury Park Watford, and we stopped
to watch an angler. He caught a fish – a little perch about four or
five inches long. As it wriggled on his line and then flopped on the
grass I thought how beautiful it was. I had no idea that such
iridescent jewels were hidden in those murky waters, and wanted to
see more. I
did see more. From the age of about eight I went fishing whenever I
got the chance, either with friends or on my own. (Things were
simpler then).
Grandfather Gale had been an angler, and I inherited all his
tackle, which was of the highest quality – split cane rods and Hardy
reels.
Grandfather
Gale with a large pike At school, Wednesday afternoons were reserved for playing sports, but I went fishing in our local rivers and lakes or from the West Pier at Brighton, with friends or by myself. From the age of sixteen I owned a two-seater 49cc moped, so could comfortably range within about 10 miles from home, often with a friend. Local fish were all coarse fish, so they were all returned alive.
Two
of my fishing friends at school, Michael Trosh and M.J. (“Midge”)
Brooks My
‘art’ at school tended to be mostly about fish. I made and painted
some plaster casts of fish (which I bought from the
fishmonger). I
had an aquarium in my bedroom, in which I kept and observed some
fish I caught, including once, a little 8”
pike. I
founded an Angling Society at my school in Brighton, and arranged
saltwater outings on our piers and breakwaters, and had competitions
with prizes. We once rented a fishing boat to try some off-shore
fishing.
School
Angling Society outing, July 1963 I
joined the Burgess Hill Angling Society, which had fishing rights to
certain waters and went on Sunday coach outings to other clubs’
waters. I was junior representative on the Committee and wrote the
minutes for them, and went on most of their outings. Heading
to a club outing, 1960 When
our family went on holiday to seaside resorts I made sure I took my
rods, and fished from piers or rented boats.
I
took my little brother fishing on my moped. My
friend John Smith was also a keen angler. His family came from the
fly-fishing fraternity. His father once invested £10,000 for the
fishing rights to 3 miles of the Wye River, a famous salmon stream.
(He hired keepers and agents who sold day tickets to rich people who
wanted to pay hundreds of pounds to catch a salmon). That investment
would be worth much more now. We took camping holidays to Dartmoor,
where we fly-fished. Fishing
in B.C. John
and I of course fished when we were in Ontario, and I particularly
remember the good carp fishing. But
of the main reasons John and I were attracted to British Columbia
was its reputation for fishing, and that was our main recreation
while we were together there. At every opportunity we took off and
explored the province’s rivers, lakes and salt
waters. Coho
from Cowichan Bay We
tried fly-fishing for rainbow and cutthroat trout in the rivers,
renting boats in the lakes, and ‘mooching’ for salmon in the salt
waters. But
our favourite place to fish became the Cowichan River at Duncan on
Vancouver Island. It is considered one of the finest rivers in
B.C. It flows from a
weir at Lake Cowichan into the sea at Cowichan Bay, and there are
about 20 miles of fishable waters. As well as rainbow trout,
cutthroat trout, steelhead, chinook and coho salmon, it contains a
stock of brown trout, which were introduced about a century ago.
Fly
fishing the Cowichan River
Brown trout
Coho salmon But
after John moved to Victoria I needed some new fishing friends, so I
joined the North Shore Fish and Game Club. The club held
entertainment meetings each month, and arranged outings and
competitions, mostly saltwater, which I
attended.
A
North Shore Fish & Game Club outing I
became secretary of the club, and also wrote the newsletter. I
dropped out of the club in the early ‘80s, partly because of their
attitude against gun
control. I am against hunting – I think animals should be able to
live their lives in peace. In
the ‘70s and ‘80s I became interested in the history of angling, and
amassed a substantial collection of old fishing tackle. I had old
rods and reels hanging on my stairway wall, reels on display on
shelves, and lots more tucked away. In
later years I restricted my sport fishing almost entirely to the
Cowichan River, and took the ferry over there four or five times
each season, at first with John and later with other friends. Kevin
M. has been a regular companion in recent years. I taught him how to
make fishing flies.
With rainbow trout.
Kevin M. Later,
in connection with my ponds and aquariums I was interested in the
non-sports fish and water plants in our rivers and streams. I always
kept a dip net in my car and would often stop to investigate
interesting waters. Mountaineering John
and I were exploring the rocky canyon on the Cowichan River below
Skutz Falls and had to negotiate an almost perpendicular rock wall
with some technical climbing difficulties. We just made it, but I
thought perhaps some training in rock climbing might be advisable in
case we were trapped in future. So in 1975 I signed up for a
mountaineering course, having no idea what it would lead
to. It
led to a major new interest that occupied me until about 1981, when
I was no longer able to keep up with the younger
guys.
On
the peak of Mount Baker Milan
arranged another, week long, trip to the Tantalus Range. We climbed
Mount Alpha but were turned back from our attempt at Mount Tantalus,
due to foggy weather. I
joined the Alpine Club of Canada and participated in, and led, some
of their trips. The
most ambitious expedition I took part in was an Alpine Club attempt
on Mount Waddington, at 13,186 ft. the highest peak in the Coast
Range of B.C. We flew
into a lake and hiked up to base camp. Meanwhile food and supplies
had been dropped by air for us onto the slopes of the mountain. But
were foiled again, due to bad weather. Even when we got back to the
lake, we had to wait four days before the float planes could land
and pick us up. One
summer two friends and I went to Jasper, hoping to climb Mount
Robson, at 12,972 ft. the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies.
Yet again we were foiled by bad weather, but were able to ascend Mt.
Edith Cavell (11,032 ft.). We decided to head south to Banff and the
Bugaboo Range. The weather was bright and sunny there, and we had a
wonderful week exploring this spectacular mountain
range. I
did do lots of successful day, weekend, or long weekend ascents of
local mountains. In fact I can drive along most of our roads and
highways and point out that I’ve climbed most of the mountains in
view. I went mountaineering almost every good weather weekend when I
wasn’t fishing. When up a mountain looking down at a river I wished
I was down there – and when on a river looking up at the mountains I
wished I was up there! Regular
companions were John H. and his friend John O., two young hikers
whom I introduced to mountaineering. John Howe developed his
interests and went on to write about climbing, and is now head of
Mountain Search and Rescue for Squamish. He owns a forestry
consulting company there. I was touched when, visiting me because of
my illness, he brought a framed photo of three of us atop a peak,
which he keeps on his desk to this day.
John
H., John O. and me on top of Welch Peak.
Rapelling
Peak of Mount Frosty Skiing I
also did ski-mountaineering – climbing mountains uphill on special
short skis with hinged boot bindings and removable ‘skins.’ This
involved some overnight trips, staying in Alpine Club cabins in the
mountains. I
did a course in Nordic skiing, but did not really take to
it. One
winter John H., John O. and I wanted to be at the top of a mountain
for New Year’s Day. We were to drive to a lake and from there climb
the mountain - a three day trip in all. But there had been recent
heavy snowfalls and the road that passed by the lake was not
ploughed. (That road has since been paved and would be ploughed
daily now). My 4WD Jeep, even with chains, got bogged down. It took
us a whole day to hike to the lake. We found the snow on the trail
up the mountain was too deep and soft, so we had to abandon the
climb. We camped by the lake for two nights in sub-zero weather and
explored the nearby surroundings. Photography
Photography
has been a major interest. I saved up while at university to buy a
quality camera – a Voigtlander. It served me well for many years. I
took mostly slides. Unfortunately
all my early slides were lost. When I moved back to Canada I left a
trunk of possessions with my brother Robert and they were stolen
from his flat in London. I
later bought a better quality Canon camera with a full set of
lenses. In
the ‘70s I took up Super 8 movie making. I filmed most of my
mountain climbing and other trips, and spent hours editing the films
and taping sound tracks that played in conjunction with them. I
showed the films at Alpine Club and Fishing Club
meetings. Super
8 became outdated with the coming of video cassette recorders. I
started with 8 mm but changed to the better quality 16 mm cassettes.
I like to show friends the films, and in fact my video camera was
the only camera I took on many trips, so I still don’t have still
photos When
digital photography came along and I had a computer, I bought a
digital camera and immediately loved it. ‘Film’ cost nothing so I
could take as many photos as I liked. Photos could be edited on the
computer, and could be printed out whenever
required. I
gave away all my SLR equipment to my friends in
India. Houses
The bathroom was a mess when I worked on it, but turned out quite well.
The
kitchen door was plain, so I painted a ‘window’ on
it. The
most spectacular room was the spare bedroom, or “Whaam room.” one
wall was covered with a mural - a copy of a famous Roy Liechtenstein
pop art painting. The yellow and red were done with fluorescent
paint, and the room was lit with a black light. The ceiling was
wallpapered with a tin roof texture, and painted with aluminium
paint. The rest of the room was blue, with no pictures or
ornaments. All my
visitors wanted to go upstairs and look at this
room.
The
basement was a challenge. Previous owners had never used it. The
house still rested on its original 12” x 12” wooden posts, with no
concrete foundation. The floor was gravel. I had a foundation laid
and built a recreation room, with a bar, pool table, dartboard, and
pinball machines. It was like a small pub, and friends would be
there almost every evening. I don’t have any photos of
it. Emerald
Drive: I liked
Emerald Drive, but a break-in and other incidents put me off living
alone. I decided to buy a house with a self-contained rental suite.
I did not need the rental income, but wanted tenants for security
and as watchdogs. It was
March 1991. I had found another Panabode, and moved in. I was back
in a log cabin. I have lived happily there ever since. 4342
Capilano Road The tenants
were always available to help around the house and garden. I have
not had to mow my lawn or rake leaves since!
Indoor
recreation
I
bought a modern pinball machine for my first rec. room, and then
picked an ‘antique’ one from the 1950s. That sparked an interest in
the history of pinball and other games, and I started to collect and research
them. At one time I had four pinballs from the early 1930s, a 1937
Bally “Bumper”, two 1950s ‘Bingo’gambling pinballs, as well as the
original two and some other arcade games. There
are several photos of my machines in this book, and I am thanked in
the Preface. 1931 "Whiz Bang" 1932 "The President" 1937 Bally Bumper
A corner of my living area at
Capilano Road -
‘Frolics.” from
the ’ 80s’,
Poker For just seven months
in 1981, I hosted a Friday night card gambling game in my living
room. Then the 1981 real estate crash occurred, certain key players
quit, I went for a seven week winter holiday - and we didn’t start up again
in the New Year. I did
not ‘gamble’ – I played scientifically. Simply put, I would work out
the odds of getting the card that I needed to probably win - say 1
in 3. I would then assess the size of the pot and the amount of the
final bet I would have to make to win. Should the potential return
be more than three times the bet, I would bet. Of course this did
not work every time, but averaged out ten or one hundred times it
was an infallible system. The secret to gambling games is to ask “If
I had to make this bet 100 times would I do
it?” We had
some players that were easy to beat; for instance a realtor who
wanted to be popular. After he’d won a pot he was so embarrassed
that one could be sure he’d
shovel all the money he’d won back into the next one! There
was a rich lady who just wanted a night out with her son and his
girlfriend. She would bring plenty of cash, but at the end of the
evening always ended up writing cheques to people she’d borrowed
from (mostly me). We had players who would drop in late. They had
been to the pub and showed up at our game with a couple of hundred
dollars and say ‘I’ll just play until I lose this.’ They always
did. In
seven months I won $14,000, which paid for my trip to Australia that
winter. I could have won more, but every now and then I played
‘loose’ to show that I was not infallible. I also
played twice in a more serious game poker game hosted by a building
developer. Pots were larger – average $1000 to $5000. I won $1800 and $400. I noticed a Greek restaurant
owner cheating, I believe by switching decks when it was his turn to
deal. He gave me a very funny look when I folded two kings he had
given me! I folded on all his deals after that, but he always sucked
some people in, and won a couple of large pots of about $10,000. I
advised our host about my suspicions. Bryan Adams
Singer
Bryan Adams lived near me with his mother in his youth, and visited
me often. Almost every night at exactly 6.30 my doorbell would ring
and I’d know it was Bryan.
His face was covered with acne scars and he didn’t have many
friends. One
evening he asked me to drive him and his acoustic guitar to a
recital at a school. He stood on the bare stage with another
guitarist and played some rather lack lustre folk songs. I wasn’t
too impressed, but I still consider myself the first person, other
than his mother, who went to a concert specifically to see
him!
Cars
I was
largely independent from buses and parents’ cars from age of 16,
when I owned a two-seater 49cc moped. It was not very
powerful but, winter and summer, got myself and my friends around
more efficiently than a bicycle My
moped My ’67 Mustang
convertible, on a gravel road
.... and in the mud The car
is kept in my garage and only driven on weekends, so is still in
fine condition. It still gets admiring looks and comments. It has
been my ideal car, and I have never regretted buying it, and would
buy another. Antiques
The living
area
Golf
Even
though I am right handed, I played golf left
handed. About
1985, I was in an antique store on Vancouver Island looking for old
fishing tackle when I noticed a 1930s book about golf. I thought it
might be rare or valuable so I bought it. It turned out to be one of
the most common 1930s books, but it triggered my passion for
collecting golf books and studying the history of
golf. I did
not participate in Internet sales – it just seemed too
easy. Aquarticles.com Within
a month I bought a digital camera, which impressed me so much that I
gave away my two SLRs to my friends in India when I went to India
that December. Articles have been donated by
authors in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Cuba, Hong Kong, India,
Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand Singapore, U.K., and the
U.S. To see
articles by me, go to the Travel Section and read about my travels
to China, Cuba and Jamaica. In the North America part of Travel
there are articles by me about our local public aquarium and local
pet stores. I also wrote about other aquarists in the People
section. Unlike
most locally based websites, Aquarticles has become a worldwide
site, and about two years ago I realised that it was more than just
a storehouse of information - it had become a source of cooperation
and mutual respect between aquarists all over the world. It has
given me satisfaction to see articles by aquarists in India being
reprinted in American club newsletters, or a southern US expert
helping a hotel in Egypt that wanted to start a shark aquarium, or
to add reports on fish collecting expeditions by local aquarists in
Borneo, Malaysia and India, or to forward questions from all over
the world to an expert in New
Zealand. I enjoy
corresponding with intelligent people worldwide about our mutual
interest.
Ponds
and aquariums Dustbin lid with
tadpoles, Nana and Jimmy. My first
aquarium. Later,
I had a 20 gallon or so aquarium in my bedroom, in which I kept
native fish that I caught, including rudd, perch, and even a little
6” pike. Ameca
splendens
Red-fin shark
Winter 1981-82:
Fiji, New Zealand,
Australia I
finally made it to Australia! – but wanted to see a bit more while I
was down under, so my travel agent booked the flights for an eight
week tour: a week in Fiji, ten days in New Zealand, and a month in
Australia. I
picked up a hitchhiker and he invited me to visit his village. He
said I would have to present myself to the village chief and give
him some ‘kava.’ We bought some kava roots, parked my car, and
walked about two miles down a trail to his village on the sea shore.
I met the chief, he prepared a little kava (a drink with drug-like
properties), and welcomed me to his village. I
landed in Auckland rented a car, and lokked around before driving
south to the hot springs of the volcanic area of Roturua. The area
was relaxing and pleasant, so I spent a couple of days
there. I drove
as far as Wellington, and then back up the west coast of the North
Island to Auckland. North of Auckland the Bay of Islands looked
worth a visit, and indeed it was. I finally did some fishing! I
joined up with a group of three and we hired a guided boat to try
marlin fishing. Marlin are migratory fish and the season was only
just beginning, so we didn’t catch any, although the very next day
the first one of the season was brought in. -
The flies in
Melbourne when walking along the beach promenade. -
The heat in Alice.
After walking around a bit I kept going into the air-conditioned
Woolworths store to cool off. I burnt my leg when it touched the
metal body of a Jeep I rented. -
Leeches in Darwin.
I went to sleep beside a river and woke up with my stomach and chest
covered with them! -
“No thongs allowed”
in pubs. It just so happened that all the Aborigines wore
thongs. -
My favourite city
was Adelaide, followed by Cairns. To
California In San
Francisco I particularly remember the Golden Gate Bridge,
Haight-Ashbury, Fisherman’s Wharf, and our visit to Alcatraz
Prison. I
arrived at my brother Robert’s house on Christmas Eve. Brother Jim
happened to be there too. New
Zealand I toured S.E. Asia in the
winter of ‘93/4. I had
never been to Asia before. I kept a diary on this trip, but have no
still photos since I only took my video
camera.
I flew
back to Bangkok, and from there to Singapore. I had three days to
spare, so thought I’d try some golf. Golf in Singapore is
prohibitively expensive, so this meant catching the ferry across to
Desoru in Malaysia, renting a car, and driving to the Desoru Golf
Club. I rented clubs and joined a threesome of Malaysians. We each
had a caddy – the first time I had golfed with a caddy. The tropical
grass was very lush and there were monkeys everywhere, trying to get
into the tightly fastened litter bins. Pebble Beach Golf Course:
Whale watching In
March 1991 young black motorist Rodney King had been filmed being
beaten by white police officers. Racial tensions built up in South
Central L.A., and in the summer of 1992 there was rioting, looting,
arson, and killings, particularly in Watts and Compton. The National
Guard was called in.
They
were holding the Tournament of Champions, where all the winners of
tournaments form the previous year compete. We watched the two final
days of competition, and saw many famous golfers. This tournament
moved to Hawaii two years later. We
walked through the border but were soon hassled by beggars on the
other side. We were picked up by a cab driver, who gave us a tour
and dropped us at a very nice place for lunch. I spent
about a week in Perth, and found its surroundings to be very
pleasant, with fertile farms and vineries. The
main focus of this holiday was to take a trip on the famous Indian
Pacific train across the Nullabor Plain. The journey from Perth to
Sydney is 4352 km, and takes two and a half days. It includes the
longest straight stretch of railway in the World – straight across
the barren Outback for 478 km. The trip was a wonderful
experience. Winter
1996-97 Hawaii
I
wanted an uncomplicated holiday, so decided to go with a friend and
employee, Jeff Scrutton, to Hawaii, for three weeks. We did not go
on a package tour, but simply booked a flight to Honolulu and made
our way independently from there. I had
been so intrigued by my first visit to India that I wanted to see
more. To me, India is the ultimate travel destination - once you see
India all other countries seem tame by
comparison. I
arranged to team up again with Mani and Mohan, and tour South and
West India. I had some brochures from package tour companies and
intended to follow their itineraries, but independently.
England, Sri
Lanka Sri
Lanka Once
millennium fever had gone away, I went to India again. I met my
Indian friends Mani and Mohan in Chennai and we flew to Colombo, Sri
Lanka. We hired a car and a professional guide through a local
travel agency and he took us on a pleasant and relaxing tour of this
tropical island. It was nice not to have to make our own
arrangements for hotels and transportation at each stage of the
journey. Winter
2001-02 Kenya
Safari After a
visit to Mysore we went to Bangalore, where I met an aquarium keeper
with whom I had been corresponding in connection with my website
Aquarticles.com. His
name was Raj Kumar, and I wrote articles about him and his friends
in the People Section, at: http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/people/norfolk_rajkumar.html. Winter
2002-3 New
Zealand and Western Samoa I like
to visit the Pacific Islands, so on the way home we stopped off at
Western Samoa for a week. The most famous sight there is Robert
Louis Stevenson’s house - he lived in Western Samoa for health
reasons. We even
played golf there, on a very lush tropical course. Pete had some bad
luck - I was driving our cart down a steep rocky path when our caddy
jumped onto the back. This caused the cart to swerve into a rock,
and Pete went flying through the (open) windscreen. This shook him
up a bit, so we drove him to the clubhouse to recuperate and I
finished the round with the caddy. Jamaica and
Cuba Pete
had to go home, but I wanted to see another island, so went across
to Cuba. I stayed in a very comfortable hotel in Havana, and from
there took three bus tours: a two day tour east, a one day tour
west, and a tour of old Havana. I also
visited the national aquarium and wrote an article about it at:
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/travel/Norfolk_CubaNatAqua.html I met a
professional aquarist who worked at the aquarium, named Orlando
Olachea. He liked my article and translated it into Spanish for
South Americans. The Spanish version gets a lot of hits on my
website. The
Yukon I had
always wanted to visit the far North of Canada, so in August 2004 I flew with a friend to
Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory. The friend was Antony Bruce, a
native Indian whose ancestors had come from that area.
We had
intended to drive to Skagway, Alaska, the next day, but the accident
put paid to this and we returned home early. China From
Beijing, my friend and I travelled south on the overnight 'soft
sleeper' express train to Xi'an, a city in the very centre of
China. We had a compartment to ourselves since it was off-season,
and the train was comfortable and fast. The bedding was new and
fresh, and each bunk had its own TV with headphones. There was even
a vase of flowers on the table, and the ride was so smooth the vase
didn't move or fall over. It was much more relaxing than flying,
which would have taken a whole uncomfortable day with lots of
security hassles and waiting around. Near
Xi’an in 1974 when digging a well, a farmer made what some people
consider the major archaeological find of the 20th Century (anyone
for King Tut?). He discovered a 2200 year old underground vault that
contained thousands of life-sized figures and their horses in battle
formation - an 'army of terracotta warriors.' I well remember the
publicity this received at the time, and being amazed by the stories
and photos in National Geographic Magazine. At last I was to see
them! I
wasn’t disappointed. The warriors are housed where they were found
(they are still being excavated) in three huge buildings. There was
also a documentary 'Circle Vision' movie that showed battles being
fought, the death of the Emperor, the making of the terracotta army,
its vandalising by an invading army shortly afterwards, and then its
rediscovery after being forgotten for 2200 years. The movie had
thousands of extras, and no commentary - just stirring sound effects
and music so that everyone could enjoy it. From
Xi’an we flew south to Guilin, where a cruise
down the Li River has been called "perhaps the transcendant tourist
experience of all China." The Li River passes through some
unusual hill formations, called karst, which were created when the
soft limestone was cataclysmically lifted, then flooded by the sea,
and then lifted again. We spent a day drifting down the river in a
paddle cruiser, and also saw some amazing cave formations. We also
visited the brand new public aquarium, which was very nicely
designed and one of the most agreeable I have seen.
We
then flew east to Shanghai , where at last the weather was
warmer. Shanghai
was always a port, but it really came into prominence after the
first Opium War in 1842, when British gunboats forced its surrender
as one of five ports open to foreign trade. Foreigners, particularly
British, Americans, French and Germans moved in and built impressive
buildings along the waterfront and some residential districts
behind, which are still there. It became the 'whore of the Orient',
where fortunes were made and lost, and was the home of swindlers,
gamblers, tycoons, dandies, entertainers and missionaries. My guide
('Kevin') was amused when I told him of the English verb (popular in
the 19th Century) 'to shanghai,' which means 'to kidnap, usually by
drugging, for service aboard ship' or 'to induce another to do
something through force or underhanded methods.'
The
old European ‘Bund’ is still there, but opposite, in an area that
used to be boggy farmland, is Pudong a city that I could only
compare to those seen in space comics. Only
photos can do it justice. The
parts of China that I saw are developing at breakneck speed. There
are new highways, trains, airports, bridges, buildings, factories
and public facilities going up everywhere. The economy is expanding
at a very much faster rate than those of the developed world. I
thought it must have been like this in Britain during the Industrial
Revolution 200 years or so ago. China
has a one-party system of government that is often criticised as
'non-democratic.' They have definitely made some big mistakes in the
past with their Communist experiments (although the Chinese still
revere Mao, saying he was '70% right and 30% wrong'), but ideas have
changed now, and as long as the leaders have the best interests of
the country in mind, they have the capability of getting things done
fast. I would compare China's leadership to that of a private
company, where the 'boss' can make decisions for the good of the
company as a whole, without begging permission from committeees or
from every individual worker. In the democratic West we may take
years to decide whether a bridge or subway should be built, during
which time politicians come and go and policies change - whereas in
China they would have half a dozen finished by then! Our politicians
tend to make popular decisions for the sake of their own short term
interests in getting re-elected, whereas China's one-party system
allows for unpopular projects that are expected to pay off in the
long run. Could China's system be more appropriate for a developing
economy than our 'democratic' model that we are trying to impose on
the rest of the world? What will we think in twenty or thirty years'
time when China may well catch up and overtake
us? From
Shanghai we flew to Hong Kong where we spent a few days before Mani
left for his job and I flew home. Ending Howard
Norfolk 20
January, 2006 Editor's note: Howard died peacefully at home with friends nearby on the night of Friday February 17, 2006.His final days and passing were noted in articles found in a local Vancouver community newspaper. Links to these articles are provided below: http://www.vancourier.com/issues06/011206/news/011206nn1.html http://www.vancourier.com/issues06/024206/news/024206nn6.html
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