Dave Gillies:  

Life Conceived in Trail, BC on or about July 30th, 1946 from a father of Scottish descent who was born in Vancouver BC in July 1918, where I was born on Tuesday, May 6th, 1947 out of an English mother who was born in Southampton, England on March 31st, 1926. Transported to Southampton, England in April, 1951 to live with my mother, her parents, her sister Doreen who was living with her 2nd husband, Ron Savage, and who in August 1952 adopted an 8 month old boy, Tony. On Saturday, March 24th, 1956, I flew with my mother on my first flight, to Amsterdam, Holland, and then I flew alone back to Vancouver, BC while my mother flew back to England. I then lived with my father and his parents until the summer of 1958, when I stayed with my cousin Rick in Trail who was my age (11), his sister Kerry (8) and their parents while my dad went on a California honeymoon with his new wife Claire, and they visited such places as Knott's Berry Farm and Disneyland without me. They picked me up in Trail after visiting my favourite aunt in Portland, Oregon, and we then lived on Foster Avenue in Coquitlam, where I attended Austin Heights Elementary School, then Winslow Junior High School, since renamed Como Lake Junior High School, then Como Lake Senior Secondary School, and finally at the brand new Centennial School for a few days in 1967. I also visited my mother in England from June 22nd to November 17th, 1964 at my own expense from money saved up from a Sun paper route, that I had from September, 1962 until June, 1964. After 11 days' travel by sea and land, during which I took a bus tour of Montreal, I arrived back in BC by train on November 28th. My 3rd and last visit to England was in August of 1973, for the last 6 days of a 6 week visit to Europe, during which I saw my mother, stepfather, adopted sister Elaine, who would turn 11 on September 9, grandfather and 2 friends, one from my first visit to England during 1951-56, Michael Whitlock (my age) and a boy I met while playing accordion on my second visit during 1964 (Derek Ring) who was 11 in 1964 and 20 by the time I saw him again in 1973. I also saw, during 3 days of that 6 day visit, my adopted cousin Tony (21), his adopted sister Julie (17), and his brother Derek (15) in Cambridge, England. After returning to BC, I spent another couple of years playing accordion and guitar in a 3 piece band, then visited some friends in Manitoba for 2.5 months in late summer of 1975 I had met on a train going from Germany to Holland in 1973, and I worked cleaning up around ready-built homes in Blumenort, Manitoba that would then be moved to wherever their new owners had had their foundations built. When that work was finished, I moved back to BC to settle a car insurance claim I had against a driver who suddenly pulled out in front of me, without looking, from a parking space, driving her parents' car. ICBC went on strike when I wanted to go to Manitoba, so I couldn't settle the claim until later. Anyway, I was mostly making a living driving taxi, selling Amway and teaching and playing accordion and guitar in those days, and finally moved to St. John's, Newfoundland in October, 2002 after the new Campbell government threatened to cut off all welfare recipients who had been on welfare for 24 months out of 60 months, and I thought that the 3 to 10% of the population that was on welfare might start hitting people over the head for money once they got cut off, and I wanted to move as far away from that as I could while still remaining in Canada, still playing accordion, still selling Amway/Quixtar household and commercial products and services sometimes, available to do other work, and collecting the highest welfare rate for an employable man in Canada: $808 a month, paid as $404.00 on the 1st and 16th days of each month, while BC lags behind at $610 a month, out of which you must pay rent, and the province that pays the least is New Brunswick, paying only $276 a month-try to pay your rent out of that! Plus you have to eat! Also, BC deducts every dollar a welfare recipient makes off his next cheque, while Newfoundland allows $75 monthly earnings. These earnings allow me to sponsor up to 4 children in South America through Children International of Kansas City, Missouri, USA that is a member of the Better Business Bureau and is audited by Guidestar, that audits many US charities, and verifies that 80% of the money donated goes to benefit the children, which mainly helps with their health and education, while their parents look after most of their other needs on their roughly $100-300 monthly earned income. Goods are a lot cheaper there, but they still need help, and I write encouraging letters to them and receive letters and pictures from them. Occasionally, I can send a little extra for clothing, educational toys, household needs, the anti-parasite program, or contribute to the newly established scholarship fund. Basic sponsorship now costs $25 US monthly, per child. School Even though I was born in Vancouver, I started school in Southampton, England in what they called Infant School in 1952 at age 5, and attended there for 2 years before moving on to an all boys Anglican Grammar School in 1954, into Class 2 ("Grade 2" they call it in Canada), a class of 50 students, (5 rows of 10 pupils each) where you are graded by rank instead of by a letter grade. The top student would be ranked number 1. If you passed Class 2 as I did, you were promoted to Class 4, next year to class 6, then 8, then Forms 1-4 instead of grades 9-12, then a 3 year apprenticeship course for learning a trade. School hours were from 8 am to 4 pm, summer holidays were from mid-July to the first Monday of September (no Labour Day) and Easter (spring break) was 3 weeks. Discipline was excessive-you could be caned 3 times for whispering "Yes please" in the canteen if a monitor asked you if you needed a knife and fork, because not even whispering was allowed, or caned once on your hand for being one second late, or caned once if you were part of a noisy class even if you weren't noisy. I passed Class 2 into Class 4 (if I'd failed I'd have been in Class 3, which is just for those ranked 42-50, where they really watch you to make sure you don't fail again-I ranked 41 so I just passed) and was three quarters of the way through in Class 4 ("Grade 4") when I was transported alone by plane back to Vancouver, Canada in March 1956, and because I was still 8 years old, my father, that I hadn't seen in 5 years, put me in Grade 3, over my objections in the principal's office, so I learned nothing for the next school year except for Grade 4 astronomy, which wasn't taught in England. As noted in my life biography, my mother had returned to England where she, not I, was born after accompanying me only as far as Amsterdam, Holland, and so was useless to help me. The astronomy teacher, Miss Sanderson, was really nice to me, but even there, my dad tried to put a black cloud on that silver lining by saying to me, "Don't be 'Teacher's Pet'"! She asked me to teach the class while she went on a short break, but of course 9 year old boys and girls don't listen to another 9 year old. Astronomy, the study of the moon and stars, was very interesting to me, and after the end of the school year, Miss Sanderson, with my father's permission, took me to a nice restaurant, alone with her, for lunch. The school was Laura Secord Elementary School in the 2100 block East Broadway in Vancouver, that I attended until I finished Grade 5 in 1958, age 11 years, and I lived at 2057 East 8th Avenue, about 1.5 blocks northwest of the school, with my dad and his parents. Coming home from school one day in June, 1957 when I was 10, a boy gave me an ad from Western Music that was trying to attract potential music students, and as a result I soon started taking half hour weekly accordion lessons from Mr. Joe Fenger, who came from Holland but was then living in Burnaby near Kingsway. These lessons, which required at least a half hour daily practising at home, continued until the spring of 1964, when I was preparing to re-visit England. The next school, in September 1958, for Grade 6, was Austin Heights Elementary School in Coquitlam, as noted in my life bio, where this story continues. By then, I had acquired my stepmother, Claire, who on July 11th, 1961 gave birth to my Canadian sister Diane. I was then 14 years old. I learned how to cook supper from my dad, who wanted his supper on time while my stepmother was in a hospital giving birth to my sister. My mother (Joyce) in England, meanwhile, married Mr. Raymond Soffe in 1958, and divorced him in the 1980's after he went for a younger woman and after raising my English adopted sister Elaine (born on September 9th, 1962), and then moved in with a divorced boyfriend George Kirk. What she's doing now, I have no idea! I sent her a nice postcard in July, 1991, she sent me a nasty letter the next month, hasn't sent mail since, including to a nice 2006 postcard! College At Okanagan College in the small town of Oliver, BC, where I lived in between the years of 1985-90 and 1994-7 I taught guitar at night to 5 adults, offered to teach accordion but there was nobody interested, and I believe the College sponsored the one day first aid course that I passed. I can't remember the exact years that I did this, but it was somewhere between 1985 and 1997. Workplace Not many people have the same job all their working lives any more. There are all ki...Expand for more