# Autobiography of Harper John Pettypiece (1921-2002)

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Harper John Pettypiece, Autobiography of Harper John Pettypiece (1921-2002), bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Autobiography
> of
> Harper John
> Pettypiece
> 
> (1921–2002)
> Autobiography of
> Harper John Pettypiece
> (1921–2002)
> 
> Contents
> 1. Childhood years.. ............................................................................................................... . 4
> 2. The Love of music.. ........................................................................................................... . 10
> 3. Growing up in Forest.. ..................................................................................................... . 20
> 4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy.. ....................................................................... . 26
> 5. Meeting Joan Taylor and the end of the war.. ...................................................... . 34
> 6. Return to Canada.. ............................................................................................................. . 37
> 7. Settling down in Forest.. ................................................................................................ . 41
> 8. Introduction to the Baha’í Faith and community development.. ............... . 44
> 9. Western Canadian and USA vacations, early 1960s.......................................... . 49
> 10. Northeastern USA vacations, mid 1960s.. .............................................................. . 52
> 11. Canadian Centennial to the late 1960s.. .................................................................. . 56
> 12. Introduction to Iceland, pioneering decision and two weddings.. ............ . 59
> 13. Pioneering to Iceland....................................................................................................... . 62
> 14. Conferences and travels.. ............................................................................................... . 68
> 15. Adventures exploring Iceland.. ................................................................................... . 75
> 16. New beginnings and adventures................................................................................ . 78
> 17. Oakham UK and side trips............................................................................................. . 81
> 18. A change of direction and a wealth of history.. ................................................... . 85
> 19. Glastonbury and lots of history.. ................................................................................ . 88
> 20. Holidays around Britain.. ............................................................................................... . 97
> 21. Homeless and holidays abroad................................................................................... . 100
> 22. More travels around Britain.. ...................................................................................... . 104
> 23. Time to return to Canada.. ............................................................................................ . 108
> 24. Illness and university.. .................................................................................................... . 113
> 25. A trip back to Britain.. ..................................................................................................... . 114
> 26. Holidays in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia........................................... . 121
> 27. Side trips to Ontario and Winnipeg.. ........................................................................ . 124
> 28. A holiday on Prince Edward Island.. ........................................................................ . 127
> 29. Short trips, golden anniversary, graduation and failing health.. ................ . 130
> 30. Childhood recollections.................................................................................................. . 135
> 
> Note: The division of this book into chapters is somewhat arbitrary and it
> was not part of the original manuscript. Also there may be many spelling errors
> especially with place names the author was not familiar with.1 The
> autobiography was written in 1998–99, about 3–4 years prior to his passing. His
> health continued to deteriorate and he was effectively bed-ridden for the last
> year of his life.
> 
> 1    This is an edited copy. Most names were checked and many were corrected, some
> were very difficult to check. Most place name locations were also checked. Where
> possible, facts were checked, amended, and some additional details added.—M.W.T.,
> 2023.
> 1. Childhood years
> I was born, so I have been told, early in the morning on November 15th, 1921 in a
> house on the corner of Broadway and Macnab Streets in Forest, in the County of
> Lambton, Ontario. My parents were Victor and Leila Pettypiece who were married
> in Corunna in June of the previous year. My father was born in 1898, a son of Henry
> and Madeline Pettypiece of Forest; he was one of seven children, only three of
> whom survived adolescence, my aunt Eleanor who was a spinster, and Uncle Lister
> a Catholic priest. My mother was the daughter of Samuel and Sarah Harper, also of
> Forest. She had a brother Fred, and a sister Agnes. Fred remained a bachelor but
> Agnes was married to Edgar Chafe of St. John’s, Newfoundland and was the mother
> of two boys, Gerald and Gordon, my only first cousins.
> Before I was a year old, my parents moved to Comfort Terrace, a quadraplex on
> Jefferson Street across from the tennis courts. I remember very little of that period,
> only vague images, but I can remember my sister Reinette, who was born there in
> 1924. I do not remember her as a baby, only as a toddler. While there, I am told I
> had the usual childhood diseases, chicken pox, measles and whooping cough.
> In 1925 or 1926 we bought a house on Prince Street opposite the public school. It
> was in this house that I grew up and lived in until World War Two. It cost $2,000
> and I remember being told we had to borrow the down payment and it took fifteen
> years to pay off the mortgage. During the 1930s it was all we could do to pay the
> interest, never mind any of the principal. The house did not have any indoor
> plumbing, and I remember as a youngster I would take my little wagon down to the
> corner where there was a public pump and collect water. I also used to have to go
> to the creamery around the corner every couple of days for a block of ice for the
> icebox. I can remember Saturday
> 
> 1. Childhood years                              5
> night was bath night and a tub of water was heated on the coal stove, which would
> do for both me and my sister.
> We had a stove in the kitchen, which served for cooking and also one in the
> living room, whose pipe went up through a hole in the ceiling to the hall and then
> curved through my bedroom to the chimney. Dad would get up in the winter and
> stoke up the fire so that we could huddle around the stove pipe while we got
> dressed. These pipes had to be taken down every spring, cleaned and re-assembled
> every autumn.
> I have unpleasant memories also of having to use the outside privy in the winter
> after Dad had shoveled a path through the snow. I can also remember, vaguely, of
> being circumcised on the kitchen table.
> In September of 1927 my other sister Ruth was born, but for this birth my mother
> went to St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario. In those days a confinement lasted
> about ten days, so we did not see our new sister until she arrived home. By the time
> I had started school, living across the street made it very handy.
> I am now going to give a few general impressions of the rest of the 1920s. I can’t
> recall any chronological order, keeping in mind that by the summer of 1930 I was
> still only eight years old.
> One of the first improvements made to the house was the installation of water
> pipes, which made a big difference. A central heating system had to wait until the
> late thirties. The inside toilet and bath made a great difference to our comfort.
> I can remember my mother (who taught school before she was married) reading
> poetry to me before I started school. There were the Longfellow poems of Hiawatha
> and Evangeline and others by Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Lowell; also some
> Shakespeare. She also taught me simple sums and reading at this time, and I started
> in Grade One (Junior Primer it was called in those days). I know I was able to skip
> some grades and this is why I was able to start high school in 1933 (I was 11 years
> old).
> Other memories of the twenties include winter; the streets were filled with
> horse drawn sleighs since all automobiles had to be put up on blocks in the winter
> with tires removed and radiators drained; antifreeze had not been invented. There
> were half a dozen blacksmith shops in Forest at that time.
> In the spring the streets were quite muddy.
> 6                       Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> The skating rink was on Prince Street across the road from our house and they
> used to hold skating carnivals every year at which I went dressed once as Henry
> VIII. There was always live music for skating on Saturday night.
> Summers included swimming in Hickory Creek—it was not polluted then,
> although we had to pick off the bloodsuckers when we came out. It was where I
> learned to swim.
> I can remember my parents taking us to London, Ontario, once a year to buy
> shoes. We went on the train leaving Forest at 6:30 in the morning. We would
> change trains at Lucan Crossing to catch the one coming down from Goderich.
> My parents also took us to the Toronto Exhibition a couple of times. I cannot
> remember much about these trips except for the extravagant pageant at the
> grandstand followed by fireworks. One such pageant was about Montezuma and
> another about the British Empire. It was on one of these trips to Toronto I saw my
> first talking picture. I do not know the name of the film, I guess I was too impressed
> by the sound. I had seen a couple of silent movies at the local Kineto Theatre:
> “Noah’s Ark” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.
> Not many people had automobiles; we did not even have a radio or a
> phonograph, but at some point we did get a wind up Victrola, and an upright piano
> for me to take some lessons from Mabel Dunlop, a local teacher who had her ATCM.1
> I would be about 8 I believe.
> I can remember downtown in Forest. My grandfather was the owner of the
> Forest Free Press and my father worked there and one other person, Morley
> Shepherd. I can remember a hotel with hitching posts and a horse water trough
> outside. I can remember the grocery stores where you went up a couple of steps
> and the grocer waited on you across the counter. I can remember a harness shop. I
> can remember an ice cream parlour with wire-backed chairs and a soda fountain. I
> can remember the Town Hall where the Chatauqua2 travelling shows used to come
> every year.
> There were several blacksmiths, a couple of whom did car repairs as well. A
> couple of gas stations where the proprietor would pump the gas for you—you could
> buy a gallon for a quarter.
> 
> 1   Associate of the Toronto Conservatory of Music.
> 2   Chautauqua is an adult education and social movement in the United States that peaked
> in popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
> 1. Childhood years                              7
> It was during these years I formed my impressions of music. There was no
> distinction between such terms as so-called classical and popular. My folks used to
> sing those songs that were popular when they were growing up: “By the Light of
> the Silvery Moon”, “Yip-I-Addy-I-Ay”, “Come Josephine in My Flying Machine”, “Trail
> of the Lonesome Pine” and others. I particularly remember “The Irish Jubilee”. My
> father would also recite Robert Service poems.
> When the Victrola phonograph arrived there was a varied selection of records,
> from “Oh By Jingo” and the “Little Red Schoolhouse”, to “Rhapsody in Blue” and
> “Poet and Peanut”. There was also a Mozart and part of a Tchaikovsky Symphony. I
> had most of them memorized. When I started piano lessons I learned more about
> Chopin and Bach, etc.
> We used to occasionally visit friends of our parents. At Reg Roche’s place on
> Broadway St. next to Angela Hannum’s, I became acquainted with comics such as
> “Buster Brown” and “The Katzenjammer Kids”. We went once to O’Donnell’s out in
> the country and they had some new records such as “Piccolo Pete” and “The Two
> Black Crows”.
> It seems that in those times we knew everyone in our town of about 1,700 people.
> We did not know them all personally but we knew who they were and where they
> lived. We lived between two widows, Mrs Ida Brand on the north and Mrs Wichman
> on the south. Both seemed really ancient to me and I particularly remember the
> latter because she had a pet parrot, the only one in town. We had a dog, a collie
> called Pal. I think he died of old age at some point. I think everybody had a porch
> on their house.
> Mother did some gardening in our back yard. We had a grape vine on one side
> with hollyhocks. On the other, the shady side, there were violets, lily of the valley,
> jack-in-the-pulpit and a pear tree. The Pettypiece house on Albert St. had trumpet
> vines shading the porch.
> My public school teachers were Frances Hubbard, Jessie O’Brien, Ruth Neelands
> and Alex Salisbury. Beside the kids I knew from school, I knew some from the
> country. This was through our church. I was raised a Roman Catholic, and the kids
> attended mass every Sunday from the time we were old enough to understand and
> went through communion and then confirmation. Forest was not a parish but a
> mission, and the priest,
> 8                       Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> Fr. Houlkes came every Sunday from Corunna, Lambton County. Aunt Nora played
> the organ and at some point I started singing in the choir.
> Through church I got to know the Hubbard and the Forbes families. Their kids
> went to country schools. The Hubbards had 2 boys (Bob and Tom) and 3 girls
> (Winifred, Geneveire, and Cuthaine). The Forbes had a boy and a girl. The boy,
> Wilfred, eventually became the father of Barbara who married our son Geoffrey.
> On the Pettypiece side, my aunt Nora lived with my grandparents. She never
> married—apparently her boyfriend was killed when he was quite young. I also
> vaguely remember my Dad’s Aunt Sara who lived there at that time. I must have
> been only 3 or 4 years old because she died in 1925. It was there I used to collect
> comic strips from The London Free Press, particularly one called “Minute Movies”. I
> also met two of my grandfather’s brothers. At one time there was a picture of
> Reinette and myself at a tea party there. She was 2 and I was 5.
> At the Harpers’ I can recall they had a cellar with an outside door. They kept
> their wood supply there. They also kept chickens and I can remember my
> grandfather killing one after chasing it around the yard. He was a janitor at the high
> school and he stayed there until the mid-thirties (in his 70’s). My grandmother
> baked her own bread and we looked forward to that, which she gave us covered
> with butter and brown sugar. We also were given dishes of maple syrup, which they
> made themselves. One time we went next door to Charles Taylor’s to listen to his
> radio. It was quite large with 2 wet cell batteries and we heard the Dempsey-
> Tunney fight. He only had one set of earphones and we had to take turns. The
> loudspeaker had not yet been invented.
> It was at the Harpers’ that I met some of my maternal relatives, mother’s sister
> Agnes and her husband, the Snowdons and great, great uncle Cesar McLeod. They
> had a parlour where nobody went without permission. It had old fashioned plush
> furniture and was kept dark most of the time. This is where they kept Uncle Fred’s
> photos; he travelled all over the world as a marine radio operator.
> Aunt Nora played golf at that time and occasionally took me to the town’s 9-hole
> golf course with her. Also, although she did not have a car, one of her friends did,
> and she invited me on a couple of car rides, one to Kettle Point, and the other to
> Grand Bend.1 The latter trip took all day and I
> 
> Both are on the shores of Lake Huron in Southwestern Ontario.
> 1. Childhood years                            9
> went along with these three women. We stopped half way for tea. The road through
> the Pinery Provincial Park at that time made quite an impression; it was not paved
> of course (few roads were) and the trees hugged the road on both sides—it was like
> driving through the woods.
> 2. The love of music
> My earliest introduction to music was a piano at my grandfather’s. Aunt Nora
> had a player piano at first with a few rolls. I could not have been more than four or
> five. I would try to pick out tunes with one finger, and the player piano was
> replaced early on with an ordinary upright. I started piano lessons with Mabel
> Dunlop when I was about 8 or 9 and continued until I passed my Grade 8 of the
> T.C.M.1 I also took and passed two years of elementary theory.
> I can remember my father singing songs of the early part of the century and from
> this probably grew my interest in popular music. Songs like “The Irish Jubilee”, “Call
> Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon”, and “The Little Red Schoolhouse” were among
> dozens that I got to know. From my grandmother, who belonged to the Gospel Hall,
> I learned all the Gospel hymns and some of the US Civil War songs, and sometimes
> on Sundays we would go to Mass in the morning and the Gospel Hall in the evening.
> My parents were a mixed religion marriage and this is probably why we grew up
> in a religiously tolerant environment.
> When I was about 9, a boys’ junior band was started in town under the direction
> of Frank Freele who had a grocery cum barber shop on King St. I begged my father
> to let me join and he eventually relented and bought me a cornet and I began
> lessons. The boys’ band used to play concerts at Grand Bend on Sundays in the
> summer and at many of the fall fairs in the area. One year we competed at the
> Toronto Exhibition and that summer the committee of which my father was a
> member rented a cottage at Hillsborough Beach for a week during which we
> rehearsed the test piece every day. I cannot remember whether we came first or
> last.
> Meanwhile, I had joined the local library and among the books I borrowed was
> one of the stories from the operas. I did not know the music but I was fascinated
> with the stories.
> 
> 1   Toronto Conservatory of Music.
> 2. The love of music                            11
> The boys’ band disbanded when I was about 12 and the senior band, the Forest
> Excelsior Band, acquired a new bandmaster, Steve Vowden who had been trained at
> Kneller Hall in England. The second year he was here he persuaded me to learn the
> oboe. Within a year I was playing in the Excelsior Band, along with two or three
> other kids my age. We competed at the Toronto Exhibition 2 or 3 times, staying at
> the Gladstone Hotel near the Exhibition grounds. The last year (the year the war
> broke out during the Exhibition) the dance bands of Benny Goodman, Tommy
> Dorsey and Guy Lombardo were all there.
> The Band used to raise money, before I joined the navy, by renting the steamer
> Tachmoo, which sailed from Sarnia to Belle Isle and Detroit on a Sunday. They
> would sell tickets for all the way from Ailsa Craig to Sarnia, and a train would take
> everyone to Sarnia and the band would play during the trip. However the steamer
> sank the year I joined the Band, and for the rest of the decade they produced
> Minstrel Shows each fall in which I participated.
> Around 1930 my parents rented a cottage at Hillsborough Beach for two weeks
> up in the hill on the north side of Hickory Creek. The following 2 or 3 years they
> took a cottage there but next to the dance hall. It had a store that opened every day
> and sold pop and candy, etc., and twice-a-week dances were held with a live dance
> orchestra. I learned all the latest popular songs this way. We would stay a month in
> the cottage that had no electricity and no running water. My father would go into
> town (about 10 km) to work every day and return at night with Malcolm Gray who
> had a tent near the cottage and a Model T Ford that had to be left at the top of the
> hill at night because it could not make it up the hill.
> Every day we would have to walk to Isaac’s farm up on Lakeshore Road for milk
> and sometimes fresh eggs. Often we kids would walk from Hillsborough Beach all
> the way southwest to Blue Point (less than 6 km). There was nothing between
> except Gallie’s Fisheries where we would stop and rest. We took our lunch and
> were quite unsupervised by adults. In fact as young kids we would wander all over
> by ourselves, never feeling threatened at all.
> Through the band, and also through our phonograph’s few records, I became
> acquainted with some classical and semi-classical pieces.
> 12                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> When I was about 14 or 15, two things occurred which increased my desire to
> learn more about music. We acquired a radio and I would listen to the New York
> Philharmonic concerts every Sunday afternoon, and the Ford Sunday Evening Hour,
> which played shorter classics such as overtures and tone poems. At the same time I
> got to know Eunice McDonald who was in a class ahead of me at high school and
> who, with two other girls from Thedford, Peggy Powell and Marion Carmichael,
> boarded in town during the week. Eunice was interested in opera and had an aunt
> who was a professional singer. About this time I started collecting miniature scores
> and operatic vocal scores.
> I also got to know Anita Carson-Dowding of Arkona, whose daughter Betty
> Carson attended the Forest High School. She played the violin and knew the
> composer of the “Bells of St. Mary’s” when she was a girl in England.
> Just before the war I had my first stage experiences. I was in a high school play
> “The Marriage Proposal” by Chekov with Howard Brown and Inez Powell. Howard
> and I were piano pupils of Mabel Dunlop and played together at the Kiwanis Music
> Festival in Sarnia. The other was in the chorus of “HMS Pinafore”, put on by Ruth
> Walters. When the production went over well and was taken out of town, one of the
> principal performers, Arnold Keast, broke his leg, I took over the part of Dick
> Deadege because I was the only one who knew the part.
> During the thirties, the Forest Excelsior Band put on minstrel shows (now not
> politically correct) to raise money as mentioned earlier. Several things stand out in
> my memory. For example, Don Livingston was always the interlocutor; Charlie May
> was always an endman, and usually was too drunk to remember the words of his
> songs; George Harvey, a local Cornishman, would get his annual bath and shave and
> sing one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s patter songs, all of which he knew by heart; Arnold
> Keast sang comic songs of the Al Jolson type; and I gave recitations.
> The Excelsior Band played at the Toronto Exhibition several years, the last time
> being in 1939. At one of these, I played the glockenspiel as well as the oboe but I do
> not remember either the test pieces or whether we won any prizes. This was the
> fair that I first appeared in an interview on demonstration television, which had not
> yet become commercial in Canada. That did not happen until after the war.
> 2. The love of music                           13
> One time, when I was 10 or 11, I played a cornet solo at a band festival in
> Waterloo. I did not get a place in a class of about 15 players. One thing I remember
> was Gordon Chafe falling out of a boat on the river when he had a cast on his leg. I
> also took part in piano competitions at the Sarnia Kiwanis Music Festival and come
> first on a few occasions there.
> It was in 1936–37 that I began listening to the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday
> afternoons faithfully until I joined the navy, and intermittently up to present day.
> In 1938–39 I attended the University of Toronto at St. Michael’s College. I took
> courses at the Conservatory in harmony, counterpoint, history and ear training, and
> among my teachers were Dr Healy William, and Dr Leo Smith. On one occasion we
> were invited to Sir Ernest McMillan’s home. As well, I played in the University of
> Toronto band, playing at football games in London, Kingston and Montreal, as well
> as at home. I also sang in the St. Mike’s choir and learned to read Gregorian Chant.
> I attended Toronto Symphony Orchestra rehearsals and got to know a few of the
> members, including Harold Gomberg, first oboist, who gave me free lessons for part
> of the winter. He went on to play with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and
> went with Pierre Aquley to France to pursue his studies of baroque embellishment.
> Also in Toronto, I saw my first operas, a travelling group of the San Carlo
> Company who did Carmen, Faust and the Barber of Seville. I also saw the Ballet
> Russe de Monte Carlo in La gaîté parisienne and Coppélia. In addition, a recital by
> Balduína “Bidu” de Oliveira Sayao and an all-Strauss concert by the Philadelphia
> Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. I also saw a performance of Plangiatte’s
> operetta “The Chimes of Normandy”. George Emerson was a guest conductor.
> The Toronto Symphony Orchestra was not the first time I had heard a live
> symphony orchestra. They had come to the Grand Theatre in London somewhat
> earlier and they played the Cesar Franck Symphony in D minor. It was quite
> thrilling experience.
> I joined the Royal Canadian Navy in May 1940, and had very little to do with
> music while there. I applied to transfer to the Navy Band while at Esquimalt when
> they formed one but was turned down, but I got to know some of the players,
> including Gordon Poole with whom I kept in touch till the 1960s when he joined the
> Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
> 14                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> I occasionally heard dance bands that played for the forces, such as Cab Calloway
> and Hal McIntyre, as well as the Navy Show. What little music I heard was on the
> radio in the Sally Ann at Halifax where I had meals from time to time.
> When I got leave the first time in Ireland, I went to London, England, where I saw
> “La Boheme”, also Arthur Bowden Askey (1900–1982) in “The Love Racket”, and
> Lupino Lane in “For Me and My Gal”.
> In February 1945, the ship I was on, the HMCS Orkney, was in a collision with a
> freighter in the Irish Sea during the blackout. We had to put in to Liverpool for a
> Court of Inquiry. It was during this period I met Joan Taylor, whom I married in
> June. We met at a roller rink and on our first date we went to hear the Liverpool
> Philharmonic, where we could get seats for only a shilling as a member of the armed
> forces. We attended several of these concerts while in Liverpool (for 6 weeks)
> under either Sir Adrian Cedric Boult (1889–1983) or Sir John Barbirolli Sir John
> (Giovanni Battista) Barbirolli (1899–1970). We also saw “La Traviata”, by Giuseppe
> Verdi, at the Empire Theatre.
> After we were married we lived in Greenwich, Scotland, until I returned to
> Canada early in 1946. We often went into Glasgow where we heard concerts by the
> Scottish Orchestra as well as several of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas on the
> stage. We also saw Will Fyffe (1885–1947) in a pantomime, and two musicals, “Rose
> Marie” and “No No Nanette”.
> I returned to Canada in May of 1946 and Joan followed on the RMS Queen Mary in
> August. While waiting to return to Canada, we stayed a few days in London, and I
> saw the “Barber of Seville”. We lived in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and I got hold of a
> record player and borrowed records through Keilor Bentley who worked in a music
> store in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and who came to visit us in Marion Heights,
> Pennsylvania, a few times.
> Returning to Forest, Ontario, in 1947, I began playing baritone in the band since I
> did not have an oboe. When Steve Vowden left Forest to join the Royal Canadian Air
> Force band when the war broke out, various members held the band together until
> a permanent bandmaster could be found. I took it over myself for a year or so. Bob
> Shannon, a bassoonist from Sarnia, and a former member of the boys’ band, became
> bandmaster, but he died suddenly a couple of years later. He told a newly formed
> community orchestra in
> 2. The love of music                           15
> Sarnia that I played oboe so I had to buy one through George Van Valkenburg who
> had connections with Boosey & Hawkes. I still have it.
> Following Bob Shannon, Bert Bocock of Parkhill was hired. He also played in the
> London Symphonia, London, Ontario, and he asked me to come and play French
> Horn with them; they needed a 4th horn player but not oboe. I played for two years
> with them under Bruce Sharp, including concerts in Chatham. A highlight of this
> period was a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” under Sir Ernest McMillan in the
> London area with a huge chorus.
> A few years later, an International Symphony Orchestra, Sarnia, was formed
> from the Sarnia and Port Huron community orchestras, with which I stayed for
> about 13 years under a variety of 1st oboists and conductors. I got to play a large
> number of works, which was an incredible experience, including “Afterim L’Affaire”
> (?), selections from “Le Coq d’Or”, “Songs of the Auvergne”, “Appalachian Spring”,
> and “Rodeo”, some Brahms, Wagner, Bartok and many others.
> Meanwhile in the late 1940s, I met Harry Keane of Keane’s Ontario Furniture. We
> made a trip to Cleveland, there and back same day, to see the Metropolitan Opera
> perform “Don Giovanni” with Ezio Fortunato Pinza (1892–1957). The following year,
> we went for four days and saw five operas—“Rigoletto” with Johan Jonatan “Jussi”
> Bjorling (1911–1960), Alice Josephine “Lily” Pons (1898–1976), and Leonard Warren
> (1911–1960); “L’elisir d’amore” with Patrice Munsel (1925–2016); “Madame Butterfly”
> with Dorothy Kirsten (1910–1992) and John Brownlee (1901–1969); “Othello” with
> Licia Albanese (1909–2014), Ramon Vinay (1911–1996).
> Joan and I went to Detroit in the early 1950s to see some operas by the Carl Rosa
> Opera Company with Tito Gobbi (1913–1984) and Ferruccio Tagliavini (1913–1995).
> We saw “Rigoletto”, “Tosca”, “Andrea Chenier” and “Turandot”, both the latter the
> first time we had heard them. We saw one more opera together about 1959 when
> we went with the Thiers to Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, to see “Aida” with Zinka
> Milanov (1906–1989), Robert Merrill (1917–2004), Mario del Monaco (1915–1982),
> Blanche Thebom (1915–2010), and Jerome Hines (1921–2003).
> In 1952, I put on a show at the Town Hall called “Broadway Revue”, using
> members of the Agenda Club, a group of girls who had done shows during the war
> to raise money for the troops, and the Excelsior Band. The show contained numbers
> from musicals from “The Mikado” to “The King and I”. Artistically it was a success,
> financially not. While
> 16                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> doing this I went to Detroit with a group to see “Guys and Dolls” with Allan Jones
> (1907–1992) and Vivian Stapleton (“Vivian Blaine”, 1921–1995). The only other
> musical I had seen was on our way home from Halifax in 1947 when Joan and I saw
> “Oklahoma” on Broadway. In 1953 while visiting Aldie Robarts in St. Catharines,
> Ontario, he took us to see “Annie Get Your Gun” in Niagara Falls. We waited until
> 1970 to see another stage musical, when we went to see “Fiddler on the Roof” in Port
> Huron.
> During the 1950s, we came into London, Ontario, several times to see shows at
> the Grand Theatre, among them “La Boheme”, the Canadian National Ballet in “Swan
> Lake”, “Nutcracker” and “Giselle” and “Pineapple Poll”, some of these with the Wiens
> from Thedford. He had been a German POW during the war having served with
> Rommel in North Africa and came to Canada after the war. His kids went to Forest
> High School. In 1952, we visited Aldie Robart’s parents in Forest Hill and they took
> us to the ballet that included “Fancy Free”, among others.
> We also saw plays during this time, “Rain”, “Tobacco Road”, “Bell, Book and
> Candle” with Joan Geraldine Bennett (1910–1990) and Zachary Scott (1914–1965).
> Also Purple Patches did “Li’l Abner”. They performed at the Grand Theatre, London,
> in those days.
> Later in the 1960s, myself and one of the violinists from the International
> Symphony Orchestra, Sarnia, were selected to attend a week-long community
> orchestra workshop in Stratford, Ontario, where we played every day under such
> conductors as Walter Susskind (1913–1980) and Victor Feldbrill (1924–2020). We
> played Johannes Brahms (1833–1897), Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), Dmitri
> Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (1906–1975) and Robert Schumann (1810–1856) in a
> concert at the end of the week. During the week, a conference of contemporary
> composers occurred and we were privileged to attend a concert with composers
> such as Ray Harris (1927–2003), Ernst Heinrich Krenek (1900–1991), and Edgard
> Varese (1883–1965) took part. It was the first time I had heard Varese’s “Deserts”
> performed live, as well as “Bachianas brasileiras No. 5: Aria” as a tribute to the
> South American Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959), who had recently died.
> We also went to Stratford once to see Lorne Hyman Greene (1915–1987) and
> Lloyd Wolfe Bochner (1924–2005) in the tent before the theatre was built.
> 2. The love of music                            17
> In 1971 we attended the Baha’í Oceanic Conference in Iceland and among the
> entertainers were Seals & Crofts, and Norman Bailey. We talked to James Eugene
> Seals and Darrell George Crofts (“Seals & Crofts”) at the airport on the way home
> and we visited the Baileys in England when we went there.
> In the spring of 1972, I had to return material to the National Spiritual Assembly
> office in Toronto since we planned to pioneer to Iceland. While in Toronto, I called
> Ruth Morawetz (1930–2016) whom we had met a few years earlier at Darst’s place in
> Colborne Township. Ruth invited me to dinner and I had a chance to talk to her
> husband, Dr Oskar Morawetz (1917–2007), a famous Canadian composer. They
> arranged for me to attend a performance of “Die Walkure (“The Valkyrie”), with
> Norman Bailey (1933–2021) as Wotan and Maureen Forrester (1930–2010) as Fricka.
> After the performance, I went backstage and talked to the performers as I was a
> guest of Emmy Homburger, the wife of the manager (Walter Homburger) of the
> Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
> In August 1972 we went to Iceland. During our time there I joined the Reykjavík
> City Band through Sverrir Sveinsson, a foreman at my place of work and a cornet
> player. The second year Garðar Thor Cortes formed the Reykjavík Symphony
> Orchestra as a community type orchestra as a compliment to the National
> Symphony. We played generally easier pieces but in our last year there we played
> “Trial by Jury” and Mendelssohn’s “Elijah”, the former in Icelandic, the latter in
> English. We took the overtures to various communities, e.g. Selfoss, and then in the
> spring went on a tour, playing in Varmahlíð, Dalvik and Myvatn. The Gilbert and
> Sullivan we recorded for a professor on Icelandic television.
> Among highlights of our four years in Iceland were attending concerts at the
> Haskolabío Movie Theatre, Reykjavík, of the National Symphony and getting to
> know many of the players; attending a concert and recital backstage with Vladimir
> Davidovich Ashkenazy (b. 1937) and Renata Tebaldi (1922–2004) who sang about 9
> encores at the piano; talking to Leon Jean Goossens (1897–1988), outstanding British
> oboist; attending live performances of “Coppelia” at the Reykjavík National Theatre
> and “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Austurbæjarbío (“The Fall”) Park, Reykjavík; and
> a Victor Borge (Børge Rosenbaum, 1909–2000), concert.
> In 1976, we moved to England. I did not get much chance to play there until we
> moved to Somerset where they already had an orchestra. I sometimes played at
> their annual meetings and once I played for a performance of Franz Joseph Haydn’s
> “Nelson” in Glastonbury; I also got a chance to play in a wind ensemble.
> 18                         Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> While in Somerset, South West England, we got to see a lot of stage musicals:
> “Fiddler on the Roof”, “South Pacific”, “My Fair Lady”, “Show Boat”, “Merry Widow”,
> “A Night in Venice”, “Orpheus in the Underworld”, “The Desert Song”, “Die
> Fledermaus”, “The Sorcerer”. I also saw “Macbeth” and “Fra Diavolo”1 at the Strode
> Arms in Shepton Mallet. Over in London I went to see “The Grand Duchess” at
> Sadler’s Wells Theatre. I also took Tim once to see the Tremoloes in concert. Carl
> took part in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in Wells Cathedral,
> Wells, Somerset, with Vicki and Asgeir Einarsson when they were in England.
> When we first went to England, we took the kids to see “Arsenic and Old Lace”. I
> had already seen “The Mousetrap” and “Happy as a Handbag”, a musical about
> World War II.
> We returned to Canada in 1983 and rented a house on McClary Street, London,
> Ontario. A year later we bought a condominium (condo) on Southdale Road,
> London, and I started taking a course in Music History at the University of Western
> Ontario, London. I only took it for interest since I was not playing anymore and
> could not take a music degree without actively performing music. The second year I
> took Astronomy and an opera course, but had to drop out of the latter when I went
> into hospital for my emphysema for a week and missed my class presentation. The
> next year I took a course in Bibliography and Research Technique and got to be
> familiar with the library. From then on, I started taking opera courses and theory
> courses, and the university introduced an arts degree in music and I pursued that
> from then on. I also took courses in composition, history and orchestration. From
> time to time I would have some of the kids over to watch some of my operatic
> videos. In all there have been 9 or 10 come over.
> One year I went with some of my university classmates to see “Wozzech” by
> Alban Maria Johannes Berg (1885–1935) at the O’Keefe Centre in Toronto with Alan
> Monk.
> I began collecting operatic videos during this time and have accumulated over
> 100 operas on tape. Most have been recorded from television broadcasts, but I have
> copied some and bought some. I also have a good collection of miscellaneous music
> videos including ballet, concerts and profiles of musicians.
> 
> Fra Diavolo, ou L'hotellerie de Terracine (“Fra Diavolo, or The Inn of Terracina”).
> 2. The love of music                           19
> I graduated in 1996, a year after our 50th wedding anniversary, and since I had
> only just got out of hospital at convocation time, the dean and associate dean came
> to the house for the presentation. Four of our kids and their families were present
> and it received good coverage in the newspaper. As a result, I received cards and
> letters from many people, some of whom I had not seen for 50 years.
> While at the University of Western Ontario, I had the privilege of meeting some
> world famous musicians, including Philip Gossett (1941–2017), the musicologist;
> Stanley Sadie (1930–2005), the editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
> Musicians; Theodore Burg and his wife of the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto;
> and the granddaughter of Giacomo Puccini (Nadia Manfredi?).
> During this period in London, Ontario, we saw many musicals, most organised
> by the University of Western Ontario. Among them have been Gilbert and Sullivan’s
> “Gondoliers”, “Princess Ida”, “Patience”, and “Ruddigore; or, The Witch’s Curse”.
> Others were “The King and I”, “Brigadoon”, “Guys and Dolls”, “Cabaret”, “How to
> Succeed in Business Without Trying”, “Fiddler on the Roof”, “The Music Man”,
> “Evita” and “The Pajama Game”.
> The University of Western Ontario also produced Vaughn Williams’ “Rides to the
> Sea”, Mozart’s “Impressio”, and Bernstein’s “Candide”, as well as excerpts from
> various operas. There were many other concerts as well, both by the University of
> Western Ontario Symphony, University of Western Ontario Chorus, and various
> faculty members’ concerts.
> One year we had season’s tickets for Orchestra London, London. They were
> good but we did not care much for the Centennial Hall in London, although we also
> went to see “Forty-second Street” there in which one member of my class took part.
> 3. Growing up in Forest
> As near as I can recall, the first time I was ever outside Forest community in
> Lambton Shores, Ontario, was when my Aunt Nora took me to Kettle Point on the
> shore of Lake Huron when I was about 4 years old. I also went with her to Grand
> Bend on the shore of Lake Huron. She did not have a car but one of her friends did
> and on the trip to Grand Bend (it seemed to me at the time it was all day), we
> stopped about half way through the Pinery Provincial Park at a tea room called
> Rimbedost. My recollection was of a dirt road through the woods but I do not
> remember Grand Bend at all. During the 1920s we used to go into London once a
> year on the train to buy shoes. The train left Forest at 6:30 am and we changed
> trains at Lucan Crossing. On one of these trips we went out to Springbank Park on a
> street car. At that time there were a merry-go-round, a miniature train and a roller
> coaster.
> I also remember going to Windsor1 but I do not remember how we got there.
> We also took a street car or trolley to Amherstburg2 to visit some of my
> grandfather’s family. We also went to the Toronto Exhibition by train a couple of
> times during the 1920s, as mentioned earlier, and on one of these trips, I saw my
> first talking picture. I had seen a couple of silent movies earlier at the Kineto
> Theatre in Forest: “Noah’s Ark” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.
> It was around 1930 when we rented a cottage at Hillsborough Beach for a couple
> of weeks. It was on top of the hill on the east side of Hickory Creek, quite a walk
> down to the store or to go for a swim.
> When I was 6 or 7, I went to the dentist to have one of my baby teeth taken out
> by Dr Walters. His office was above Laurie’s Hardware Store on the corner of King
> and Main Streets. When I was 10, I broke my collar bone fooling around during
> recess at school. The bone was set by Dr Smith downtown, and I was unable to
> attend school for a month. I am told I hollered loud enough to be heard down the
> street because I would not take an anaesthetic.
> Birthday parties were a rarity. I had one during my growing up years and only
> attended about three. One of the earliest was when I was in First Book. Frank
> Alpaugh’s father drove the Sarnia Bus and at his party we went for a bus ride, I think
> to Ipperwash Provincial Park, Ontario.
> 
> 1   A city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly
> across from Detroit, Michigan, United States.
> 2   A town near the mouth of the Detroit River in Essex County, Ontario, Canada.
> 3. Growing up in Forest                              21
> There was, and still is, a fall fair held in Forest every year, and we felt it to be one
> of the highlights of the year. While in public school, each class would dress up to
> illustrate a theme and we would march from the school to the fair grounds. When I
> got older these marches, which drew from rural schools all over the area, were
> discontinued, but I still marched, first as a member of the Boys Band and later with
> the Excelsior Band. We would also play from time to time during the fair. As
> members of the band, we would often be invited to other fairs, such as Exeter,
> Parkhill, Seaforth and many others. The Boys Band also used to play concerts at
> Grand Bend on Sundays in the summer. The Senior Band also played Sunday
> evening concerts on the band stand. On one occasion during the fair, when I was 8
> or 9, I talked my father into letting me go up in an airplane. In those days,
> barnstormers used to travel from fair to fair, put on shows, including parachute
> jumps and take people for rides. I went up in an open air biplane for about ten
> minutes at a cost of $2.00.
> I was taken to London a couple of times during the early 1930s, by Bob Horne,
> father of one of my schoolmates. I can remember seeing the movies “Trader Horn”
> and “Wonder Bar”. In exchange, my father took me and young Bob to Detroit to see
> baseball games a couple of years in a row. We stayed with one of his friends and
> during our time there we saw all the teams in the American League and some of the
> legendary baseball stars including: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. There were 8 teams
> in the league at the time, including the Washington Senators and the St. Louis
> Browns. We also saw movies, e.g. “San Francisco” and “Poppy” with W. C. Fields. In
> those days the big movie theatres had stage shows as well and we saw Fred Waring
> and the Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm Orchestra. I had only been to Detroit
> once before; it was on the steamer PS Tashmoo on the band excursion to Belle Isle.
> The first time Dad took me to Detroit to a ball game we stayed at Jack Barke’s
> place. He was from Forest but worked at one of the Detroit automotive plants. On
> Sunday morning he took me up to station WJR in the Fisher Building and we saw
> Uncle Walt read the funnies over the radio. Uncle Walt read the comics every
> Sunday. We also stayed and watched a dramatic program and enjoyed watching
> them do the sound effects while the actors read their lines. We also went to the Fox
> Theatre and saw Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians dance band.
> 22                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> In the 1930s, the road from Forest to the end of the 9 miles at Highway 22 was
> paved. It was during summer and cars were routed around Forest and we would sit
> at my grandmother Harper’s place and keep track of all the different license plates
> we spotted. In those days an airplane was a novelty and we rushed outside to see
> whenever one went over. They did not fly very high then. A highlight was seeing
> the English dirigible R100 pass over on its way to Chicago.
> While in high school I started going dating Eunice McDonald, and one summer
> she took me to visit her cousin in Toledo, Ohio. I can remember seeing a movie
> “Gold Diggers of 1935” but not much else of the trip.
> Every year the five local schools held track and field meets. In the local meets I
> won medals for four years. High School teachers were Jessie Saunders, Irene Reton,
> Angela Hammer, Albert Williams, and J. Stevens, the principal.
> During the summers vacations I would get a job. One year I worked for Bob
> Horne, who kept bees in various localities and collected the honey from the hives
> and extracted it in a building on one of the farms. One year I worked two weeks at
> the basket factory at 15 c an hour. I made enough spending money at the Toronto
> Fair where I went with the band. Another year I worked at the Canning Factory
> (Aylmer), which was very busy in the summer. I got 25 c an hour and some days we
> would work as much as 15 hours a day. The next day we would not be called in at
> all. I worked through the spinach and pea seasons.
> Living so close to Lake Huron, we used to go often to the beach, other than our
> usual holidays at the cottage. My earliest recollection was riding to Hillsborough
> Beach on the handle bars of a bicycle with Gerry Chafe. Later we would sometimes
> walk there and back. Once I walked the 10 km to Cedar Point.
> Later we would get rides to Ipperwash where they had a dance casino and we
> would listen to records on the juke box.
> Pastimes among others were: gathering hickory nuts out in the country in the
> fall; once we went for walnuts at George Lougheed’s farm. He was a cousin of my
> mother and was the local milkman. I also went with the mailmen on all the rural
> routes around Forest, and also on Gerry Chafe’s bread route all over the local
> countryside.
> 3. Growing up in Forest                           23
> While in high school for two or three years in the fall I would go out into the
> country to gather hickory nuts, once with a kid from school, John Marburg. Once I
> collected coalnuts [black walnuts?] but they were not very good.
> When I was smaller you could get beechnuts near the Forest cemetery. You
> cannot do this anymore—the hickory, coalnut and beech trees are all gone.
> At one point I sent for information on taxidermy, and also a flying school at
> Lincoln, Nebraska. I was interested in model planes and built several flying models;
> I got to know Bruce Lister who lived on a farm in Bosanquet Township (now part of
> Lampton Shores) and was bit of an expert on model airplanes. Once I had a
> chemistry set and made some chlorine gas and nearly choked myself.
> The last year at high school I went to Toronto for 2 weeks in summer to look for
> a job and was unsuccessful. One place I went was the de Havilland aircraft factory,
> which was out in the country then. It was a long walk from the end of the street car
> line. That fall I went to the University of Toronto. One weekend there I hitch-hiked
> to Buffalo for the weekend, just to say I had been there, no other reason, but it was
> the first time I had seen Niagara Falls. It was also the first time I had ever been in a
> bar. In Ontario we had been in parlors but no bars. Forest did not have a beer
> parlor; Thedford had the closest and Sarnia was the closest liquor store.
> On Sundays in Toronto there was nothing open there except a few restaurants
> and some museums. I often rode the different street car lines to familiarize myself
> with the city and I also visited the Royal Ontario Museum and Casa Loma.1 One
> Sunday I walked from the University of Toronto to the waterfront and back. I lived
> in residence at St. Michael’s College.
> One evening I went to see “Romeo and Juliet” at the Hart House Theatre put on
> by students. I also went to a dance at the roof garden of the Royal York Hotel to
> which I had been invited by a girl I knew in a sorority. I had to rent a set of tails and
> a car (Eunice had taught me how to drive on the roads around Thedford), as well as
> a corsage.
> In 1939 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth toured Canada. The closest they
> came was London and arrangements were made to take all the school kids by bus to
> see them. The Forest Band was invited to play at the Rectory St. Station, the site
> allotted to Forest. However the tour ran late and the train did not stop at
> 
> A Gothic Revival castle-style mansion and garden in midtown Toronto.
> 24                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> Rectory St. The kids were disappointed so the buses took them all the way to
> Niagara Falls, their next stop. My sister got to see them but I did not as the band
> returned to Forest.
> The war broke out while King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were here at the
> Toronto Fair, so they cut short their visit and returned to England. I applied to join
> the Royal Canadian Navy and stayed home and waited until I was called. I can
> remember listening on the radio to the progress of the Battle of the River Plate
> when the Admiral Graf Spee was sunk. During the 1930s we were able to hear
> speeches by both Hitler and Mussolini on radio.
> Uncle Fred had heard Hitler speak in Hamburg during the early thirties when he
> sailed with the Hamburg-American Line. He travelled a great deal and prior to that
> had sailed to Alaska, the Middle East and to India. He stopped going to Germany in
> the middle thirties, and made two more trips before the war, one to Indonesia and
> Thailand, and one to Angola. He sent me stamps from both trips. I collected stamps
> and also baseball cards, which came in bubble gum. Cigarettes also included
> collector’s cards—I can remember golf cards and poker hands. My dad collected the
> poker hands and was able to get several premiums including a card table and chairs,
> and a bridge lamp.
> In the early thirties, the advertisers were much more imaginative and generous
> than today when they spend all their money on television. Among the earliest
> advertisers were the cigarette manufacturers who placed cards in their cigarette
> packages. One I remember used cards with poker hands, which my father collected.
> There were two in a pack of 25 for a quarter and one in a 10 cent pack of ten. If you
> collected the full set they could be redeemed for prizes and I know my dad got a
> card table, a floor lamp and an umbrella for a specified number of sets in their
> catalogue. Even earlier, one of the companies put golf cards in their packages; a full
> set was for 18 holes. Also Moirs’ chocolate bars each contained a card with a letter
> on it and if you could spell, for example “Moirs’ XXX Hard Centers”, you would get a
> free 2 pound box of chocolates. Needless to say, the X’s were the hardest to find.
> Every box of cereal had a prize in it and every box of soap had a tea towel or a
> face cloth. Some contained dishes. All of the kids’ radio programs had clubs you
> could join for free by sending in a wrapper from
> 3. Growing up in Forest                           25
> their product. I joined the Little Orphan Annie secret society and received a code
> book and a ring, and every night on the program there would be a secret message
> that we had to decode.
> Then bubble gum cards were produced. Each penny package of bubble gum
> contained a card of a sports star, movie star, pirates and plane cards, or other topics
> of interest that could be collected into sets, and traded with others. It was always
> fun to trade a Lou Gehrig for a Hank Greenburg, or a Greta Garbo for a Clara Bow.
> You could buy a lot for a quarter in those days.
> One time I was persuaded to sell needles or garden seeds, and after selling a
> number we would get prizes. It was not hard to sell when you are 8 or 9 because
> everyone tends to humour you.
> 4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy
> In the spring of 1940 I received my call-up from the Royal Canadian Navy and
> was told to report to the Naval Barracks in London for a physical. My dad came
> with me, and that afternoon I was on a train for Vancouver with orders to report to
> HMCS Nadia in Esquimalt, British Columbia on 6 May. This was the first time I
> would be so far from home. The furthest I had been was between Montreal and
> Toledo. I had a berth on the train and woke up the next morning in Northern
> Ontario. In 1940 the trains ran on steam and we stopped every couple of hours for
> 10 minutes while they refilled the water tank.
> We had stops for an hour or more in Winnipeg and Edmonton, and I sent home
> postcards. In Vancouver we took the ferry to Victoria, about an 8 hour trip, and on
> arrival in Victoria were met by a truck that took us to the naval base.
> After being fitted out with all our gear and assigned a home in the Frobisher
> Block we went on basic training for 6 weeks. This consisted of a 2 or 3 mile run
> before breakfast after tying up our hammocks. Then we had marching drill,
> gunnery lessons, seamanship, naval history, and so on. We were allowed to go
> ashore (into town) on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday or Sunday and one
> weekend in three. We were in what they called red, white and blue watches.
> On the completion of basic training we had to choose a branch and I chose to
> train in visual signalling. It was a nine month course and we had to learn signalling
> with flags, semaphore and lights, which involved both naval and international
> signalling codes with flags and also Morse code for lights.
> At Christmas we had our first leave and I got home to Forest for the holiday. We
> had another leave on completion of the course and back home this time there was
> nothing to do since everyone I knew had joined the services. I took off and hitch
> hiked into the United States. I went first to Chicago, then to St. Louis, then went
> south through Arkansas and Memphis, and back home through Louisville and
> Cincinnati. It was surprisingly easy and cost me very little because I was in uniform.
> 
> 4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy              27
> Half way through the course, the navy was expanding so rapidly that some of us
> went on what they called ‘lodging and compensation’, and we had to find
> accommodation off the base and were allotted extra pay to cover it. I was lucky and
> found lodging along with two others in the class with an aunt of one of them. The
> house was in Victoria and not far from where our instructor, Leading Signalman
> Crevey, an old veteran of the Royal Navy who was called up as an instructor when
> the war broke out. Every third weekend, I with others, would go to Vancouver and
> it was there that I met Barb Roweman, whom I thought of as a girlfriend. I would
> stay with her family and she would show me around Vancouver and Stanley Park,
> once up to Capilano Canyon. She came over to Victoria once on a visit to picnic on
> Bowen Island.
> One Sunday I took a train trip up the island to Courtney on a Catholic youth
> outing. Other days off we would go to Beacon Hill Park or Gorge Park, which was
> quite pleasant.
> On my return from leave I, among others, were assigned to HMCS Prince Robert
> and joined it at Vancouver. Within a day or two we saw a large number of soldiers
> coming on board and we set sail not knowing where we were going. We were
> accompanied by a New Zealand troopship, the HMT Awatea,1 and the first land we
> sighted was Hawaii. We docked in Honolulu but were not allowed ashore, although
> some hula girls came down to the dock to entertain us. We left the next morning,
> still not knowing our destination.
> Two weeks later after crossing the International Date Line we entered the San
> Bernardino Straits and, after passing Corregidor Island, entered Manila Bay in the
> Philippines. We were still not allowed ashore and we still did not know our final
> destination, but there were plenty of rumours.
> There was a Japanese merchant ship in the harbour. Three days later I
> celebrated my 20th birthday and we arrived in Hong Kong. Here we were finally
> allowed ashore. We had one day from 11 am in the morning until 8 am the next
> morning. We slept in the China Fleet Club and the rest of the time we wandered
> about, took a rickshaw ride, took the ferry over to Kowloon and took the mountain
> railway up to the top.
> We stayed four days and disembarked the soldiers. The days we were not
> ashore we talked with the sampan people who thronged the
> 
> His Majesty’s Troopship.
> 28                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> harbour, and I bought a white dress uniform made to measure that cost me $10.
> On our way home we stopped again in Manila but again there was no shore
> leave. Two weeks later we arrived in Honolulu and were allowed ashore until
> midnight. We spent the time wandering around, shopping for souvenirs, and I went
> out to Waikiki Beach and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. This was Friday, 5 December
> 1941. We sailed next morning for Vancouver and on Sunday morning we started
> getting signals about the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbour and that we were at war
> with Japan. We arrived back in Canada five days later. After a few days we were
> ordered to patrol in the area of the Aleutian Islands and we had the worst weather I
> have experienced in the Royal Canadian Navy. Ocean swells were rising thirty feet
> and it was impossible to do anything. We could not keep utensils on the table in
> spite of the fact that mess tables had built up edges. Anything not tied down rolled
> all over the deck and it rained most of the time. After about three weeks we came
> back to Esquimalt, Vancouver Island.
> After a few weeks I was assigned to HMCS Kelowna, a newly commissioned
> minesweeper, at Prince Rupert, British Columbia. I was given my trained operators
> badge and was in charge of two signalmen on the ship. I travelled to Vancouver and
> then boarded a passenger steamer for the trip to Prince Rupert. The trip took three
> days and we sailed the inside passage. We stopped and were able to go ashore
> twice, once at Bella Bella and once at Ocean Falls. These communities only contact
> with the outside at that time was by sea, although they now have roads. I was
> particularly struck by the wooden streets.
> On arrival in Prince Albert I went on board the HMCS Kelowna and spent the next
> six months sweeping for imaginary mines around the entrance to the harbour, two
> weeks out and five days in port. On one occasion in port I met with Bob Rawlings
> from Forest who was stationed at an Royal Canadian Air Force base at Terrace,
> about 25 miles inland. On another occasion the ship put into Port Simpson, an
> Indian village and we went ashore and sampled some homemade beer. It was a
> friendly ship and the captain threw a party on one of our stays at the harbour.
> At the end of the summer I was taken off and drafted to St. Hyacinth, Quebec,
> where the Navy had their signal school for a V-S3
> 4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy                   29
> course. On the way I was given 30 days leave and went back home for a while. I
> decided to go hitch hiking again through the States. This time it was even better as
> the USA was now in the war. I got a ride as far as Wapakoneta, Ohio at a large truck
> stop. I found it was easier getting rides with truckers at stops than on the road. I
> picked up a ride that took me through Cincinnati, Nashville to Huntsville, Alabama. I
> hitched from there to Birmingham, through to Montgomery and Mobile. There I
> headed west through Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi to New Orleans.
> I spent a few days in New Orleans sightseeing, including Canal St., Bourbon St. in
> the French Quarter (Le Vieux Carre), the levees, and above ground cemeteries. I
> entered over the long causeway bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. From there I
> headed north and got a ride through Natchez to Port Gibraltar. I was stuck there
> and had to spend the night in a rooming house. The next day I headed north to
> Memphis and Beale Street in the city center. On this trip I had seen my first pecan
> trees and cotton fields.
> I crossed the Mississippi there and went north to St. Louis. I had been having
> such good luck that I then headed west to Kansas City, then north by Leavenworth
> to Omaha. Then back to Chicago through Des Moines and Davenport. Luckily I got a
> ride there direct to Port Huron and then home. I took no luggage, only a razor and
> toothbrush, and about 25 dollars. I would stay at YMCA dormitories for a quarter
> and would wash out socks and underwear overnight. Many of the people I rode
> with insisted on buying my meals and I arrived home with money still in my pocket.
> The course at the HMCS St. Hyacinthe base, Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, lasted six
> weeks and it was intensive. The base was outside the town and when we took leave
> we walked in. One weekend some of us went into Montreal, about 25 miles away.
> One night I went into town and saw a movie in French with Ray Milland and John
> Wayne, no subtitles of course, but I got so I understood a lot of it. It was in Saint-
> Hyacinthe that I met Jaime Gervais; she worked at Woolworth’s and we went out a
> few times.
> We finished the course and received our V/S 3 rating and almost immediately we
> were drafted to HMCS Stadacona at Halifax. It was winter and the weather was wet
> and miserable. I was promoted to Acting Leading Signalman and was drafted to
> HMCS Annapolis, an old four-
> 30                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> funnel, ex-American destroyer from World War I that was part of a ships-for-bases
> deal made with England, 50 destroyers for bases on British soil. Canada got a
> number of them, six of which were considered not safe to cross the Atlantic. We
> were on the Halifax to mid-Atlantic run and it was my first winter on the North
> Atlantic and it was miserable. The mess decks always had water on the floor, the
> open decks were covered with ice and it was foggy most of the time. We would put
> into St. John’s, Newfoundland, on the way back.
> St. John’s was not part of Canada then and they had their own money, although
> they would take any currency—Canadian, American, British or French. The first
> time in we went ashore at night of course; it was dark and the city was blacked out,
> so it was difficult getting around and I did not see what the town looked like.
> After a couple of trips on the HMCS Annapolis, the ship came in for a refit (the
> North Atlantic played havoc with the rivets) and I was drafted back ashore. I was
> shortly drafted to a corvette, the HMCS Quesnel, and we were put on the triangle
> run, escorting convoys from Boston, Halifax and St. John’s to mid-ocean. I was
> ashore once in Boston but I did little except sight-seeing. I was in St. John’s a couple
> of times and was able to look up one family of Chafes, relatives of my aunt Agnes,
> who had me up for dinner. I also met Charlie Ross, who later owned the Dresden
> paper, and we played cards together on one occasion.
> After a few trips the ship went into Pictou, Nova Scotia for a refit. We were in
> there for 3 months and I stayed with the ship during that time. When I had 30 days
> leave, I went home. For the remainder of the time there was no need to stay on
> board in the evening, but one night in three I had to don belt and garters and
> armband and go on shore patrol. It was a pretty soft job because there was never
> any trouble—a third of the ship’s company would be on long leave at all times. One
> weekend I spent in Truro, about an hour journey away by train.
> At the end of the refit I was sent back to Halifax where I spent some time. It was
> here I met Kidor Bentley, a young fellow who worked in a music store and we spent
> some time together. Earlier in the year I had spent a weekend at Frank Burus’ home
> in Kentville—he was the publisher of the Kentville Advertiser and my father had met
> him at a newspaper convention and he arranged the meeting.
> 4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy                   31
> Eventually, I received notice to go back to the HMCS St. Hyacinthe base for a V/S
> 2 course. The Canadian Navy was expanding very rapidly and there was a shortage
> of non-commissioned officers. At the conclusion of the course we were confirmed
> in our Leading Signalman rating and given the acting rank of Yeoman of Signals. On
> this tour, I learned that the girl I had met before was engaged to Bob Wales, one of
> my friends with whom I had been with since joining the Royal Canadian Navy, and
> who had invited me to stop off at his home in Winnipeg on my way back to
> Esquimalt after one of my leaves.
> On returning to Halifax we were all sent to newly built ships in various parts of
> the country. My assignment was HMCS Orkney, which was being built at Esquimalt
> shipyards. I was there in January and was one of the first compliments to arrive.
> My job at this point was to draw all the necessary supplies for the commemorative
> branch and update all the code books, ready for commissioning. It was strictly a day
> job as workmen were still working on the ship. On a couple of weekends I went to
> Vancouver. I had learned that Barb had got married and I visited her and her
> husband. By the time of commissioning the full complement was on board and I
> found I was in charge of all signalmen, coders and wireless telegraphers. I had a
> Leading Telegrapher and a Leading Coder under me. At the time of commissioning I
> had to climb to the top of the mast to fix the commissioning pennant that would be
> unfurled at the proper moment.
> A few days after this we received our orders to report to Halifax. We set sail and
> headed south. One of our Leading Torpedomen contracted appendicitis on the trip
> and we had to put into Corinto, Nicaragua, so he could get attention at the American
> hospital. There was no dock there; we had to anchor and some of us were allowed
> to go ashore by boat. We only had about six hours but it proved quite interesting.
> Nothing was open but bars and the post office as they take a siesta in the afternoon.
> The streets were not paved but were of sand and we met hardly anyone, none of
> whom could speak English.
> Our next port of call was the Panama Canal. It took all day to go through the
> canal and when we reached Cristobal we went in for a boiler cleaning, which meant
> a 5 day layover. One day a friend and I took a bus ride to Panama City, a distance of
> about 50 miles, just to say I was able to travel from coast to coast and back the same
> day and enjoy the scenery along the route. One thing I remember of Cristobal and
> its sister city Balboa was that
> 32                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> the bars never closed; they did not even have proper doors, just the swinging kind.
> On leaving Panama we sailed up through the strait between Cuba and Haiti and
> put into the US Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia, where we were fitted with the latest
> radar system. We were there three days and although I went ashore I do not
> remember much except for the enormous size of the navy yard there.
> On reaching Halifax we, the HMCS Orkney, were assigned as the Senior Officers’
> ship of Escort Group 16, at the head of a few new frigates, including HMCS Thetford
> Mines, HMCS Ste. Therese, HMCS La Hulloise and HMCS Magog. While working in the
> Gulf of St. Lawrence, the HMCS Magog was damaged by a torpedo and was
> effectively out of the war. The remaining ships went to New York where we
> received more radar gear at the Staten Island Navy Yard. I went ashore once into
> the city and went to the Stage One Canteen that was pretty empty. Nobody famous
> there. I also went to Jack Dempsey’s Bar.
> Then a few of us went to Coney Island where we rode the roller coaster and
> dodgem cars late into the night until it was time to go back to the ship.
> From there we went to Bermuda where we spent six weeks on working up
> exercises, based mostly at the British Naval Base at Hamilton and also a couple of
> days at St. Georges. We were ashore quite often and the weather was beautiful as it
> was May.
> Back in Canada, our escort group went on patrol in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It
> was comparatively uneventful, but we went into Gaspe for five days for a boiler
> cleaning and one evening I went to a social club and played bridge. I had to quickly
> recall my French in order to play. Later we put into Sydney, and while on day leave
> one of the stewards whose home was in Glace Bay, took me by bus to the ruins of
> the fortress of Louisburg. There was nothing there then except a blockhouse, which
> was used as a museum. On returning to Sydney we found our ships had been
> recalled to Halifax and we had to catch up with it by motor launch. My most vivid
> memory of Sydney at night was the fires of the blast furnaces at the steel mills,
> which were going 24 hours a day.
> On returning to Halifax, we were changed to Sea Operations Escort Group 25
> based at Londonderry, Northern Ireland, escorting a convoy on the way.
> 4. Service in the Royal Canadian Navy                  33
> By the time we reached the UK, it was September, D-Day had already occurred so
> we missed that event, but we immediately went on escort duty around the British
> Isles, and very rarely put into port before we returned to Londonderry. We
> circumnavigated the island several times in the lanes that were swept clear of
> mines. On one occasion we were sent out to the mid-Atlantic near the Canary
> Islands to deal with a submarine attack on a convoy. We arrived in time, but the sub
> was sunk by a torpedo aircraft. One night we put into Portsmouth and another time
> in January, we went into Scapa Flow in the Orkneys for a couple of days. I went
> ashore once to the petty officers mess at the naval base and it was miserably cold
> and damp. We had to huddle around a stove in the centre while we drank our beer.
> One time some of us went to Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland (later Eire).
> We also carried out night anti-submarine exercises at a tactical centre in
> Limavady, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, east of Londonderry. I walked
> around the old walls of Londonderry, and several times we went drinking in the
> Catholic area where they had connections in the Irish Free State and were able to
> get eggs and steak which were unavailable in Northern Island.
> At Christmas we were given a week’s leave and I went to London, UK. I took the
> train to Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, where I took the ferry to Stranraer,
> Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The train to London was very crowded and I had
> to stand much of the time. I got a room in Earls Court and took the underground to
> the city centre every day where I visited the sights (Tower of London, Mme.
> Trussauds, Kew Garden and the British Museum), and went to entertainment
> shows. One night the underground went on strike and I had to walk back to Earls
> Court.
> On one occasion we were escorting a convoy through the Minch, a strait in
> north-west Scotland that separates the mainland from Lewis and Harris in the Outer
> Hebrides, when the captain thought we had a submarine contact. We were about to
> carry out a depth charge attack when the Navigator rushed up to the bridge to
> inform us we were over a minefield.
> In February we were escorting a convoy from Loch Eyre, northwest Scotland, to
> Milford Haven, Wales, when we ran into one of the ships in the convoy off Anglesey.
> We were badly damaged but the freighter was worse. We signalled for tugs from
> Liverpool to assist the freighter but we were able to come in under our own steam.
> We tied up at the Gladstone docks on the River Mersey, and part of the Port of
> Liverpool, England, and there learned we would have to remain there to participate
> in a court of inquiry. Liverpool was the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief
> Western Approaches. I had to attend but was never called to testify.
> 5. Meeting Joan Taylor and the end of the war
> As a petty officer, I did not have to stand watch, so I was able to go ashore every
> night. We came into the city on an elevated train to the Pier Head, the centre of the
> Liverpool on the Mersey River.
> Whether it was the first or second night ashore, a couple of friends and myself
> had a few drinks and decided to go roller skating, something I had never done
> before or since. It was there that I met a girl called Joan Taylor and she and a friend
> accompanied us back to the Pier Head to catch our train. I managed to get her
> phone number where she worked. This was February 14th, 1945.
> The next day I called her and asked for a date. She agreed and when I suggested
> several things to do, she opted for a concert of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.
> For the next three weeks or so we saw each other nearly every night, attending
> concerts, movies and an occasional stage shows and trips. After she got to know me
> a little better, she invited me to her home where I met her parents, and on one
> occasion I missed the last street car downtown and had to walk miles back to the
> ship.
> At the end of the accident inquiry I asked Joan to marry me and she agreed
> although no date was set. The result of the inquiry was that our commanding officer
> received a reprimand and lost his command. We got a new captain, who joined us
> after the refit, and were ordered to Dunstaffnage Marina, 5 km northeast of Oban,
> Scotland, for this. It took six weeks and there was not much to do in Oban. Every
> second weekend I took a train to Liverpool, which was an interesting trip. It took so
> long (I had to change at Glasgow) that I only had a few hours with Joan before I had
> to return.
> On completion of the refit, we did working up exercises at Kyle of Lochalsh and
> anti-submarine exercises to the south at Campbelltown. Previously, we had done
> similar exercises at Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, but we never went ashore at any
> of them. We then returned to Londonderry for more exercises at the tactical room.
> While we were undergoing the refit some of our people joined one of the other
> ships of the group who took over as senior officer, and while there, there was an …
> accident and several were killed, including my leading telegrapher, Jimmy Friend.
> While we were in
> 
> 5. Meeting Joan Taylor and the end of the war              35
> Londonderry I took a weekend in Belfast and visited their graves in the cemetery
> there. I also visited Gloria Hollowell, a Wren I met in Londonderry, was restationed.
> She was from Manchester and was an officers’ cook and engaged to a Canadian
> airman. The only reason I mention this was because a few years after the war, she
> turned up in Forest as Gloria Anderson, with her husband as new owners of the
> Forest Golf Course.
> We eventually set sail again and while refuelling at Moville on Lough Foyle, we
> were rammed by another Canadian frigate and had to return to Londonderry. While
> there, V-E Day was announced and I spent the afternoon on a long walk. A few days
> later we were told we were being transferred to Canada for service in the Pacific but
> had the choice of volunteering. I decided to request a transfer and called Joan in
> Liverpool and told her I would be going ashore for the purpose of getting married. I
> guess she was surprised but agreed.
> Over the next few days, several German submarines began turning up in
> Londonderry, having surrendered on orders from Germany.
> Eventually I was posted to HMCS Niobe base in Greenock, Scotland, catching a
> boat from Belfast. I was immediately sent to an Rest and Recreation camp where I
> stayed for several weeks. While there I learned how to make felt flowers and
> leather tooling. Our only duties were to keep the camp clean. We were provided
> from time to time with tours. Once we went to Ayr, Bobby Burns country, another
> time to Hamilton and David Livingston’s home.1 We also took a trip to the
> Trossachs and Loch Katrine, but it was so foggy we saw very little.
> In June 1, 1945, got 30 days marriage leave and went to Liverpool where
> arrangements were made for the wedding. We made day trips to Southport and
> Blackpool. We also visited some of her relatives in the Liverpool area. We were
> married in Hayton Parish Church with a fellow I met in Greenock,
> Robert Ferguson, standing up (supporting) for me, and Joan’s sister, Florence, as
> bridesmaid. We went on our honeymoon to Lytham St. Annes, near Blackpool.
> Shortly after returning to Liverpool, we went to Greenoch and the first day or
> two we stayed in a rooming house downtown until I found a room closer to the
> HMCS Niobe base. We were only there for a couple of weeks when I found they were
> going to start closing down the base and I was slated to return to Canada on the
> HMS Puncher, a British aircraft carrier crewed by the Royal Canadian Navy. I
> avoided that
> 
> 1   David Livingstone (1813–1873) lived briefly at 17 Burnbank Road in Hamilton, South
> Lanarkshire, in 1862.
> 36                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> by believing Joan was pregnant, which proved to be false. I was moved to the signal
> office where I was in charge, and Joan and I moved into the Boag’s place where we
> had a large living room with a hole in the wall for a bed, a fireplace and a piano.
> When V-J day arrived in August, the entire ship’s company was treated to a boat
> cruise on the Kyles of Bute. We also continued to be taken on bus trips to various
> places, including Stirling Castle and Bamodbeen,1 Loch Lamond and Dumbarton
> Castle where we climbed the steps to the top. Joan and I spent one weekend in
> Edinburgh where we ran into Bob Fuller, from Ravenswood, in Edinburgh Castle.
> We also walked the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace and St. Gile’s Church where John
> Knox preached.
> Every three months I would get a week’s leave and on these occasions we went
> back to Liverpool. However, we did not stay there. On one occasion we went to
> York and walked the city walls. On another we went to Nottingham where we ran
> into a Canadian from Exeter, Ontario, in the Trip to Jerusalem Inn. We also went to
> Chester and walked the city walls there as well.
> The personnel at the HMCS Niobe base were gradually depleted as they returned
> to Canada, eventually the signals office was closed and I was placed on duty on the
> telephone switchboard for the last six weeks or so that I was there. The HMCS Niobe
> base was eventually closed and Joan and I packed up and went to Liverpool where I
> awaited my sailing orders for Canada.
> While we were still in Greenock, we often went into Glasgow for the evening as
> there was either a bus or a train about every half hour. On one of these trips, we
> stood up for the wedding of one of our navy friends at the Registrar’s Office there.
> 
> Bannockburn?
> r
> 
> 6. Return to Canada
> We were staying at Joan’s home for about three weeks when I got my orders to
> report to London for repatriation to Canada. We were on a brief holiday in
> Caernarfon, Wales, when it arrived so I had not much time or money either.
> When I arrived in London, I found that we (the servicemen) had four or five days
> to kill. I got a bed at the Canadian Legion hostel that cost a shilling a night and spent
> a lot of the time wandering around London. I managed to see a performance of “The
> Barber of Seville” in the fourth balcony at Sadler’s Wells Theatre for a shilling and
> also visited several famous pubs including Dirty Dicks, the Bull and Bash and one
> that used to be frequented by Charles Dickens (Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese).
> Eventually we (the servicemen) were notified of our sailing orders. We got a
> train from Victoria station for Southampton where we boarded the SS Île de France
> for Halifax. There were 90 naval ratings being repatriated among several thousand
> soldiers, and it took about a week to cross the Atlantic. On arrival we reported to
> HMCS Stadacona, RCN Barracks in Halifax, and immediately went on a 30-day leave,
> my first in Canada for 2 years.
> When I got back to Halifax, I was sent to the Naval Air Station in Dartsmouth and
> several of us communication ratings (I was now a confirmed Leading Signalman)
> were stationed at a radar base for naval aircraft out in the bush. Our duties were to
> track and communicate with the planes when they were on exercises. Many days it
> was foggy or raining and there were no flights so it was a pretty easy job. We ate
> and slept out there preparing our own meals so there was not a lot of variety. I
> wrote to Joan nearly every day and she wrote as well.
> While I was waiting for her, I arranged to meet Reinette who was stationed with
> the Wrens in Halifax, and that evening made a long distance phone call back to
> Forest to talk to Ruth who was home after spending a couple of summers during the
> war as a farmerette (woman farm worker).
> It was not long before I received word that Joan had received her sailing orders,
> substituting for a war bride who had to cancel. She was to sail on the RMS Queen
> Mary to arrive in Halifax the first week in August. The
> 
> 38                      Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> naval public relations office made arrangements for me to meet the ship and get her
> off before general debarkation. They supplied us with a hotel room for the night and
> train tickets for another 30-day leave to take her back to Forest, Ontario.
> On our way we stopped in Toronto to attend the wedding of Frank and Gertrude
> Edwards who was stationed with me at the RCN Air Station in Dartsmouth.
> We went on to Forest where we spent the time getting acquainted. On my return
> to Halifax, Joan remained with my parents until I was able to find a place to live in
> Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
> I found a room on the main street about halfway between downtown Dartmouth
> and the naval air station. It had a bed in it and we managed to find some orange
> crates that we used for furniture. There was only one kitchen that we had to share
> with the lady of the house. After a few weeks Gert and Frank came and took a room
> upstairs. We shared our meals and they would sometimes come down and play
> cards while we all sat on the bed. One day I was exercising on the bed and I stepped
> and put my foot through the window. We were terrified to tell the landlady, but
> even worse it was cold outside and a broken window did not help.
> As soon as we could we found another place. This one had two rooms, a
> bedroom and a kitchen. The bedroom was only slightly larger than the bed and this
> made it awkward when it rained as there was a small leak in the roof. The toilet
> was outside and one windy night the roof blew off and left it open to the weather. It
> was on Marion Heights, and it was half of a flimsily built shack on top of a hill, and it
> enabled us to hear everything that went on in the other half and I presume vice
> versa. We got our water from a well. The only advantages were we had our own
> kitchen and I could walk to work through a hole in the fence of the air base. By this
> time I was placed in charge of the signal office at the base. My duties were to
> compile and distribute all the messages each morning and take them personally to
> the commanding officer who would make replies or not as he saw fit. He generally
> went home before noon and therefore there was no need for me to remain. It was
> pretty easy. Even the signaling was done by teletype that sent and received
> encoded messages which were decoded by placing the appropriate insert in it each
> day.
> 6. Return to Canada                             39
> In early spring we decided to buy a car, a used one of which they were starting to
> become available the first time since the war started. They were generally sold by
> ten o’clock after the morning newspaper came out.
> Eventually we bought a 1932 Chrysler for about $500, which I had in the bank in
> Forest, and which my parents sent to me. It was not much but at last we were
> mobile. We visited the Gunns, whom we had known in Scotland, and the Laytons;
> he was a yeoman of signals and I had gone to school with him back in Forest and he
> had joined the navy a few years before the war broke out.
> We also took a trip one Sunday to Peggy’s Cove on the south coast, which was
> well known from calendars, etc. At that time the roads were not paved and on our
> way home we got stuck in the mud along with several others. We were eventually
> rescued. Occasionally we took the ferry over to Halifax but would often drive
> around Bedford Basin. One time I visited the HMCS Orkney which was anchored in
> Bedford Basin waiting to be sold or scrapped.
> The car was no great shakes; it could not even make it up the hill at Marion
> Heights. I had to leave it at the bottom, but it was nice to drive my own first car and
> the first time I had driven since the first year of the war, when one time I rented a
> car in Vancouver and I took Barb up to Capilano River Canyon, British Columbia. In
> those days it was not a tourist trap like it is now and we were the only ones on the
> swing bridge.
> My time in the navy expired on May 6th after seven years, and we decided to
> drive back to Forest carrying all our worldly possessions on the back seat. It was a
> very interesting and eventful trip. The first hitch came at the American border at
> Calais, Maine. The customs man determined to make us remove everything in the
> back until he was satisfied, and then made us put it all back ourselves.
> One night we spent in a cabin in the Maine woods with no inside facilities. They
> did not have motels in those days. In Boston we got lost and had to make a right
> turn where we did not want to since we were in the wrong lane. Out of Boston we
> joined the Merritt Parkway, one of the first controlled access highways built by
> Roosevelt during the depression. We eventually arrived in New York on the Hudson
> Parkway and found a bed and breakfast in the Bronx not far from Fordham
> University.
> 40                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> In New York we did all the tourist things. We went to the Automat; we had a
> dinner at the Waldorf Astoria. We went to the top of the Empire State Building and
> we saw a show at Radio City Music Hall. We also went to see a hit musical
> “Oklahoma” at the St. James Theatre on 42nd Street. It was in its fifth year and
> another new musical was playing across the street, “Annie Get Your Gun”, which
> was sold out for the next four months. We did not drive in New York; we took the
> subway.
> Driving was an education in itself since we had to add oil every time we stopped
> for gas, and one window was broken. When we left New York we headed for
> Niagara Falls where we stayed with the Snowdons who were cousins of my mother,
> and whom I had met before. We stayed a couple of days and one night there was a
> disturbance. Fred Snowdon got up and discovered someone had stolen our car.
> However it did not get far as it ran out of gas before it got far and the thieves were
> apprehended.
> We eventually arrived home but the car was on its last legs. Later that month we
> went to Ingersoll for the baptism of Reinette and Pete’s first child, Ruth Ann.
> Unfortunately, the car threw a piston rod and we had to dispose of it there for $100,
> which was not bad since we only paid $500 for it in the first place and it got us and
> our things home and gave us an interesting trip in the bargain.
> 7. Settling down in Forest
> I went to work with The London Free Press for $25 a week and we rented our
> first house, a bungalow on King Street belonging to a Mrs Kemp. We spent the first
> winter there. In the meantime we had started a family since Paul had been born in
> July. It was while we were living there that we had our first Hallowe’en in Canada.
> Ron and Laura Taylor came over and Ron and I dressed up and went out about ten
> or eleven o’clock while the girls looked after the two babies. Joan had met Laura in
> England before coming over and they both came on the RMS Queen Mary. They
> occasionally came over and we would play poker for pennies.
> By spring we were finding the cottage too small for a grocery bag and we rented
> the downstairs apartment at Aunt Nora’s on Albert Street. We stayed there nearly
> two years and for part of the time the upstairs was occupied by Ken Simpson and
> his wife; he had gone to school with Ruth and they also had a young baby. The
> Boones were there when we first moved in but they were not there long.
> For the next ten or twelve years a lot of things happened, but I have no
> recollection of either sequence or duration. One of my first memories was Dad
> hiring Nifty Shepherd to drive us to Amherstburg, Essex County, Ontario, where
> Joan met Aunt Mina and her son, Charlie Smith. I cannot remember if we met
> anyone else that trip.
> I met Harry Keene on one of my trips to London, Ontario, while we were living at
> Aunt Nora’s place; I remember because he lent me some operatic recordings and I
> played them there. It must have been during this period that I went to Cleveland
> twice to visit the Metropolitan Opera. Shortly after this I started playing in the
> London Symphony Orchestra. I played fourth horn and had to buy one; I did this for
> two years and we practiced at Beale Collegiate.
> We had a chance to buy a cottage on
> 
> 42                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> McHenry Street and Dad loaned us the down payment, the house costing about
> $3,000. The property had a small market garden that contained a couple of rows,
> full length of the lot, of raspberry canes and two or three rows of strawberries. We
> grew enough that we were able to supply Boyd’s grocery store during the season.
> We also grew tomatoes, green beans and carrots, and there were three cherry trees.
> One year we successfully grew potatoes, but we could have bought them cheaper.
> Another time we grew corn and cantaloupe. Geoff was born while we were there
> and the cottage began to get too small. We considered building an addition but it
> never happened.
> While on McHenry Street, Joan’s girlfriend, Joan Robinson, visited us and we met
> her in Montreal. Bernie Hopper took a shine to her and after her visit; he drove her
> back to Montreal, accompanied by Joan. Bernie met her because he and I used to
> play golf nearly every Sunday. In fact one year we became members of Oakwood
> Park at Grand Bend, Ontario. We also played other courses in the area including
> Sarnia, Bright’s Grove, Petrolia and Strathroy as well as Forest and Indian Hills
> when it opened.
> Every couple of years we tried to take a holiday for a week or so and we would
> borrow Mom’s car. The first trip was to Quebec City and the eastern townships. We
> visited Windsor and Thetford Mines and also Mr and Mrs Bob Wales in St. Jean. She
> was the former Jeanne Gervais from St. Hyacinth. Another time we took the ferry
> from Tobermory to Manitoulin Island and by the time we got to Little Current, the
> generator was shot. We were stuck there for the weekend since the part could not
> be replaced until the garage obtained a new one from Sudbury. We also went one
> weekend to Montreal with Ruth when we went to St. Joseph’s Abatory.
> Another time we rented a cottage near Huntsville, which we later discovered
> was the same Colonial Bay Resort that we have visited twice since then. We got
> there because my parents had previously holidayed in that area. While there I
> played golf at a couple of courses, including
> 7. Settling down in Forest                       43
> Windemere. The cottage had electricity but no inside facilities and one night I went
> out to the toilet and surprised a skunk. We both retreated in a hurry. The cottage
> also had a rowboat and we went rowing on the lake a couple of times.
> We also had the opportunity to go on a couple of conventions with the Ontario
> Weekly Newspapers Association. One was to Wigwassen over on an island in Lake
> Rosseau. I played golf at Windune once on that trip while Joan went with the ladies
> to Port Carling.
> Another one was on the Ontario Northern Railway. We boarded at Toronto and
> travelled north. The newspaper people had the whole train and we slept on it. We
> made several stops, including one at New Liskeard where we toured a match
> factory, at Temogami, where we had a boat ride, and Timmins, to visit a gold mine.
> We also belonged to the South Western Ontario Association and we met every
> year. I can remember meetings at Wallaceburg, Ridgetown, Tillsonburg, and others
> and one year I was elected Chairman. It was not too hard a job as the secretary did
> all the work. We also attended a few exhibitions in the Automotive Building at the
> Toronto Exhibition Grounds and at one of them we purchased a Fairchild engraver
> and were able to run pictures in the newspaper for the first time (this must have
> been in the 1960s).
> While at McHenry Street we had a flood at one time and had a couple of feet of
> water in the basement. The worst damage was losing our wedding pictures and
> many of our souvenirs from Britain.
> Once Dad took the car and had me drive him and Joan to Detroit to see a ball
> game. It was the New York Yankees when Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra were
> playing. During this time I was official scorer for the Forest Baseball Team and I
> was secretary of the hockey team, which meant I attended most of their games. I
> was also Treasurer of the Forest branch of the Canadian Legion, while Joan
> belonged to the Women’s Auxiliary.
> 8. Introduction to the
> Bahá’í Faith and community development
> In 1951 we met Aldie (Aldham) Robarts (b. 1929) who worked in the local Bank of
> Commerce. He was single and interested in similar things to us, history, music and
> playing golf, and he used to spend a lot of time at our place. It was through him that
> we first heard of the Baha’í Faith. We did not think a lot about it at the time, but
> both of us had been estranged from our respective churches for some time. In 1952
> he left Forest and went back to Toronto.
> That fall his parents, John and Audrey, invited us to spend Thanksgiving
> weekend with them in Toronto. They had arranged for us to attend the New York
> City Ballet company performance of “Fancy Free” by Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990).
> The next day, while Aldie’s brother took Joan on a tour of Casa Loma, Aldie’s
> father, John Robarts (1901–1991), who I learned later was Chairman of the National
> Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’ís of Canada and a top man with London Life, talked
> to me about the Baha’í Faith, and loaned us some books to take home with us. That
> night Aldie took us to a jazz night club. While there we met two of the Toronto
> Baha’í youth, Elizabeth Manser who became Mrs Mike Rochester and Douglas
> Martin (1927–2020).
> Earlier that year we left the little house on MacHenry St. and bought a house on
> Macnab Street at auction. We paid $4,500 for it and used the proceeds of the sale of
> the previous house for a down payment. It needed a lot of work and over the next
> couple of years we remodelled the interior, including a new kitchen and small
> bathroom under the stairs, and installed a new furnace.
> Over the winter of 1952–1953, we went into London several times to hear a series
> of talks by Ruth Moffatt on her New Keys to the Book of Revelation, and it was there
> we met some of the London Baha’ís, such as Bob Smith, and Ross Woodman, who at
> that time was Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada. We also met
> the Hoyles at this time as they were studying the Faith as well.
> In April 1953 we went down to London to attend the formation of the first Local
> Spiritual Assembly in London, with John Robarts presiding. We had all become
> Baha’ís by this time, including Miller McPherson. Dorothy Boyers (she had not
> married Bob at this point) was a member of the Baha’í Jubilee Committee arranging
> the 100th anniversary of the declaration of Baha’u’llah, and she told us of the
> dedication of the Wilmette Baha’í Temple. We decided to attend in May and the
> three of us went along with Miller and Ross Woodman and stayed at the YMCA in
> downtown Chicago.
> 
> 8. Introduction to the Baha’í Faith and community development       45
> There were seven Hands of the Cause of God there, including Ruhíyyih Khanum
> (1910–2000), who delivered the dedication address from her husband, Shoghi
> Effendi (1897–1957). Also there were Zikrullah Khadem (1904–1986), ‘Alí-Akbar
> Furutan (1905–2003), and Horace Holley (1887–1960). We also spent an evening
> with Nellie Stevison French, (1868–1954), one of those present who had met ‘Abdu’l-
> Baha (1844–1921).
> That summer, 1953, we were remodelling our kitchen when we had a visit from
> Ruth Moffett (1880–1978). She slept in the den while Wilfred Shawhenee, an Indian
> from Kettle Point was installing a pass-through in place of a door in that room.
> While Ruth was in the washroom in the morning, Wilfred dashed in and removed
> the door—surprise! Also that summer we went to London, Ontario, to hear a talk by
> ‘Alí Furutan. One of the amazing things I remember is that he remembered who I
> was when I ran into him at the Guardian’s (Shoghi Effendi) grave in New Southgate
> Cemetery, London, twenty-five years later.
> By this time Aldie robarts was working in St. Catharines and he had us down for
> a weekend where we met the Baha’ís in St. Catharines and we went with him to
> Niagara Falls to see “Annie Get Your Gun” at the summer theatre, held at the Shaw
> Festival Theatre.
> Joan decided she would like to visit her parents the next year, 1954; it had been
> eight years since she had last seen them. She would take Paul, who was seven, with
> her. Geoff would be four and Larry two and we would need someone to look after
> them.
> As it happens, that spring our linotype operator was killed in a car accident. The
> job was offered to Jack Hoyle who was anxious to leave his London job. He did not
> know anything about it but learned quickly. He and Kathy moved into our house
> when Joan and Paul left for England, with me driving them to Montreal, where she
> sailed on the RMS Empress of Scotland.
> Joan was pregnant at the time and found out when she got there that she would
> not be allowed to sail until the baby was born. Our daughter Victoria was born in a
> hospital in Southport on September 21, 1954, and they returned to Canada in
> November 1954. I drove to Montreal to meet the ship and bring them home. Joan
> came back as a Canadian but Vicki was admitted as a landed immigrant and thus has
> dual citizenship.
> During the 1950s, Forest formed a Local Spiritual Assembly. In addition to
> ourselves, Miller, and the Hoyles, we enrolled Charlie and Norma Willey, Duyck and
> Tredi Lewis and Don Thiers. Then Tony and Rita Marsolais moved here from the
> Ottawa area. We had many visitors during this period
> 46                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> including Mr and Mrs Khadem (Hand of the Cause of God), John Robarts; Mrs
> Meherangiz Munsiff (1923–1999) and daughter Jyoti, who were from a Zoroastrian
> family in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, who had converted to the Baha’í Faith; as
> well as Baha’ís from around Ontario, like Charlie and Florence Grindley, Mike and Liz
> Rochester, Doug and Betty Martin, Fred Graham,etc.
> I gave my first public talk at the Brock Hotel in Niagara Falls. There were about
> twenty people present, all Baha’ís from Toronto and Hamilton. Prior to this I was
> asked to cover the Baha’í summer school that was held at Geneva Park on Lake
> Couchiching for the Canadian Bahá’í News. There I met Marjorie McCormick (1889–
> 1964) and Stanwood Cobb (1881–1982); and I was on a committee with Ola
> Pawlowski (1910–2004), who later pioneered to Zaire, that sent a cable to the
> Guardian (Shoghi Effendi). It was also my first contact with Jim Willoughby and
> Alan Raynor.
> For a couple of winters I led discussion groups at our home. We discussed The
> Meeting of East and West by F. S. C. Northrop (1893–1992), A Study of History by
> Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975), and a history of Asia that I compiled. Among those
> attending were a couple of high school teachers.
> We had always been fortunate in living so close to the resorts on Lake Huron.
> Shortly after Joan arrived in Forest, we won a week at one of Jamieson’s cottages at
> Ipperwash Beach. It was September so there were not a lot of people around. In the
> 1950s my parents bought a cottage at Cedar Point and they allowed their kids to use
> it for short holidays during the summer. At the same time, Pat and Jack Boyd had a
> cottage at Ipperwash Beach, and they allowed us to use it from time to time right up
> to the 1970s. On a couple of occasions we camped at Camp Ipperwash, once in a tent
> and again in a trailer. I would drive in to work every day and came out at night.
> One year around 1960, the Baha’ís were unable to acquire a site for a Baha’í
> summer school and decided to hold three mini schools that year. One was at Forest,
> and the Boyds allowed us the use of their cottage for the venue.
> The Baha’í teachers came from the Baha’í Summer School Committee and
> included Nancy Campbell from Hamilton and Marion Hughes from Detroit. About
> 40 people turned up and while some stayed at the lake, others stayed in Forest. The
> Forest Baha’ís supplied the catering and it was a busy time. Another time we held
> our own Baha’í summer school; it was on a smaller scale and we had Charles
> Grindley as one of the teachers.
> In those days I did some travel teaching around the area. I spoke in Kitchener
> several times and also London and Colbourne. Once we went to Royal Oak,
> Michigan, for a Baha’í fireside. We also held firesides on a
> 8. Introduction to the Baha’í Faith and community development        47
> regular basis in Sarnia. Joan gave the fireside at Jim Oliver’s house and we also had
> public meetings in the Forest Public Library. We established the first International
> Picnic at Canatara Park, Sarnia, at first for ourselves and the Baha’ís of Port Huron,
> but in succeeding years it grew until it was attended by over a hundred people.
> While teaching in Sarnia, we gained a contact, actually through Charles Willey, in
> the person of Mary Allen. Much to our surprise a week or so later she landed on our
> doorstep and moved in with us. She became a Baha’í and eventually got a place of
> her own. It was when she moved to Detroit that we spoke at Royal Oak, a suburb of
> Detroit. We would sometimes drive to the Baha’í summer school at the Louhelen
> Baha’í School, near Davison, Michigan. We got to know Lou and Helen Eggleston
> quite well; they had donated the Louhelen property to the Baha’í Faith for a summer
> school and it has now become quite well-known.
> Sometimes we attended concerts by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the State
> Fair Grounds in Detroit. I knew a couple of the players whom I had played with in
> the International Symphony Orchestra, Sarnia.
> During the 1950s I took a course by correspondence in electronics from DeVry
> Institute. I did not do much with it, but I built a radio, and a voltmeter as well as a
> circuit tester. I also started collecting stamps while Jack Hoyle stayed with us—I
> collected Chinese, Greek, Turkish and Iranian stamps and corresponded with
> collectors in Iran, Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia. A girl in Indonesia sent me a
> beautiful carved statuette of Kalki, the 10th avatar of Vishnu, in exchange for a
> couple of stamp albums, which we still have.
> While living at Macnab Street we bought our first television set. It was at an
> auction sale and cost $25. The antenna I think cost more than the set, but Norma
> Willey would come over when I was out and watch the movies with Joan. The
> Willeys eventually became Baha’ís. It was through the Willeys that we met George
> and Erica Lazi who were Hungarian refugees from the 1956 revolution and who
> came to work for Charlie. Erica and Joan got along quite well and spent time at each
> other’s place. George and Erica Lazi lived above one of the stores on King Street.
> Also while we were at
> 48                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> Macnab Street, a friend of Joan’s mother, Amy Reynolds, whom she met in England,
> arrived and stayed with us for a while. She was the first lady auctioneer in England
> and also taught elocution lessons for a while. While with us she confused the
> Anglican minister by attending both his church and the Catholic Church on the same
> day. Before returning to England she went to London and got a job as housekeeper
> for a Jewish shopkeeper.
> 9. Western Canadian and US vacations, early 1960s
> In the early 1960s we decided to take one of the kids on a holiday with us. The
> first trip was in 1961 and we took Paul with us to Winnipeg. We went by way of
> Chicago and visited the Baha’í House of Worship in Wilmette. We had been to the
> Baha’í Temple on a couple of previous occasions, once with Pat Boyd, who drove
> and got a speeding ticket somewhere in Michigan and the other time we took Evelyn
> McPherson with us. These were weekend trips.
> We often camped on these trips. Our first stop was in Wisconsin and then in
> Bemidji, Minnesota. There we went south to Akeley to visit the Paul Bunyan
> Historical Museum together the statues of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe. We
> camped in a nearby park. In Winnipeg we stayed in a motel on the outskirts of the
> city. This was the first time I had been in Winnipeg since I stopped over a few days
> early in the war with Bob Wales and we rode the roller coaster in Assiniboine Park.
> Later I was to go there as a delegate to the Baha’í National Convention.
> While in Winnipeg we took Paul to see the railway yards that are the largest in
> Canada and which fascinated him. We also had a tour of the Manitoba Parliament
> Buildings with Hart Bowsfield, a Baha’í we had met at an earlier Baha’í National
> Convention in Toronto. We attended many Baha’í Conventions when they were in
> Toronto; one time we took Don Thiers and another time we took George and Erica
> Lazi, who of course were not Baha’ís but we spent some time with them.
> On our way back from Winnipeg we returned on the Canadian side. Some of our
> memories were the night we spent in a hotel in Jackfish, about 4 miles off the Trans-
> Canada Highway down a one lane winding road. The hotel was an old style one
> where all the guests ate around the main table. In the evening we saw some moose
> swimming in the lake out to an island.
> Jackfish is a point on the Canadian Pacific Railway where the train makes a big U-
> turn around the bay and if you were in the middle of the train you could see both
> ends of the train out the window.
> Also we had to stop in Wawa (on the western shore of Wawa Lake) to visit a
> doctor when Joan received several bad black fly bites. Her face became quite
> swollen. The next night we camped in Fairbank Provincial Park (west of Sudbury),
> about 14 miles off the main highway.
> 
> 50                      Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> We did not think we would ever get there. From there we went to Woodview,
> northwest of Lakefield, Ontario, where I was to give a course at the Baha’í Summer
> School. We were there for a week and one of the highlights was a series of evening
> talks on the Baha’u’llah’s Letters to the Kings by Firuz Khazemzadeh, Chairman of
> the National Spiritual Assembly of the USA.
> Our next trip, 1962, we took a shorter trip, just the two of us. We crossed on the
> ferry to Manitoulin Island and then to Wawa. From there we went across northern
> Ontario through Chapleau and Foleyet to Timmins. I remember stopping at Ivanhoe
> Lake for lunch. From Timmins we went north to Cochrane and camped overnight in
> Greenwater Provincial Park.
> On the way back we turned east and went to Kirkland Lake and Under Lake,
> Ontario, and into Quebec through Rougn-Noranda, Quebec, to Val d’Or. We came
> south through La Verendrye Provincial Park and through the Gatineau Park to
> Ottawa.
> Another year, 1963, we went out west. We crossed the Mackinack Bridge and
> stopped in Escanaba. We travelled east and then turned north at Duluth and
> crossed into Canada at International Falls and travelled up through Lake of the
> Woods to Kenora. We bypassed Winnipeg and stopped in Brandon.
> The next day we reached Regina where we spent a few days with Angus and
> Bobbie Cowan. Angus was a National Spiritual Assembly member and he took us
> out to the Poorman Reserve in Saskatchewan. It was a poor reserve and I met and
> spoke to a group of Indian Baha’ís. They were very hospitable with what they had.
> When we left we stopped at a small prairie town near Swift Current and the
> following night at Fort McLeod, west of Lethbridge. We spent the next day at the
> Peigan Reserve at Brocket. These are Blackfoot Indians and we had met Chief
> Samson Knowlton earlier when he came to Kettle Point. About twenty of the Baha’ís
> came to Samson’s house where we had a fireside. He also took us out to see an
> isolated Baha’í, but we were unable to cross the Oldman River after a lengthy walk.
> The next day we set off for the American border through Pincher Creek. We
> passed Chief Mountain, our first glimpse of the Rockies. We stayed overnight in
> Babb, Montana and the next day drove through Glacier National Park over the
> Highway to the Sun. Although it was August there was still some snow along the
> road. We drove down the other side and through the Flathead Indian Reserve to
> Butte where we spent the night.
> That night we attended a Baha’í Feast with the local Baha’í community.
> 9. Western Canadian and US vacations, early 1960s            51
> The next day we drove south to Virginia City, and the Hebgen Lake earthquake
> area where a campground was destroyed, and into Yellowstone National Park. In
> the park, we visited the hot spring area and the Old Faithful Geyser, and saw some
> bears alongside the road. We stayed that night in Cody, Wyoming, after stopping at
> the Buffalo Bill Dam. From there we travelled through the switchback road in the
> Shell Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains to the site of General George Custer’s defeat
> at the Little Bighorn River.
> Our next stop was at Deadwood, South Dakota, where we went to the bar where
> Wild Bill Hickok was shot and the cemetery where he and Calamity Jane (Martha
> Jane Canary) are supposed to be buried in Boot Hill. Then we went up to Mount
> Rushmore to see the big figures carved in the rock. From there we went through
> the Badlands National Monument where the temperature was steaming, but the
> scenery spectacular.
> We crossed the Missouri at Mitchell, South Dakota, the corn capital of the United
> States. They have a corn palace built of many different kinds of corn. We stopped at
> Sioux City, Iowa, for the night and called the local Baha’ís but they did not seem to
> want to see us. We continued east through Illinois to Lafayette, Indiana. We visited
> the site of the Battle of Tippecanoe and visited the lone Baha’í on the campus of
> Purdue University. From there we returned home.
> 10. Northeastern USA vacations, mid 1960s
> The following year, 1964, was the year that Paul’s Key Club held an international
> convention in New York so we drove him and a friend there. We stopped to visit
> Baha’ís in Hamburg, New York State, but we did not stay. We went through the
> Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania on route and arrived in New York City over the
> George Washington Bridge. We dropped Paul and his friend off and we stayed with
> a young couple in Westbury, Long Island, whom we had met at the Durst’s early that
> year. While there, Joan and I visited the United Nations Building and also the New
> York World’s Fairs at Flushing Meadows where LaGuardia Airport is now located.
> After the Baha’í convention we picked the boys up at Grand Central Station and
> returned home via the Holland Tunnel. Driving in Manhattan was a traffic
> nightmare and we were glad to leave.
> The next year, 1965, we went on a trip with Geoff. We stopped off on the way and
> visited Larry in Cobourg (east of Toronto; we had visited Larry more than once
> while he was in the juvenile detention center and took him out on trips into town or
> out to Shelter Valley near Brighton). We camped overnight in Presqu’ile Provincial
> Park and the next day we went through Ivy Lea and crossed the Thousand Islands
> Bridge, stopping at the visitor center in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. We
> crossed New York State through Lake Placid to Fort Ticonderoga, which we toured.
> We crossed Lake Champlain into Vermont and went south to the American
> Revolution battle site at Bennington. From there we crossed New Hampshire and
> up the coast to Kittery in Maine. We went to the Greenacre Baha’í School, Maine; it
> was before the summer season began and we stayed there and in return Joan and I
> painted one of the bathrooms and Geoff painted the library. We visited the room
> where ‘Abdu’l-Baha stayed back in 1912 when he was in America.
> Leaving there we went south into Massachusetts, but we did not go into Boston,
> but instead we headed west through Lexington and Concord. I remember driving
> down the road between the two towns, with Geoff’s head out the window shouting
> “The British are coming!” In Concord we saw the bridge where the Colonists
> defeated the British army and the Minute Man statue.
> Concord was also the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), the American
> essayist.
> 
> 10. Northeastern USA vacations, mid 1960s                 53
> We came into New York State through some beautiful country and visited the
> battlefield at Saratoga where Benedict Arnold lost his leg and the British army
> coming down from Montreal was defeated. Then we went to Fort George at the foot
> of Lake Champlain, which has been restored. Then we visited Cooperstown and
> toured the Baseball Hall of Fame and where James Fennimore Cooper (1789–1851),
> after whose father the town was named, lived and wrote his famous novels. On our
> way home we passed the Howe Caverns and decided to stop and make a tour of the
> caves. From there we drove north to Geneva on Seneca Lake. From there we
> crossed into Canada at Niagara Falls and returned home.
> Next year we took Larry on a trip south. We first stopped at Perryville in Ohio,
> the most northerly point reached by the invading Confederate States Army. It was
> here that General Braxton Bragg was defeated by General Don Carlos Buell. We
> crossed the Ohio River at Cincinnati and spent a couple of days in Kentucky. We
> toured some of the horse farms around Lexington and saw the grave and the Man-
> O-War horse statue, who won the Kentucky Derby several times. We visited
> Frankfurt and saw the graves of Daniel Boone (1734–1820) and his wife, Rebecca
> Bryan Boone (1739–1813).
> Then we visited Boonesborough, Kentucky, a restored pioneer village and then
> the Cumberland Gap mountain pass where Boone crossed the Adirondacks into
> Kentucky. We could see four states from the lookout at the top of the pass. We then
> entered Tennessee and stopped at the Norris Dam on the Clinch River, one of the
> first big projects of the Tennessee Valley Authority. From there to the site of the
> Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, where the atomic bomb was first developed and
> Larry received a radioactive dime, and had his hair stand up on end.
> We stopped just outside Chattanooga, southeastern Tennessee, and the next day
> we visited a model display of the Chattanooga battle sites, which was quite realistic.
> We went up to the top of Lookout Mountain, site of the “Battle in the Clouds” and
> while up there toured the peak including Lovers Leap, which overlooks the city and
> the state of Georgia. We then made a quick tour of the battle site at Chickamauga,
> before finding a motel.
> The next day we followed the railway down through Dalton and Rexica where
> the great railway chase took place. We went to the site of the Battle of Kennesaw
> Mountain (1864) just outside Atlanta, which we bypassed, and went to Stone
> Mountain, Georgia, where a statue of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall
> Jackson were being carved. They had a miniature railway
> 54                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> which traveled around the mountain, a distance of about a mile, and it re-enacted
> the locomotive chase (1862) with Confederate soldiers attempting to board the train
> and set some railway cars on side lines on fire.
> We headed from there back to the Smokey Mountains and followed the Blue
> Ridge Parkway until we got into Virginia. We first went to the Monticello plantation
> at Charlottesville, the home of Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), whose image is on the
> American nickel.. Then we went to Appomattox Court House where the final
> surrender signing on April 9, 1865, of the American Civil War occurred between
> Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Then on to Richmond.
> We got a motel just south of Richmond where we stayed a couple of days. We
> toured the sites of the seven battles around Richmond from Mechanicsville to
> Frasers Farm. All of this area is set aside as a National Battlefield Site. The next day
> we toured the battlefields around Petersburg, a siege that lasted for months.
> While in the Richmond area we visited the James Peninsula where we went to
> Yorktown where the American Revolution ended and Williamsburg, a restored
> colonial town, as well as Jamestown, a recreation of the original English settlement.
> We then went north following the Virginia battles in reverse chronological order
> through Spotsylvania Court House and the Wilderness to Chancellorsville where
> Stonewall Jackson was killed. Then we went to Fredericksburg, a city largely
> dominated by civil war sites and where the Chamber of Commerce gave us a
> complimentary parking pass for the day.
> From Fredericksburg we went north to Manassas where the two battles of Bull
> Run were fought. We stayed at Centreville for two nights and one day we went into
> Washington, DC, where we visited the Lincoln Memorial, the White House and the
> United States Capital. We also crossed the Potomac River to the Arlington Cemetery
> where we saw President John Kennedy’s grave and the Iwo Jima Memorial.
> From there we went to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, where John Brown staged
> his famous raid on the arsenal there, one of the events leading up to the American
> Civil War. Then on to the site of the Battle of Antietam, 1862, the bloodiest
> battlefield of the civil war. Then up into Pennsylvania to Gettysburg where we
> followed the
> 10. Northeastern USA vacations, mid 1960s                   55
> course of the three-day battle, and where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous
> address, on November 19, 1863.
> On our way home we visited the grave of Major-General Edward Braddock
> (1695–1755), the English general who was ambushed by the French and Indians on
> his way to Fort Pitt. Then Fort Necessity, a British fort in the area of Fort Pitt, which
> was where George Washington (1732–1799) was stationed when he was still a
> lieutenant. Our last stop was at Sandusky, Ohio, where we were going to go to Putin-Bay, after which the naval battle of Lake Erie was named after the 1812 Battle of
> Lake Erie, but we did not go when we learned what it would cost.
> 11. Canadian Centennial to the late 1960s
> 1967 was a busy year. In the early part of the year there was a reunion of naval
> communications people who had attended the communications school at the HMCS
> St. Hyacinthe base during the war. I went along with Joan and stayed at a bed and
> breakfast in the town. During the ceremony I carried one of the flags but I did not
> meet anybody I knew. They took us on a tour of where the old barracks was or
> what was left of it. It is now part of a new development in the town, whereas during
> the war it was outside the town and we had to walk in when we had leave.
> The HMCS St. Hyacinthe base was only 25 miles from Montreal so we took
> advantage of the holiday to visit the 1967 International and Universal Exposition
> (Expo ’67), which had not been open very long. We parked in a large car lot on the
> outskirts and took the new subway into the grounds.
> In late August a Canadian Weekly Newspaper Convention was held in Ottawa so
> we packed up the wagon with Paul, Tim and Linda and went off to the nation’s
> capital and stayed at the Chateau Laurier Hotel. While there we had a tour of the
> Canadian Parliament Buildings where the two youngest had their picture taken with
> a Mountie, a luncheon at the Ontario Experimental Farm on the edge of the city, a
> sound and light show based on the Parliament buildings and a tour of the Royal
> Canadian Mint.
> One evening we were hosted at a dinner by the Government of Canada, attended
> by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson (1963–1968). Tim had a chance to shake hands
> with him. One afternoon we had tea at the Japanese Embassy. Another evening we
> were all entertained in a different way. I had dinner at the United Arab Emirates
> Embassy in Ottawa where I learned a lot about the new Aswan Dam in Egypt. Paul
> went to the South African Embassy where he got into an argument, and Joan was
> entertained at Government House by Mme. Pauline Vanier, wife of the Governor
> General, and the two youngest were given a private performance of the musical ride
> of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
> Following the Ottawa portion of the Convention, we all went to Montreal. We
> did not stay at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, part of which had been set aside for the
> press, but went back to the HMCS St. Hyacinthe base to the same B & B
> 
> 11. Canadian Centennial to the late 1960s               57
> we were in earlier in the year. We visited the ’67 Expo several times, including a
> champagne reception given by the City of Montreal and Mayor Jean Drapeau.
> We had press passes so we did not have to line up at the various pavilions but
> were able to go directly to the head of the queue, so we were able to see a lot more
> of the fair than we would have otherwise.
> When we returned home, Paul did not come with us. He decided to strike out on
> his own. He headed west and the first we heard from him was from Carman,
> Manitoba.
> Around 1961 we had bought a home on Argyle Street in Forest that included a
> barn and about 3 acres of land. Most of the land was rented as pasturage, but the
> first couple of years we decided to grow cucumbers commercially. They were
> pretty easy to grow but involved a lot of work gathering them for the pickle factory,
> and after a couple of years we abandoned it.
> Between 1967 and 1970 we hosted several weekend Baha’í seminars in our large
> back yard. Elizabeth Rochester came and hosted one, and Fred Graham another
> one. When there were a large number of Baha’í youth enrolled at Paris (47 miles
> ENE of London, Ontario), we hosted a youth weekend and large numbers came. We
> slept 18 of them in our house and others stayed at the Marsolais’, who lived on the
> street behind us.
> We also went to Paris for events and at one time we dropped the kids off and
> went to nearby African Lion Safari.
> When traveling groups came through, we often went with them. One group
> called themselves “Five Young Baha’ís” and we went with them once to Glencoe (30
> miles SE of Forest). Some fifteen years later, we ran into one of them in Conway on
> the north coast of Wales, UK.
> The next group to arrive was Jalal, a rock group that included Jack Lenz. They
> played several places in the area including Parkhill, Exeter and Forest. They would
> play a concert and dance and afterwards would hold an informal fireside for anyone
> who wished to stay.
> We made a number of contacts through these concerts and a few declarations.
> Young people in Exeter, Bayfield and St. Marys, where we went every week through
> one summer, and we had ten declarations. I have no idea what happened to these
> kids but there is now a Local Spiritual Assembly in St. Marys.
> 58                   Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> Some of these young people came to Forest a few times and some attended a big
> Naw-Ruz party (Persian New Year) we held at the St. John Fisher Separate School
> one year.
> 12. Introduction to Iceland,
> pioneering decision and two weddings
> In 1971 we received an unexpected gift of $1,000 from Uncle Lister and we used it
> to book and attend the Baha’í Oceanic Conference in Reykjavík, Iceland. In the
> meantime we went to the National Baha’í Convention in Halifax in April. We drove
> to the Maritime Peninsular in Maine where we picked up Mary Allen who was living
> in Old Town, 11 miles NE of Bangor, Maine. At the Baha’í Convention there was a
> small group of young people from Iceland who entertained and talked to us. The
> reason they were there was because it was the responsibility of Canada to form a
> Baha’í National Spiritual Assembly in Iceland in April 1972. On our way home we
> stopped off in Fredericton at the Eldridges and left Mary there where she found her
> own way home. We had acquired a hitchhiker at the Convention who was with us to
> Oshawa, Ontario, where he lived. He was a strict vegetarian and would eat hardly
> anything on the way home. From Fredericton we traveled down the Miramichi
> River to Bathurst and to the St. Lawrence at Mont Joli, Quebec.
> That summer we volunteered to spend two weeks as house parents for a group
> of Baha’í youth teachers in Rimouski, Quebec. Joan looked after the cottage while I
> drove the kids around to where they wanted to go, including the newspaper and the
> polytechnic where one night they put on a pageant performance in French on the
> unity of the Prophets. We made a lot of contacts but no immediate declarations. We
> took our three youngest with us, but Tim decided not to stay and hitchhiked home,
> which we did not know until we arrived there.
> In August we set out for Iceland. Mary Allen came to Forest and also Peter and
> Janet Khan (b. 1940) and we all went to Toronto together. We had a long time there
> waiting for the charter plane which was very late.
> Eventually we were all taken by bus to Niagara Falls, New York, and finally the
> plane took off and we were on our way. When we arrived at Reykjavík-Keflavík
> Airport, where some of the Icelandic Baha’ís had been waiting for some hours. One
> of the first people we met was Jim Willoughby who had stayed with us for about a
> month back in the early 1960s.
> 
> 60                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> We were assigned to various hotels in Reykjavík and we were billeted in the Eyja
> Guldsmeden Hotel, although many of the informal meetings were held at the Hotel
> Loftleiðir where we walked a couple of times. Most of the formal sessions were held
> in the Austurbæjarbío entertainment center. In the days leading up to the beginning
> of the Baha’í Convention proper we had a couple of tours. The first one was a three
> hour tour of the city. The second was an all day trip where we went by way of
> Hveragerði, and then to Hekla. We were treated to lunch at a community center at
> Selfoss. After lunch we went to Gullfoss and Geysir, and came home via Laugarvatn
> and Thingvellir.
> We met some of the adult Baha’ís, including Liesel Becker and Monika
> Benediktsdottir and Esla Guðmundsdottir. We had a talk with one of the members
> of the National Spiritual Assembly who had heard that we had liked what we had
> seen and suggested we consider pioneering to Iceland. We said we would think
> about it as we had to discuss it with our family. While we were there we presented
> each of the four Baha’í Local Spiritual Assemblies with a copy of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in
> Canada, which we had printed at the Free Press a few years earlier.
> When we got home we talked about pioneering to Iceland. They all agreed but
> the three oldest decided not to go. I had earlier sold the newspaper and was only
> doing job printing so I had to set about selling the business and the house. I also
> talked to our Local Spiritual Assembly and made some arrangements for our
> employees, all of whom were on the Assembly.
> A lot of work had to be done before we could leave. There was a lot of furniture
> to dispose of and some that we wished to keep. There were a couple of trunks to be
> packed and about 18 suitcases. I had to dispose of our issues of the Canadian Bahá’í
> News so I delivered them to the National Office in Toronto. Then I visited the
> Morowety’s and went to see Norman Bailey in “Die Walkure” that night as related
> earlier.
> We sold the house and the business, both of which took about six months. In the
> meantime we had two weddings to look after. In June I officiated, as chairman of
> our Local Spiritual Assembly, at the wedding of Geoff to Barb Forbes. The marriage
> occurred in our backyard on Argyle Street with several Baha’ís and others present.
> A month later we flew to Winnipeg where we were met by Paul who drove
> 12. Introduction to Iceland, pioneering decision and two weddings   61
> us to Minnedosa, Manitoba, where he was married to Debbie Bridge. The wedding
> occurred on the bandstand in the park at Minnedosa.
> 13. Pioneering to Iceland
> We set out for Iceland in August 1971. Larry drove the six of us to London where
> we had to catch the 7:30 am plane to Toronto. The previous day we had to go
> looking for Tim who had disappeared again. At Toronto we had a couple of hours
> before our flight to New York. At the last minute the American Customs wanted us
> to open our luggage, all eighteen suitcases.
> There was not time, so they agreed to send it direct to Icelandair. We arrived in
> New York’s Kennedy Airport around 1 pm and we found we had to wait to 8 pm for
> our flight. It was a horrible seven hours. The airport was dirty and the food
> expensive; there were very few places to sit and we had four kids to look after, two
> of them quite young. At 8 pm we found the Icelandair flight was overbooked and
> they had to lay on another aircraft, and as a result we had a lot of room on the plane.
> On the flight we ran into a fellow who was going to Iceland to attend the Fischer-
> Spassky chess championship match (August 1972).
> We arrived at Reykjavík-Keflavík Airport the next morning. There was no one to
> meet us there nor was there anyone at the Loftleidir Hotel (now the Icelandair Hotel
> Reykjavík Natura) after the bus ride from the airport. Fortunately, we did have a
> place to live as we had made arrangements before we left Canada to take over an
> apartment from a couple of Baha’í pioneers who were returning to Canada. The
> house was in Kopavogur (south of Reykjavík) and we had to hire two taxis to take
> us and our luggage to the address at 123 Alfholsvegur, one of the main roads in
> Kopavogur, about a mile or so from the town center. Kopavogur was more or less a
> bedroom community for Reykjavík and only about 20 minutes by bus from the
> capital. It stopped just outside our door.
> Over the next few days, we walked down to the centre of town and contacted
> some of the Baha’ís that we had met the year before, as well as two or three of the
> local Baha’í community who were all young Icelanders, but who all spoke some
> English.
> During those first six weeks or so many things happened. One night we were
> taken to a ski lodge outside Reykjavík where there was a Baha’í youth summer
> school and where Dr Ugo Giachery (1896–1989), Hand of the Cause of God, and his
> wife Angeline were speaking. We met Dr Ugo Giachery a few days later at the
> 
> 13. Pioneering to Iceland                        63
> National Office in Oðinsgata, Reykjavík. During the first couple of weeks, Tim took
> off and we did not hear from him for some time, when one night we got a phone call
> from Husavík where he had a job in construction.
> We also found there was a weekend Baha’í summer school in Isafjorður in the
> northwest and I decided to go. When I arrived I discovered that I was going to give
> a course on Islam. It seemed to be well received, although there were only about
> twenty people in attendance. Who should turn up at this school but Tim who had
> hitchhiked from Husavík.
> Another event was the purchase of a car. We bought a ten year old Volvo at what
> was a quite reasonable price. I think I had a flat tire the first time I drove into
> Reykjavík. I also wrote to the National Spiritual Assembly of Iceland with some
> suggestions for the Bahá’í News. I got a letter back in about a week appointing me
> to the Baha’í News Committee. It was called Tíðindi (“tidings, news”). I had good
> help from a girl in Kopavogur called Kristin who did all the translating and typing,
> while I arranged for the printing.
> We contacted Monika who put me in touch with some of the city printers. I went
> to several printing shops looking for a job and eventually got a job with the
> government printing office called Gutenberg Prentsmiðja (Gutenberg Printing
> Press). My job was printing on the small Heidelberg press printing machine that I
> was familiar with, printing giros, business cards, envelopes, letterheads, and so on,
> in short everything smaller than letter size. After a time I was assigned in addition
> to the larger rotary press, where we often printed ten giros at a time, which
> involved twenty numbering machines. I also got a chance to do some colour
> printing, which was mainly the paper dust jackets for books that we printed quite a
> number of each year, and Icelandic translations of popular English books such as
> Agatha Christie. My rotary machine also did all the perforating and die cutting that
> was required.
> While at Gutenberg Printing Press, they installed the first continuous form
> printing press in the country. That winter, in February 1972, during Thorrablot
> (Þorrablot), the festival in honour of the god Thor, the plant held a dance at the
> Hotel Reykjavík Saga, the smartest hotel in the city. We were the only foreigners at
> the dance, and only a few of the printers knew any English at all. Joan got her
> evening gown from the neighbours in the flat above ours, who made all her own
> clothes. These were the same neighbours who gave us a vacuum cleaner when we
> asked to borrow one.
> 64                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> One of the foremen at work, Sveinar, was instrumental in getting me into the
> Reykjavík City Band where I played for a year.
> In the meantime Carl and Linda started school. Linda’s class had courses in
> English and many of the kids wanted to practice their English with her and she did
> not pick up Icelandic quickly. On the other hand, Carl’s classes were in Icelandic so
> he learned the language much more quickly. On her part, Vicki did not want to go to
> high school here so she found a job in a metal furniture factory not far from where
> we were living. She took a lot of kidding as she was the only non-Icelander in the
> plant.
> Joan meanwhile was picking up the skills of shopping in places where no one
> spoke any English. She got some assistance from Monika who took her to the
> Hagkaup, a sort of general department store on the edge of Reykjavík. They sold
> furniture and clothing as well as groceries and some of their prices were better than
> the local store.
> We got to know the pioneers not only in Reykjavík but also in Hafnarfjorður
> (Hafnarfjarðarkaupstaður), and Keflavík as well. One worked on the fishing boats
> and brought fresh fish to us when he was in port. He even worked during the Cod
> Wars with Britain. One couple, who lived in Hafnarfjorður, were Roger and Patty
> Lutley, Americans. Patty and Joan became good friends and it was Patty who taught
> Joan how to collect the children’s allowance that had to be collected in person and it
> varied from month to month.
> We also became quite friendly with many of the Baha’í youth who came to our
> place quite often and brought their friends. One was Oli Haraldsson who was in his
> early twenties and was an active teacher as well as being bilingual. During the late
> summer, a group of young people had gone on a Baha’í teaching trip to western
> Iceland and had quite a number of declarations of young people in the towns of
> Borgarnes, Stykkisholmur and Hvammstangi. They formed a folk music group
> called Geysir. On their return from the tour they set off on the steamer MV Gullfoss,
> chaperoned by Don Van Brunt, another American pioneer, to teach in Denmark and
> Germany. Most were Canadian youth and they did not return to Iceland. Only Don
> and Gisli came back.
> Oli was anxious to do follow up on the new Baha’ís and I had the car. So the two
> of us made a number of trips to meet with these kids, most of whom knew no
> English. We went to Akranes first which is just across
> 13. Pioneering to Iceland                        65
> the bay from Reykjavík but takes about two hours by car. We went to Akranes
> several times. On one occasion we stayed in a hotel there in a room with no lights or
> lock on the door, but were okay. Another time we returned to Reykjavík on the ferry
> that carried about six cars as well as passengers. You did not drive onto the ferry
> but were hoisted on board by a crane—a little nerve-racking the first time.
> Another trip was to Borgarnes. We went to meet the Baha’í kids there a couple
> of times and on one occasion took Vicki and Erna Stefansdottir, a Baha’í about
> Vicki’s age who lived in Kopavogur. Another time in Borgarnes, Oli and I had to
> sleep on the cement floor in a school where there was a rock band playing up in the
> auditorium.
> The other place we went was to Stykkisholmur on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula.
> We stayed in the hotel there and met with some of the new Baha’ís. We were not
> able to follow up with this community.
> After we got the car, we made a lot of trips in the area. One of the first was to
> Thingvellir (Þingvellir) where we had been with the Baha’í Conference tour. We
> were able to spend a little more time and we could enjoy the trip more now that we
> knew where we were. We also drove to Reykjanes Peninsular (Reykjanesskagi)
> where there is a lighthouse. What impressed us was the black lava with steam
> coming out of the ground everywhere—it looked like a scene from Dante’s Inferno.
> We returned to Reykjavík via Grindavik on the south coast, then on to Krysuvík and
> the hot springs. Along the coast road we ran into several hundred yards of mud
> where the water had crossed the road but the Volvo handled it okay. Then past
> Kleifarvatn Lake, supposedly a very deep lake and back home through
> Hafnarfjorður. On some of these trips one or other of the kids would come with us
> depending on what their plans were.
> The first Christmas (1972) we were there, Larry Clark, who worked at the NATO
> base, invited several of the pioneers to dinner at their home in Keflavík. When
> inquiring where he got the turkey, he just said “Don’t ask”. Turkeys were very
> scarce in Iceland. There was one in a shop in Hafnarfjorður which I do not think
> they ever sold a turkey—they were so expensive. In fact, this is one thing very
> noticeable in Iceland—most things are very expensive. One of the reasons we were
> able to save money there was because we hardly ever spent money on clothes,
> eating out, or most imported food. There was, for example, what they called a
> pioneer box, a box of clothing that went the rounds among the pioneers. We would
> take from it
> 66                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> what we could use and put some things in that we had no further use for and pass it
> on. We also bought the odd thing at the Salvation Army which the natives rarely
> patronized.
> Early in January 1972, Ragnar, our upstairs neighbor, came down to tell us that
> there was a big volcanic eruption on Vestmannaeyar (“Western”), an island just off
> the south coast where Vicki now lives. He invited us upstairs to watch it on
> television, and we found they were evacuating the island. The two or three
> thousand inhabitants were airlifted to Reykjavík with the aid of the US Navy
> helicopters at the NATO base. With the influx of so many, the prices of everything
> shot up overnight.
> Later that spring we drove down the south coast to Vík í Myrdal and we could
> see the volcano still erupting across the water. When the lava eventually stopped
> flowing, a number of men went over to clear the ash from those houses that could
> be saved.
> We found out early in the summer that we would have to move. We did not
> know what to do until one of the fellows at work steered us on to a relative of his
> who had half a house to rent in Asbuðartroð, Hafnarfjorður. We rented the place
> and stayed there a little over a year. It was there that later in the year we
> experienced our first earthquake. Joan was in the kitchen and I had gone to bed.
> She noticed the dishes rattling in the cupboards and I looked up and saw the
> chandelier waving back and forth and heard a loud rumbling like the sound of a
> subway if you are right over it. We found out later that it was centered near
> Grindavík and registered about 6.5 on the Richter scale. There was no structural
> damage as the Icelanders are accustomed to frequent earthquakes and their
> buildings are built accordingly.
> In April 1972 there was a Baha’í National Convention. Both Joan and I were
> elected delegates from Kopavogur. There were nineteen delegates elected from the
> four Local Spiritual Assemblies, which assured just about every active adult became
> a delegate. At the election I was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of
> Iceland and shortly afterwards was elected Vice Chairman. During the following
> summer, the Chairman, Svava Einarsdottir, was appointed an Auxiliary Board
> member and I assumed the chairmanship for the remainder of the year, a post I
> retained until we left Iceland.
> The first summer we took our first major trip. We had been invited to stay with
> Forbes Campbell who was pioneering in Akureyri so
> 13. Pioneering to Iceland                        67
> we set out in the Volvo—Joan, Carl, Linda, Tim and myself. The trip took us to places
> we had not seen before. Vicki had decided to spend her holiday with Gully so she
> was not with us. We made our headquarters at Forbes’ place and made several side
> trips. One was up the west side of Eyjafjorður Fjord, to the village of Dalvík, the
> town of Olafsvík and Siglufjorður, a town that was entered via a tunnel. The road
> around the fjords was a dirt road with no barrier and in many places it ran along the
> edge of a cliff—pretty scary. On the way back we stopped at one of the shelters that
> were built for stranded people. Three cabins contained some canned food, blankets
> and wood for a fire. The kids had a snowball fight—in July!
> Another side trip was to Lake Myvatn in the north and then over a desert to
> Dettifos, the largest waterfall in Europe. We returned home around the peninsula
> through Husavík where Tim showed us where he stayed when he worked there.
> The Lake Myvatn area has many strange rock formations and is a volcanic area. Just
> outside this area is a large sulphur mining operation.
> During our four years in Iceland we had several distinguished Baha’í visitors.
> Among them, aside from Dr Ugo Giachery mentioned above, we had a visit from
> Hand of the Cause of God, Adelbert Muhlschlegel (1897–1980) and his wife (the
> second, Ursula Kohler) who came to our place for a dinner and whom I drove
> around the area. He loved touring and followed everywhere we went with a map. I
> also accompanied them to Akureyri for a visit. There was Hand of the Cause of God,
> Dr Rahmatu’llah Muhajir (1923–1979) who had pioneered in South-East Asia.
> William Sears, another Hand of the Cause of God, came by private plane, belonging
> to one of the Canadian Baha’ís. I took him to the largest newspaper, Morgunblaðið,
> for an interview. He was the first to visit our Baha’í temple site just outside
> Kopavogur that was acquired the year we arrived in Iceland.
> Also visiting were Betty Reed, a Baha’í Counsellor from Great Britain, who came
> regularly, and Baha’í Counsellor Amelisse Bopp (1921–2012) from Germany, who was
> helpful in organizing our secretariat over a period of several days.
> Among those from Canada who came was Evelyn Raynor, whose husband Allan
> was on the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada.
> 14. Conferences and travel
> As Chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly of Iceland, I had to visit the
> Faroe Islands a couple of times to try to arrange the establishment of a Hegira.
> There was one Local Spiritual Assembly there consisting entirely of pioneers from
> Great Britain, Iceland, Norway and Eskil Englebert Joachim Ljungberg (1886–1985)
> from Sweden who was a Knight of Baha’u’llah in the Faroe Islands (1953–1985). One
> trip was in the winter, and the trip from the airport to Thorshavn (Torshavn), which
> was on a different island, was pretty scary over the mountains with slippery roads
> and no side barriers. Another trip I went with a couple of young Baha’ís and we
> went to Vestmannaeyjabær, a town on the way to the airport, where I gave a talk to
> a hall full of people and which was translated by Svanur Thorklsson. The Baha’í
> youth arranged entertainment for the children of the community during the
> afternoon and I gained the impression they were very appreciative.
> The third time was to a Baha’í North Atlantic Conference, which was arranged by
> us and was attended by Baha’ís from Iceland, Britain, Norway and Denmark. We all
> slept in the school building where the conference was held. Other times I visited I
> stayed with one of the British pioneer couples. At this conference Joan came with
> me as well as Asgeir. This was before he and Vicki were married. It was from this
> conference that I went on my month long teaching trip.
> Each time we went to the Faroes Islands we had to stay a week because there
> was only a weekly flight to Iceland. On the winter trip the flight was held up one
> day because of weather and they put us up in a Faroese farmhouse overnight. I was
> the only person who spoke English and I did not understand either Icelandic or
> Faroese, but it was interesting.
> While living at Asbuðartroð, Hafnarfjorður, our house was just below that of Max
> and Mona Bossi, Baha’ís who had returned from Akureyri. Max worked at
> Straumsvík, an aluminium plant just west of Hafnarfjorður. During the winter he
> would have to take the car battery into the house to keep it warm, but it did not
> seem to make any difference. Each morning we would see him pushing the car to
> the edge of a small hill on the road and jump into it as it got moving.
> 
> 14. Conferences and travel                         69
> Vicki continued to work at the furniture factory while the two youngest started
> in new schools. Linda attended the big black high school on top of the hill while Carl
> continued in a new elementary school.
> The first Naw-Ruz we were there, the celebration was held in a hall in
> Hafnarfjorður. Among the entertainers were Tim and Gisli who had teamed up after
> Gisli returned from Denmark. Gisli lived in Gardarkreppur, now Garðabær, the
> township between Hafnarfjorður and Kopavogur and where the Icelandic
> President’s home was. We drove out there one time after the road was paved on the
> occasion of President Richard Nixon’s visit.
> Geoff and Barbara came over from Canada at this time and stayed with us. We
> tried to take them out to Thingvellir (Þingvellir) but could not make it as the road
> was blocked with snow. The interior of Iceland has spring later than the coastal
> areas; in fact they do not have a spring, summer starts April 21st and winter October
> 21st. These are the dates that you have to change your tires on the car from winter
> to summer and vice versa.
> One Mother’s Day, second Sunday in May 1973, we decided to drive up to
> Gullfoss. We went to Thingvellir (Þingvellir) and tried to take the road via
> Laugarvatn but it was snow-blocked. We had to backtrack and take the other route
> via Geysir. There was still much snow around but the roads were passable. When
> we arrived at Gullfoss we were the only ones there.
> That autumn of 1973 there was a National Spiritual Assembly Conference to be
> held in Langenhain, Germany and we were asked to send two representatives. Erla
> Guðmundsdottir and myself were chosen. Meanwhile, Mona Bossi wrote to her
> sister in Hamburg and made arrangements for me to stay with her family for a few
> days. I flew to Hamburg via London and was met at the Lufthansa office. They were
> a Persian family and one was an Afnan, a descendent of one of the Bab’s uncles.
> During the days there, I was on my own and I explored the city. It was quite easy
> as they have a very good subway system. I visited all the sites including the
> waterfront of the River Elbe (one of the busiest ports in Europe), the Alster River,
> the Inner and Outer Alster Lakes in the city center, the Hamburg City Hall
> (Hamburger Rathaus, one of the few historic buildings that was spared during
> World War 2).
> On leaving Hamburg, I flew to Stuttgart where I was met by the Slikers, American
> Baha’í pioneers who had visited Iceland during the summer.
> 70                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> They lived in Esslingen, an historic town not far from Stuttgart. They were
> caretakers at the Baha’í House there, one of the places ‘Abdu’l-Baha visited in
> Germany. We took one trip to Ulm, a city in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg and on
> the border of Bavaria. Ulm Minster has the tallest church spire in the world (161 m).
> We met one of the Baha’í Auxiliary Board Members Ulm who agreed to drive me the
> 300 km to Langenhain the following day. On our way we stopped in Heidelberg
> where we toured Heidelberg Castle and drove by the printing press factory.
> I was billeted in a bed and breakfast in one of the neighboring villages along with
> Charles McDonald and John Long from England, and we were bussed to Langenhain
> each day and back again. The meetings were held in the Baha’í National Office of
> Germany which is adjacent to the German Baha’í House of Worship. There were
> representatives of all the Baha’í National Assemblies in Europe, together with the
> Baha’í Counsellors and many of the Auxiliary Board Members. Erla flew into
> Frankfurt from Iceland via Luxemburg so we did not travel together.
> While there we ran into Kristin and her husband Gisbret who lived in Baden but
> came to the center for one of the public meetings. We also had a Baha’í worship
> service in the Baha’í Temple. I remember meeting one Board member, Maija
> Pihlainen, from Finland who later moved to England with her husband for a few
> years, although I never had a chance to see her again.
> The meetings were divided into three groups, one each in English, German and
> French. The French group was led by Counsellor Annelisse Bopp (1921–2012) who
> was the only multi-linguist. Our group was led by Betty Reed.
> Following the Baha’í conference I took the train into Frankfurt and from there I a
> plane to Copenhagen where I would transfer to Icelandair.
> Unfortunately my plane was held up by bad weather (this was first week of
> November) and I missed my connection. As a result they had to put me up until the
> next day, including hotel room and meals and a phone call back to Joan in Iceland.
> During the day I did some sight-seeing around Copenhagen, including the Tivoli
> Gardens which, however, was closed owing to the lateness of the season. In the
> evening I travelled north to visit the Baha’í House in Hallerup, the caretakers of
> which I had previously met in Iceland. The next day I returned to Iceland.
> The Baha’í teaching trip that I undertook following the Faroes Baha’í Conference
> was a wonderful experience. I had to pay for my own traveling
> 14. Conferences and travel                          71
> expenses but my accommodation was provided by the Baha’ís wherever I went. My
> first stop was Bergen, Norway, where I stayed with the Auxiliary Board Member for
> three days. I gave talks every evening but my days were free. While in Bergen I had
> a trip in the cable car up to the top of the mountain where one can see for miles with
> a good view of the city. I also was taken on a trip south to Troldhaugen, the home of
> Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843–1907). We were in his house and saw the piano he
> worked on and also a workshop down a hill where he liked to meditate and there
> were the tombs of him and his wife in the side of the hill. Bergen has a really old
> section dating from the time of the Hanseatic League.
> I traveled from Bergen to Oslo over the mountains by train, an eight hour
> journey and was met at the station. I also spent three days there and visited the
> Maritime Museum that had Thor Heyardahl’s Kon-Tiki raft as well as an authentic
> Viking ship. I also saw the City Hall with its murals of the Nazi occupation and a
> tribute to Sonja Henie (1912–1969). In the Radhusplassen, the main square, was the
> National Theatre where the plays of Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828-1906) were first
> performed. I also visited the town of As, 17 miles south of Oslo, where a Baha’í
> couple lived.
> From Oslo I flew to Stockholm where I was immediately placed on a train for
> Karlstad where I stayed with friends. The next day I went to Gothenburg where the
> main Volvo heavy-duty truck manufacturing plant is located. I returned to
> Stockholm where my hostess took me to one of the newspapers where I had an
> interview.
> Stockholm has a huge underground shopping mall under the main squares. The
> city is built on islands and I had a chance to visit the old city where the Royal Palace
> is situated. One evening I gave a talk at Uppsala University where one of the Persian
> Baha’ís teaches. I stayed in the Stockholm municipality of Solna, which is noted for
> their printing presses.
> I took a plane from Stockholm to Helsinki. I was supposed to take a bus from
> there but the plane was late and the man that met me drove at great speed to catch
> up with the bus which had already left the capital. We eventually reached it at Lahti
> and away I went. We had a lunch break at Mikkeli which is largely a Gypsy town. I
> met no one who spoke English, and I am totally unfamiliar with Finnish. I
> eventually arrived at Savonlinna. At my first destination, a town quite close to the
> Russian border, I was met by my host, Helmut Grossman (1933–2017; later he was a
> Baha’í Counsellor at Haifa, Israel). During the day we had an interview at the local
> newspaper and visited the castle there. Savonlinna is well known for its music
> festival in the summer.
> 72                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> From there I got a car ride to Kuopio. The topography here is a lot like Northern
> Ontario with lumber and paper mills the main industry. The friends there booked a
> berth on the night train to Helsinki where I arrived early the next morning. The
> berths in the bedrooms on the train are three-tiered and I was on the top. The other
> two occupants did not speak English so I slept most of the night.
> When I got back to Helsinki I found I was billeted with a Gypsy Baha’í who
> treated me to a real Finnish sauna while I was there. It was a fairly large family and
> I was well taken care of.
> I flew from Helsinki to London on Finnair. When I arrived at Heathrow it was
> the first time I had to show my passport since leaving Iceland as the Scandanavian
> countries had a common market with free access between countries. I spoke at four
> Baha’í centers in the United Kingdom. The first stop was at Henley where I stayed
> with the Hardys. At that time Mary Hardy was on the National Spiritual Assembly of
> the UK. My next stop was Kidderminster, a carpet manufacturing city in the
> Midlands. From there I went to Carlisle on the Scottish border where I stayed with
> a family outside the city on the Solway Firth. On the way I stopped off in
> Manchester where I spoke at the Baha’í Centre and was introduced by Will C. van
> den Hoonaard whom I had previously met in Iceland. I stayed overnight with Joan’s
> mom in Stockport. My last stop was Glasgow which was the only disappointing
> place on the itinerary. They had mixed up the dates and there was no meeting. The
> next day I flew back to Iceland from Glasgow airport.
> Some other trips we took while we lived in Iceland included two that Joan took
> to visit her parents in England. Each time she took one of the girls with her.
> One trip we took was up to the head of Hvalfjorður (“Whale Fjord”) and then
> over the hills to Borgarfjorður. We went up the road as far as Reykholt, a village
> with a residential school which, like other residential schools, is used as a hotel in
> the summer. It was at Reykholt where Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) lived while
> writing (or recording) the Norse sagas and the Prose Edda, which are Iceland’s
> oldest literature. We returned via Borgarnes and Akranes.
> Another time we went up to Stykkisholmur, the area where Eric the Red (Erik
> Thorvaldsson, c. 950–c. 1003) lived and we could see where his homestead was
> before he was banished and where Lief Ericsson (Leif the Lucky, c. 970s–c. 1018 to
> 1025) was born. We toured the whole of the Snaefellsnes peninsula, including
> driving around Snæfellsjokull, the extinct
> 14. Conferences and travel                         73
> volcano, which can be seen from Reykjavík on a clear day and which Jules Verne
> (1828–1905) chose to begin his Journey to the Center of the Earth. Some of the more
> spectacular sights were the large bauxite columns and the weird rock formations
> caused when hot lava hits the ocean.
> One time when the Baha’í Richard Hainsworth was visiting from England, we
> took a drive up Borgarfjorður and the Kaldidalur (“Cold Valley”) Mountain Road
> between the Þorisjokull and Ok (or Okjokull) glaciers. This road is not open all the
> time so we were lucky to be able to drive it. The north end of the road is marked as
> a fordable river bed; it turned out to have had a small bridge built over it since the
> map was made. We came out at Husafell, a place where Icelanders sometimes come
> for camping and where there are quite a number of trees, albeit small ones.
> Toward the end of our time in Iceland, we decided to take a trip to Skaftafell.
> This trip was impossible for cars until 1974 when a series of bridges were built over
> the glacial runoff rivers covering a distance of about 25 miles. We reached Vik (or
> Vík í Myrdal) without incident and as we approached Myrdalssandur we saw great
> clouds ahead of us. A car approaching us told us it was a sandstorm that could
> remove the paint off a car if we decided to proceed. We turned around and got a
> hotel room in Vik for the night. The next day we set out again and after crossing the
> sands reached Kirkjubæjarklaustur. Then we crossed the bridges. They were single
> lane with passing places every kilometer or so and were built of wood. We reached
> Skaftafell, but nothing was open there so after a time we turned around and
> returned to Hafnarfjorður.
> One spring we took Blain and Doreen McCutcheon and Carl up to Borgarfjorður
> and up the valley until we came to a sign saying road closed. We did not know what
> to do since we had purchased half a salmon when we crossed Borgarfjorður on the
> way. We were sitting there when we saw a farmer coming down his lane whom we
> stopped and asked why the road through was closed. He said he did not know but a
> small Volkswagen had gone through earlier and had not come back so we decided to
> chance it. A little way on we found out why. Runoff streams had cut the road in
> several places. What we did was to stop, gather rocks and made a possible bridge
> over the breaks and drove very slowly and eventually got through. When we
> reached the Kaldadalsvegur turn we headed south and finally arrived at Thingvellir
> (Þingvellir). It was really beautiful in behind the hills.
> 74                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> One winter there was a Baha’í school held at one of the union holiday cottages in
> Borgarfjorður during the Christmas break. I was to give a course so both Joan and I
> went, and Joan worked in the kitchen with Monika. These camps are separate
> cottages that are fully furnished—even to having books and magazines, and can
> sleep four to six per unit. They are centrally heated and quite comfortable. Classes
> and most meals were held in a large central building and we had to draw our linen
> from a central place. This was at the time of year when there is no daylight and
> there was snow on the ground and it was quite windy.
> After the Baha’í school ended, I had to leave early to get back to work, so one of
> the Baha’ís who was returning by car gave me a ride. Instead of driving all the way
> around Hvalfjorður we took the ferry from Akranes.
> It was pretty scary in the winter, with the snow blowing in a high wind and in
> the dark. The main bus took the long way around and when they stopped at
> Botnsskali the people could hardly get back on the bus, the wind was so strong and
> the road so slippery.
> During our last summer in Iceland, 1975, some of us decided to climb Mount Esja,
> across the bay from Reykjavík. We set out about 3 pm in the afternoon and arrived
> at the foot around 4 pm. We took the long way up from the back of the mountain
> and finally reached the summit about 9 pm. We took the short way down ,which
> only took a couple of hours, while John Spencer went on ahead to go around to the
> other side for the car. We arrived home about 1 am in the morning. Beside John and
> myself, there was Blain and Doreen, Doreen’s mother and Renata.
> 15. Adventures exploring Iceland
> After working for a year at Gutenberg Printing Press, I was offered a better
> paying job at Leturprent Prentsmiðja (Letterpress Printing workshop), down the
> road. It was a smaller shop and was both letterpress and offset. The typesetting
> was sent out. We did most of the Post Office printing, other than stamps, and a lot of
> chocolate bar wrappers in full colour. We could work Saturdays if we wished if
> there was work to be done, but it was not mandatory. It was while working there
> that the printers had one of their periodic strikes and we were out for three weeks.
> While there, Joan and I and the two youngest were invited on a weekend
> camping outing by the management of Gutenberg Printing Press, where I no longer
> worked. We took a safari bus to Thorsmork mountain ridge behind Myrdalsjokull
> Glacier and one of the lushest places in Iceland. Ordinary cars cannot get there
> because several glacial rivers had not been bridged, if fact cannot be because they
> are constantly changing course, so it was a real treat.
> We pitched our tents and settled down. We then went for a walk over the hills to
> another campsite, and it was on this walk we thought we lost Carl. He went on
> ahead and thought he would take a short cut that did not work. It was also on this
> trip that he got his finger caught in the bus door when it shut, and after some first
> aid, had to wait till we got back to Reykjavík to have it seen to properly. On our way
> back we stopped to examine some lava caves that were quite a long walk from
> where the bus had to park. We did a lot of walking that weekend.
> On another occasion we drove down to Vik and explored all around that area
> going into some back roads and also down to Dyrholaey promontory to see some
> strange rock formations. Also went once in behind Hafnarfjorður and took a track
> off the main road to Djupavatn (Deep Lake) where there were a couple of cottages.
> A couple of times we went into the interior behind Hafnarfjorður five or six km
> to Helgafell, a rocky volcanic hill about 500 metres high. We tried to climb it but
> could not find the way. The last time we made
> 
> 76                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> it while Carl, Vicki and Asgeir went up a different way and beat us to the top.
> It was while we were living at Hjallabraut that several Americans from the NATO
> base became Baha’ís and they often came to our place where occasionally we held a
> party. They were all members of a helicopter crew. There were a couple of
> Americans living downstairs and we once invited them for dinner. Also the
> daughter of the Commanding Officer became a Baha’í and she eventually married
> Svanur Thorkelsson, although they are now divorced. We also had our second
> earthquake there while Joan was shopping with the lady downstairs and the lights
> went out in the market and startled her friend.
> On one occasion, in late September 1973, while driving along the south coast, we
> saw a sign pointing to Solheimajokull (a glacier), 5 km away down a track to the
> north. We thought it a good opportunity to see a glacier close up so down we went.
> The road was terrible and in some places the road was under water and Carl, who
> wore his Wellingtons, walked ahead of the car testing its depth. We finally reached
> the end of the road where there was a muddy turnaround. The glacier was covered
> with volcanic dust from Vestmannaeyjar (Western Islands) and was not beautiful.
> We could not help thinking that if we were stuck or the car broke down, then we
> could be there till spring—we were the only ones on the road. However, all’s well
> that ends well, and we got home safely.
> We went to Vik several times as we were fascinated with the black sand and the
> rugged coastline.
> After we left Iceland, we returned for a month in 1980. We stayed most of the
> time in Hveragerði with Vicki and Asgeir. One day they took us for a drive up the
> Hvíta River valley past Gullfoss Falls to a new moving glacier from Langjokull (the
> “Long Glacier”). While there we went into Reykjavík and visited with Geoff.
> Geoff had arranged a Baha’í travel teaching trip to three places. The first was to
> Isafjorður where I stayed with Inga Daw and met with the Local Spiritual Assembly
> there, which included Erna and Dagny, whom I had known before. From there I
> went to Akureyri. This was an interesting trip, since the plane was a ten seater, five
> on each side of the center aisle and the pilot collected the tickets like on a bus. The
> plane followed the road pretty well and the pilot had a road map. The plane
> window by my seat was broken.
> 15. Adventures exploring Iceland                     77
> At Akureyri I stayed at the hospital where a couple of the Baha’ís were nurses. I
> met with some of the members of the Local Spiritual Assembly because many were
> unable to attend. The next day they put me on a local plane to Egilsstaðir and we
> flew over the new eruption at Katla, which I could plainly see and which I had
> visited by road four years earlier with the Reykjavík Symphony.
> At Egilsstaðir we had to take a bus the rest of the trip to Neskaupstaður, which
> took over two hours traveling around the fjords and over the mountains. The bus
> took us through Seyðisfjorður and Eskifjorður.
> I stayed two days at Neskaupstaður. One night there was a disco dance with
> Geoff who was the disc jockey. He had gone there directly from Reykjavík.
> Neskaupstaður was the place on the east coast that had recently had an avalanche
> which wiped out several buildings including the fish processing plant.
> While in Reykjavík one night we had dinner with Roger and Patty Lutley who
> lived in Hafnarfjorður and who had been there when we lived there.
> 16. New beginnings and adventures
> Towards the end of 1975 I lost my job at Leturprent Prentsmiðja—there was a
> recession and the foreigners were first to leave. For the next few months we were
> supported by the Baha’í Pioneer Committee, and Vicki, who was still working,
> helped out. In the spring I learned about an opening at the British Publishing Trust
> as assistant manager. Therefore in May I was invited to the UK to an interview with
> the National Spiritual Assembly of the UK and a chance to look over the operation of
> the Publishing Trust. This went well. I had a medical and was able to stay at the
> National Baha’í Centre in Rutland Gate and I traveled to Oakham in Leicestershire to
> see the office as well as the old warehouse in Ryhall and the new one in Kelton.
> While in Oakham, John Long, manager of the Baha’í Publishing Trust, took me on
> a tour of the area, including the area around Empingham and Edith Weston, which
> when we finally moved was under water as the Empingham Reservoir.
> Unfortunately, when it was time to return to Iceland, I learned Icelandair was on
> strike and there were no flights available. For the next two weeks I was allowed to
> stay at the centre but then the National Spiritual Assembly had to meet and they
> needed the space, they arranged for me to stay with Baha’í friends in Berkhamsted,
> just northwest of London.
> During this time I was very short of money so I went to all the places I could see
> for free. I was within walking distance of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the
> Natural History Museum and the Geological Museum. I also went to the National Art
> Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Wallace Collection and I visited the
> British Museum.
> Finally I was able to return to Iceland and we began to make preparations to
> move to England. We arranged to send our books and other valuables via air freight
> through Loftleiðir1 Icelandic. This did not cost anything as John Spencer worked
> there and was able to send it through on his allowance. The furniture that we
> wanted we sent by sea to Oakham via Felixstowe. In the meantime I undertook the
> tour of the Reykjavík Symphony to the north of Iceland.
> 
> 1   Loftleiðir is Icelandic for “air+way”.
> 16. New beginnings and adventures                    79
> We went to Britain in early summer to arrive in one of the hottest summers they
> had had for years. Linda and Carl came with us; Vicki decided to stay in Iceland as
> she was contemplating marriage and Tim also decided to remain and would follow
> us later.
> In the meantime Geoff and Barb had moved to Iceland with their infant son and
> lived with us for a while. Barb did not like the winter and decided to return to
> Canada, leaving Geoff behind, who shortly found a new girlfriend. Barb and Geoff
> were divorced shortly after. So Geoff was also left in Iceland.
> When we arrived in London we decided to spend a few days there and show the
> kids the city. We took a room in Earls Court and did some sightseeing including a
> tour on one of the double decker buses. We also took them to a play “Arsenic and
> Old Lace” at the Westminster Theatre.
> On the last day I went to the National Baha’í Office and arranged to move to
> Oakham. We went on the train and were met by John Long who had arranged
> accommodation for us on Mount Pleasant, next door to the office of the Baha’í
> Publishing Trust, which had two employees and where I was to work. We made
> arrangements to rent a television and we had to buy a car. I made arrangements to
> get an Escort station wagon.
> Prior to leaving Iceland we had made arrangements through the National
> Spiritual Assembly of the UK to attend the Baha’í International Conference in Paris
> in August. Therefore Vicki and Asgeir came from Iceland to Oakham and we all
> drove together to London. I had made arrangements to park the car with Moqbels
> in Harrow and took the underground down to the Baha’í National Office where we
> were to travel in a group to Paris by bus.
> We went first to Dover where we boarded the ferry to Calais. We arrived in
> Paris in early evening and were taken to the Hotel Spot which was our home for a
> week. The conference was held in the Le Meridien Etoile on the other side of Paris,
> which we had to travel to by Metro. We were met in Paris by Blain and Doreen
> McCutcheon who had driven from Iran. He had taken a job there the previous year
> with the United Nations. Their motor trip from Teheran was quite an experience.
> We arrived in Paris on Sunday and the Baha’í Conference did not begin till
> Wednesday so we had two days to ourselves. We went to the Eiffel
> 80                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> Tower, naturally, and went partway up, and the Jardins du Trocadero across the
> river. We went to the Place de la Concorde where the Bastille once stood and spent
> several hours in the Louvre Museum where we saw the Mona Lisa painting, the
> Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace sculptures, among other items.
> Then we walked the full length of the Tuileries Garden to the Arc de Triomphe de
> l'Etoile (Arc de Triomphe).
> During the Baha’í Conference they laid on a boat trip on the Seine at night. We
> went up the river from the docks near the Eiffel Tower, around the Ile de la Cite
> with the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It took about an hour and a half.
> The last day of the Baha’í Conference Joan had her purse stolen while sitting in
> the lobby of the Le Meridien Etoile. We lost nearly everything including travelers
> cheques, cash (quite a bit because Joan did not want to leave it at the house in
> Oakham) and the passports except for my own that I had carried in my jacket
> pocket. I had to go to the nearest police station that was open late at night, which
> was in Montmartre, to report the theft and I took a couple of the Baha’í youth who
> could speak French. They had to issue us a temporary paper that allowed us to reenter Britain.
> We left Paris in the morning for the return journey home, which went without
> incident as Philip Hainsworth (1919–2001), the National Spiritual Assembly
> secretary, loaned us $10 to tide us over. While at the Baha’í Conference I was able to
> renew several acquaintances I had met in Scandinavia as well as those I had met at
> Langenhain earlier.
> 17. Oakham UK and side trips
> We stayed in Oakham for two years. After a year my job was terminated, which
> resulted in my writing a letter of complaint to the Universal House of Justice in
> Haifa, Israel. The result was that the National Spiritual Assembly of the UK was
> required to move us wherever we wanted to go. Before my job ended we had
> moved from Mt. Pleasant to a house on Noel Ave, mainly because of Linda’s health
> which had suffered because of the dampness in the old house.
> After returning from Paris, John Long went on a three week Baha’í teaching trip
> to Sweden and Finland and I was left in charge. On one weekend we received an
> order from Lowestoph in Suffolk and we decided to deliver the books and see a bit
> of East Anglia, and then went by way of Ely and Thetford Forest.
> We did a lot of traveling around that first year. We went to Skegness, a summer
> resort in Lincolnshire, by way of Spalding, Boston where the famous “Boston
> Stump” is St Botolph's Church, and Tattershall. Tattershall Castle is a magnificent
> 15th-century red brick castle with octagonal turrets at the corners of the square
> structure.. We went to Grantham, where Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) was born
> and where Isaac Newton (1643–1727) went to school, and to Woolsthorpe Manor in
> nearby Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth where Isaac Newton lived and watched the
> apple drop from the tree.
> Among other trips was to Sherwood Forest, north of Nottingham, where the
> Charter Oak was where Robin Hood was supposed to have hidden and the church at
> Edwinstowe where he was supposedly married.
> We went to Lord Byron’s home at Newstead Abbey near Mansfield. While in
> Nottingham, we went to the castle and the old inn below that we had visited thirty
> years earlier when we were first married.
> On some of these trips we took visitors from Iceland who turned up including
> Vicki and Asgeir with Gully, Baldur Bragason and his wife, and Barbara and Svana
> dropped in once.
> Occasionally we went into Leicester to Bailey’s Nightclub where we saw such
> music artists as Acker Bilk (1929–2014); Dana Rosemary Scallon (b. 1951), known
> professionally as Dana; and the Brotherhood of Man. Other places in the area were
> Melton Mowbray, famous for Porkpies, Stanford, one of the oldest towns in England
> dating from the Danish days, and Peterborough. South of Peterborough was Stilton
> of cheese fame, and Fotheringhay Castle
> 
> 82                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned, tried and executes. We also visited
> battlefields at Naseby and Bosworth where the War of the Roses (1455–1487)
> resulted in the death of King Richard III (r. 1483–1485), and ended with the death of
> John de la Pole, the 1st Earl of Lincoln.
> One of the conditions of my employment was that I would be secretary of the
> National Baha’í Teaching Committee. As it turned out, Ann Moqbel was secretary so
> the duties became divided and I became recording secretary and Ann remained as
> corresponding secretary. This meant traveling to London once a month for
> meetings. The first few times I drove and parked the car in Hyde Park, but then I
> found it was easier for me to drive to Kettering and take the train to King’s Cross
> where I could get an underground direct to Knightsbridge Station and then a short
> walk to the National Baha’í Office in Rutland Gate.
> One of the first jobs I had to do was to go to Bishop Stortford where George
> Ronald had his warehouse pick up a wagon load of new books and take them to the
> hall in Bromfield Road where there was to be a weekend Baha’í conference. This
> was the first time I had driven in London with right hand drive, but I got along okay.
> Another time I went to Bungay in Suffolk to pick up galley proofs for a book the
> Baha’í Publishing Trust was having printed there.
> Another time I had to take a carload of books to a National Baha’í Teaching
> Conference in Sheffield. I was beginning to get good at driving around strange
> cities. The first spring there I was elected a delegate to the National Baha’í
> Convention, so the whole family went to Liverpool for this. We had a hotel room
> just around the corner from the Empire Theatre. We stayed on a day or two after
> the Convention and went out to Huyton where we were married and down
> Greydene Lane (?) where Joan lived. We also visited all three of Joan’s nieces and
> nephews who all lived in the area between St. Helens and Risley.
> On one day we went to Burghley House near Stamford, Lincolnshire, and since
> 1801, the home of the Marquesses of Exeter. David George Brownlow Cecil (1905–
> 1981), 6th Marquess of Exeter, conducted the tour of the house; he was a former gold
> medal Olympian 400 m hurdler and was for some years on the British Olympic
> Committee. Burghley House is famous for its horse trials, and Princess Anne often
> competed there.
> 17. Oakham UK and side trips                        83
> Another trip we took to Kirby Muxloe Castle, is a ruined, fortified manor house,
> west of Leicester and then to Ashby de la Zouch Castle, a ruined fortification in the
> town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where Carl had fun in the tunnel that ran across under
> the courtyard. The climax in Ivanhoe (by Sir Walter Scott) occurs at Lincoln
> Cathedral and includes a scene known as “the [archery] tournament at Ashby-de-la-
> Zouch”. We went on from there to Benton-on-Trent, noted for its brewery.
> Another day we took both Carl and Linda to Alton Towers in Derbyshire where
> there is an amusement park as well as extensive botanical gardens. We had to leave
> fairly early as Linda took ill, the beginnings of her lupus, which seemed to have
> started while living at Mount Pleasant.
> While in Oakham we visited Joan’s mother and sister in Stockport several times
> as it was only a couple of hours drive. On one occasion we had her mother down to
> Oakham for a visit. On one trip to Stockport, when Vicki and Asgier were with us
> during Christmas break, we had an accident that totaled the car and obliged us to
> get another one, also a Ford Escort. No one was hurt but we had to cancel the trip
> and we spent several hours waiting for the police.
> A couple of times we went to Belvoir Castle near Nottingham. It is a picturesque
> castle that was used in the movie “Little Lord Fauntleroy”. One of the artefacts kept
> in the castle is the bugle that was used in the Charge of the Light Brigade during the
> Crimean War (1853–1856). One time there we attended a medieval tournament of
> tilting and jousting. It was quite real and the St. John Ambulance stood by to treat
> injuries. The participants not only used lances but also fought on foot with
> broadswords and maces—exciting. Another time they had a re-enactment of a
> revolutionary war battle between the English and the Americans. They used to put
> on exhibitions regularly at Belvoir (pronounced “Beaver”).
> There were other trips. We took Mandy, a friend of Linda, with us to Stratfordon-Avon where we visited Ann Hathaway’s Cottage. We also went to Kenilworth
> Castle in Warwickshire, made famous in Sir Walter Scott’s novel Kenilworth. In the
> same area was Warwick Castle, the ancestral home of the Earls of Warwick, which
> we went to several times, one time with Vicki and Asgeir.
> There were many trips in connection with the Baha’í Teaching Committee, most
> of which I attended on my own. One of the first was a weekend trip to visit the
> Baha’ís in Kent, going to Canterbury, Ashford and Maidstone. I had also prepared a
> teaching seminar on the Baha’í Covenant that I
> 84                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> gave in many places, beginning with Northampton. I presented it also at Lancaster
> University, Reading University and Cardiff College.
> Other visits were made to the Baha’í communities in Bristol and Bath. On this
> trip I took a side trip to visit the striking chalk-cut figure of the White Horse on the
> hill near Uffington, and also Evesham where Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of
> Leicester (c. 1208–1265) was defeated by the forces of King Henry III. I visited the
> Baha’í community in Wandsworth (northeast of Wimbledon) in London and
> Crawley near Gatwick Airport. On the way home from Crawley I went to Henley to
> pick up Linda who was attending a Baha’í youth weekend, passing by Shepperton
> Studios, Runnymede, and Eton School north of Windsor.
> The Baha’í committee took me elsewhere as well. One meeting was held in
> Glasgow and I went by bus from Oakham. It was a night trip so I did not see a lot.
> When I returned I had to come by Stanford and wait there for a bus to Oakham.
> Several times we went to visit one of the members of the Baha’í committee who
> lived in Moulton in Suffolk, 3 miles east of Newmarket. She was American and her
> husband was in the US Air Force stationed at Mildenhall, which we visited on one
> occasion. We took her and a friend to a Baha’í teaching conference that we were
> holding at Conwy in north Wales. We had visited the castle there once before when
> we were first married and we wanted to stay an extra day or two to look around.
> Our passengers, who had to get to work, had to find their own way home. We went
> to Wales by way of Leicester, Cannock, Shrewsbury, Llangollen, and Betws-y-Coed.
> After the conference we drove around Llandudno, which is on a little peninsula
> in northern Wales, and returned home by way of Denbigh. Denbigh is where Aldie
> Robarts was living but we did not call in. We learnt he lived there when we were in
> Liverpool at the Baha’í Convention and we went around to the office of the
> shopper’s paper he published.
> On my first visit to Brecon in mid Wales to visit the Baha’í community, one of the
> community members took me on a little drive around the area. We went first to
> Talgarth where one community member lived and then to Builth Wells.
> 18. A change of direction and a wealth of history
> After ceasing to work for the Baha’í Publishing Trust, I had to go to the
> unemployment office each week to collect my dole money and see if there were any
> suitable vacancies anywhere in the UK. They would pay my transport for
> interviews and during the year I investigated several positions. One of the first was
> to Barrow-in-Furness, which is a beautiful area near the Lake District, but we did
> not like the city or the printing plant. In any case I did not get the job. We drove
> through West Yorkshire (including Ilkley), and nearby Skipton (North Yorkshire),
> etc.
> Another prospect took us to Brecon where I interviewed the paper there. I was
> glad I did not take that job as it went bankrupt within a couple of years. While there
> we stayed at a pub in Sennybridge, Powys, Wales, and watched some sheep dog
> trials.
> One of the nicest trips was to Cupar in Fife, Scotland. It is north of Edinburgh
> and near St. Andrews. Instead of driving, we took the train, which was more
> comfortable. We had good views of Durban Cathedral and Edinburgh Castle.
> Thurston was nice but the offered living conditions were not suitable for four
> people.
> The next interview was in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is a new
> “toon” comprising several communities, including Bletchley, Wolverton and Stony
> Stratford. Less than an hour from London with a frequent train service, it would
> have been okay but I did not get the job.
> There were a couple of other shorter trips we took while in Oakham. We went to
> Market Harborough, Leicestershire, to buy a sewing machine and we also went to
> Doncaster where we visited an Icelandic woman who was married to an Englishman
> and had become an inactive Baha’í. We learned later that they had moved to
> Iceland, settled in the Vesturbær district of Reykjavík, and become active Baha’ís
> again. On this trip, and also going through Newmarket, we were able to see the
> famous race tracks and stables.
> Finally, in August of 1978, I received a letter from the Baha’ís in Wells, Somerset,
> that contained a help wanted advertisement from the Wells Journal. I made
> arrangements to drive down for an interview and stay
> 
> 86                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> overnight with Gordon and Giser McKenzie. I had the interview and was offered a
> job as proof reader beginning immediately. I said I had to return to Oakham but I
> was prepared to start work the first of the following week. The McKenzie’s offered
> to put me up at their house until I was ready to move the family down. I also learnt
> that the District of Mendip would be able to form their first Baha’í Local Spiritual
> Assembly as soon as Joan arrived.
> I moved into a small room at the McKenzie’s place the following weekend and
> started work on Monday. There were two of us readers, a John William and myself
> and we each had a copy holder. The Wells Journal also published two other weekly
> papers, the Shepton Mallet Journal and the Mid-Summerset Journal for Glastonbury,
> Street and the Cheddar Valley. We also did a lot of job printing, including law and
> medical journals and the printing for Butlin’s holiday camps at Minehead and Barry.
> When I interviewed for the job I had given the manager all of my qualifications,
> so after about a month I was transferred to the job of a linotype operator. The plant
> had seven linotype and three monotype machines to set all the type, as the paper
> ran an average of twenty-four pages a week. I started out setting straight copy, but
> soon I was setting classifieds and eventually tabulated material such as bowling
> scores. All of this stuff was in 5-1/2 point with the first word in bold face in the
> classifieds. The machines had features that we had not had in Forest, such as
> automatic lead feeders, quadders and we often had to change magazines. The
> mould disc had six moulds and it had adjustable ejector blades.
> I would drive home back to Oakham every other weekend, leaving Friday night
> and returning Sunday night. It was about a three hour drive and I went via Bath,
> Swindon, Oxford, Silverstone (where the Formula One races are held),
> Northampton, Kettering, Corby and Oakham.
> One weekend at the beginning of November I brought the family down to Wells
> for the Guy Fawkes parade. This is one of the biggest carnivals in Europe and there
> were an average of a hundred floats decorated very professionally. There were
> both tableaux and active floats. The carnival was taken to several communities in
> Mid-Somerset including Glastonbury, Shepton Mallet and Bridgewater. Some of the
> floats also went to London for the Lord Mayor’s parade.
> I got to know Christine and Jeremy Herbert who lived in Glastonbury. During
> the autumn we made a couple of trips since I had a car
> 18. A change of direction and a wealth of history            87
> and they did not. The first was to London. For this Jeremy rented a car and we
> drove in to the Alexandra Palace (which subsequently burnt down) to a meeting
> with Hands of the Cause of God, Ruhíyyih Khanum and ‘Alí Furutan. It was at this
> meeting we ran into Jim Willoughby, whom I had met several times—the first time
> at a Baha’í summer school that first year at Geneva Park, Ontario, in 1953, then in the
> sixties he came for a weekend to our home in Forest, Ontario, and stayed two
> months; the third time was when we went to Iceland to the Baha’í Oceanic
> Conference. Needless to say I did not tell him where I was living.
> Following the Baha’í Conference, we all went to the North London Cemetery to
> visit the Guardian’s (Shoghi Effendi’s) grave, which I had visited once before. While
> there we ran into both Hands of the Cause of God, separately. I was quite surprised
> when ‘Alí Furutan said he remembered me from his visit to London, Ontario, after
> the Dedication of the Baha’í Temple in Wilmette, Illinois, back in 1953.
> The next trip I drove and went to the Baha’í National Teaching Conference in
> Blackpool that was held at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool. It is quite okay to go to
> these places in the off season. We all stayed at a bed and breakfast with which we
> were not impressed, to put it mildly.
> At the end of the year Jeremy and Christine decided to go pioneering again, this
> time to Brecon in Wales. They had come to the Mendip district from Gloucester.
> This time they settled in a little hamlet called Llangynidr near Crickhowell in Brecon
> district where they stayed for several years, and which we were able to visit from
> time to time as it was not too far from where we were living.
> 19. Glastonbury and lots of history
> We were able to take over the lease of the Herbert’s house in Glastonbury, so
> during the 1978 Christmas holiday period we moved in. We needed a new bed, even
> though the house was rented furnished, so we bought a new one in Shepton Mallet
> on New Year’s Day 1979, the one we are still using. We lived in this house for about
> eighteen months and I drove into Wells to work every morning and took my
> lunch—it was only about five miles but I had to go through a couple of villages and
> you never knew when you were going to be held up by sheep or cattle on the road.
> It was no trouble and I always arrived home for supper on time except on one
> occasion when the Somerset Levels, a coastal plain and wetland area of Somerset,
> were flooded and I had to take a lengthy detour.
> While living in Glastonbury we took advantage of the lore of the town, which is
> indicated by the sign at the entrance, calling itself the Isle of Avalon, the spot where
> King Arthur is supposed to have returned to die. In fact there are graves in
> Glastonbury Abbey reported to be of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, discovered
> in the 18th century by King Henry II. Glastonbury Abbey is an old ruin that we
> visited many times. It was destroyed by King Henry VIII on the dissolution of the
> monasteries, but it was very old and said to be on the site of a church erected by
> Joseph of Arimathea after the Crucifixion of Christ. He was supposed to have stuck
> his staff in the ground at Wearyall Hill, a long narrow ridge to the south west of
> Glastonbury, and it blossomed into a hawthorn tree. A cutting from the original tree
> was planted within the Abbey, and it blooms every Christmas, the only one that
> blooms at that time of year. Some flowers are sent to Buckingham Palace every
> year.
> Another prominent piece of Glastonbury is the Glastonbury Tor, a hill with the
> ruins of an ancient church on its summit. We climbed it several times.
> There is said to be a tunnel running from the Abbey to Glastonbury Tor but no
> one has ever found it. Near Glastonbury Tor is the Chalice Well (or Red Spring)
> where the Holy Grail is said to be buried. There is a stream that runs from the
> Chalice Well down the hill that is reported to have healing qualities. In the house
> adjacent to the well, the second floor is set aside as the upper room representing the
> Last Supper.
> 
> 19. Glastonbury and lots of history                     89
> On the main street of Glastonbury is the George and Pilgrim Inn, a hostelry
> dating back to the 12th century. There are also numerous shops dealing with the
> lore of the area, as well as books and articles dealing with the occult. Just below
> Glastonbury Tor, on the main road, is a public house called the Rifleman’s Arms
> where Joan worked for nearly a year and Linda babysat the owner’s two children.
> The whole area of the Somerset Levels is loaded with history and legend. At one
> time the Somerset Levels were swampland and much of it under water, which is
> why the hills were called islands. Just northwest of Glastonbury, at Meare, were
> discovered the ruins of a lake village (Lake Meare Village mounds) that existed a
> couple of thousand years ago.
> Between Street and Taunton is the “Isle of” Athelney, not really an island, but
> there is a statue of Alfred the Great (King Alfred’s Monument). This is where Alfred
> hid out from the Danes in the swamps and where he is reputedly said to have
> burned the cakes. It was from here that he spied the enemy on the Polden Hills to
> the north, and where he eventually defeated them and established the Kingdom of
> Wessex, and the Danes were confined to the northeast of England.
> Just south of Glastonbury is South Cadbury, and many consider Cadbury Hillfort
> (north east of Yeovil), Somerset, to be the site of the ancient Camelot. The “castle” is
> the ruins of an ancient Celtic hill fort on top of the hill that could probably house a
> thousand inhabitants.
> Also west of Glastonbury is Westonzogland (south east of Bridgwater), and just
> outside is the field of Sedgemoor, the site of the last battle on English soil. It
> occurred when James Scott (1649–1685), the First Duke of Monmouth, invaded to try
> to overthrow King James II (1633–1701). The Duke advanced as far as Bath, but was
> turned back and finally defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. He was convicted of
> treason and beheaded. His followers were subsequently tried in Tauton and many
> were hanged. The Bloody Assizes were a series of trials, presided over by five
> judges, which started in Winchester.
> Not far from Glastonbury is the Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, a large multirole air station, and the site of the Fleet Air Arm Museum. We attended two air
> shows there and Carl went to more. It was here we saw the prototype for the
> Concorde and the first Harrier Jump Jets that were capable of vertical take-off and
> landing flights. At one show Her Majesty’s Royal Marines Band Plymouth, was there
> and I was
> 90                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> able to talk to some of the players and requested a number that they played for me.
> About 25 miles from Wells are both Bristol and Bath, both teeming with history.
> It was from Bath that I would take the train to London for my Baha’í meetings. It
> was a non-stop trip and the train covered the 125 miles in a little over an hour.
> Bath was known in Roman times as Aquae Sulis and was famous for its healing
> thermal baths located on or near three hot water springs. The old Roman baths
> have been excavated and they are open to the public. Just above was the famous
> Grand Pump Room where people at one time would drink the water that is pumped
> into the room from the baths; now it serves tea. Bath was very popular during the
> Georgian period and the architecture reflects that era, especially the Royal Crescent
> and the Royal Circus. They also have a well-known Museum of Costumes in the
> Assembly Rooms. There is also the Burrows Toy Museum.
> We went to Bath often as it was more interesting and easier to move around
> than Bristol. One time we went to Claverton Manor where we saw a re-enactment
> of an American Civil War Battle put on by people from the American University
> there.
> Just behind the thermal Baths is Bath Abbey and between the two is an open
> square where entertainments are performed. One time we saw a student
> performance of “Hamlet” done in 15 minutes, and when it was over they did an
> abridged version in about three minutes.
> There were numerous trips we could take from our home in Wells in any
> direction that did not require overnight accommodation. Just outside Wells to the
> west is the village of Wookey Hole, where a series of limestone caverns in the
> Mendip Hills area can be explored. The Mendip Hills is a limestone range south of
> Bristol and Bath, in Somerset, which means caves are readily formed. One of our
> favourites are the caves at Priddy, on top of which there is an entrance into many
> unexplored caves. Nearby are the Priddy circles and Stone Age monuments.
> Carl worked at a Wookey Hole restaurant one summer and it was close enough
> for him to walk to work. We did take the tour through the caves once, an interesting
> experience—not only for the caves themselves, but also for the auxiliary places of
> interest there. There was the fairground museum with its collection of historic fair
> attractions such as roundabouts (merry-go-arounds).
> 19. Glastonbury and lots of history                   91
> There was also Madame Tussauds warehouse, where were kept all of the wax heads
> that have been on display in the past in London. Then there was the paper making
> plant where paper was being made while we watched.
> Further along the valley, which we have driven both above and below the hills,
> was Cheddar Gorge and the nearby Cheddar Caves named for the village nearby that
> also gave its name to its famous cheese. Then there was Burrington Combe, another
> small gorge that contains the famous Rock of Ages, which gave its name to the wellknown hymn. Other places were Rodney Stoke, the birthplace of a famous British
> admiral (the first Baron Rodney was George Brydges Rodney (1718/19–92), a British
> naval admiral), Westbury-sub-Mendip, Draycott and Axbridge. The valley is also
> famous for its strawberries that are plentiful and produce two crops a year.
> Further along it was not far to the seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare (or
> Weston) with its beach and pier and the nearby nature reserve of Brean Down
> promontory. Compton Bishop is the home of comedian Frankie Howard (1917–1992)
> who was often seen in one of the pubs in Wells. Another resort nearby was
> Burnham-on-Sea, a much quieter and more sedate place than Weston, which was
> always bustling. Between Wells and the M5 motorway there is a hamlet called Mark
> with its Mark Causeway to its west, another indication that the area was at one time
> under water.
> The first large town encountered along the M5 motorway was Bridgewater,
> which had a public library with recordings to rent, and I went there often.
> Bridgewater is also the gateway to Exmoor. About five miles from Bridgewater
> is Cannington; if you turned right to the north here you came to Hinckley Point
> Nuclear Power Station where Gord McKenzie worked. The next place is Nether
> Stowey where Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived (1797–1798) and wrote, and where
> there is a small museum (Coleridge Cottage). Further along is Holford where his
> friend William Wordsworth lived for a time. Next comes the harbour of Watchet,
> said to be where Coleridge composed “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.
> Turning left off the main road on a back road one comes to the village of
> Roadwater where I gave a Baha’í fireside once and farther up the hills there was a
> cottage in the middle of nowhere where I gave another Baha’í fireside. It was
> owned by a thatcher and there was no electricity or running water.
> Just west of Watchet is Blue Anchor where friends of ours, sort of contacts, lived
> and whom we visited several times. The next main town west is Minehead, a
> seaside
> 92                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> resort with a Butlin’s holiday camp where we held a couple of Baha’í proclamations
> as West Somerset was one of our goal areas.
> Going east from Wells we come to the village of Croscombe where we were at
> one point offered a house but it was too small. Then there is Shepton Mallet.
> Shepton Mallet is on the Fosse Way, one of the old Roman roads that can still be
> seen in places. It is also the home of Babycham, a kind of champagne made from
> pears, and also where Jill and Farhad Shahbahram, two of our Baha’ís, have a home
> and market garden. Still going east was Irlanmore with the East Somerset Railway
> and Nunney where there is an old castle, and then Frome, still in our Baha’í district
> of Mendip.
> On the Mendip Hills above here is Stoke St. Michael where Jill and Farhad lived
> for a time, and Oakhill Manor, Oakhill, with its railway museum.
> Also Mells (west of Frome), a small village, and Mells Manor to its north was the
> home of the Horner family, about whom the nursery rhyme “Little Jack Horner” was
> written. The next town is Westbury, Wiltshire, which has a famous white horse on
> the hillside.
> Going north from Westbury is Bradford-on-Avon where we held a Baha’í
> proclamation and a fair exhibit at nearby Holt. Beyond that is Chippenham where
> there was a Baha’í who was originally a Canadian. On the way is Lacock, a National
> Trust village that has been used in many films which need 17th and 18th century
> locales.
> South of Westbury is Warminster where we also did some Baha’í teaching. It is
> the UFO capital of England and more recently the site of many mysterious crop
> circles midway between Frome and Warminster at Longleat House.
> Longleat House is the stately home of the Marquis of Bath and we went there
> several times. It has the oldest safari park in the world and also the largest hedge
> maze. It covers a large acreage and on the hill above there is a picnic site called
> Heaven’s Gate that we used a couple of times.
> The road from Warminster to Salisbury goes through Wilton, the original county
> seat of Wiltshire and the home of Wilton rugs. Salisbury Cathedral has one of the
> tallest spires in Britain and dominates the countryside. We toured the area but did
> not go inside because they charged admission. Just north of Salisbury on Salisbury
> Plain is Stonehenge, the very
> 19. Glastonbury and lots of history                    93
> famous pre-historic site, and to the east is Parton Down, the very top secret wartime
> bacteriological research centre.
> Southwest of Salisbury there are a number of hill figures in the chalk, not really
> old, and Wardour Castle that we visited once.
> On one occasion Wendi Momen came down and stayed with us for a few days.
> We took her for a drive through Dorset. We first went to Yeovil and then to
> Sherborne and from there south to Dorchester, the home for many years of Thomas
> Hardy, whose novel The Mayor of Casterbridge uses a fictionalised version of
> Dorchester as its setting. On the way we stopped to see the Cerne Abbas Giant,
> carved in the chalk hill as an old fertility symbol. In the Dorchester area we visited
> Thomas Hardy’s cottage just outside the town. Further along the highway we
> passed through Puddletown, on the Piddle River, whose name (and many others
> along the river) was supposedly changed by Queen Victoria. There was Tolpuddle,
> the site of the Tolpuddle Martyrs,1 during the fight for farmers’ unions.
> We then went north through Blandford Forum (the headquarters of the Royal
> Signal Corps is nearby at Blandford Camp) then on to Shaftesbury where we
> stopped for strawberries and cream, and took a picture at Gold Hill, often used in
> films and especially a famous commercial for Hovis Bread.
> On another trip in that direction we visited Golsi Azizi in Lyndhurst in the New
> Forest; it was the year she and I were delegates to the Baha’í National Convention in
> Harrogate. While in the New Forest we saw the wild ponies for which it is famous,
> and the place where King William II (1057-1100; known as William Rufus) was killed
> while hunting. We also saw the grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) in the
> village of Minstead, 2 miles north of Lyndhurst.
> We visited Winchester (where our Baha’í Auxiliary Board Members lived) and
> toured Winchester Cathedral. The cathedral is beautiful inside and we saw the
> tombs of both King William II, and Jane Austin who lived there most of her life.
> Behind the cathedral is the famous Winchester School.
> Another trip took us more or less in the same direction where we visited Corfe
> Castle on the Isle of Purbeck. This is where King John kept his mother, Eleanor of
> Aquitaine, as a prisoner. We also visited Chisel Beach, just west of Weymouth,
> where the Moonfleet Manor Hotel is situated, and the Abbotsbury Swannery a short
> distance north west along the coast. Further northwest is Lyme Regis, which we
> visited several times.
> While we were in Wells, the film “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” was
> produced there and the company repainted and changed the entire waterfront of
> the town to make it look like the 19th century.
> 
> 1   Six agricultural workers who were convicted and transported to Australia.    Later
> returned to England after mass protests by sympathisers.
> 94                        Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> Northwest of Lyme Regis is Axminster, another famous rug manufacturing town,
> and between Axminster and Wells is Somerton, the ancient capital of Somerset.
> As a member of the Baha’í teaching committee I had several times visited other
> places to the south, including Exeter and Newton Abbott where one of the
> committee members lived. I also visited isolated Baha’ís in Taunton and Milverton.
> Along the coast of the Bristol Channel, west of where we lived, are a series of
> hills called the Quantocks, the Brendon Hills and Exmoor. They are really a
> continuation of each other and we have at times driven all around these areas.
> Along the road between Taunton and Watchet is the West Somerset Railway, which
> at one time carried iron ore down to the coast where it was taken across to Wales.
> This part of the country is apple cider country and every January there is an Apple
> Wassail1 ceremony among the apple trees.
> We also visited several places north of Wells besides Bath and Bristol. One time
> we went to Badminton, Gloucestershire, where they hold well-known Badminton
> Horse Trials and where the cross-country horse trials first began in 1949. To the
> northwest is Badminton House where Princess Anne and Prince Charles sometimes
> stay. This area is known as the Cotswolds, and when I had to go to meetings of the
> Baha’í teaching committee with the chairman and secretary, we met at Leamington
> Spa where one member lived (Patty Vicker) and the other at nearby Kenilworth. I
> would drive via Cirencester and such quaintly named villages such as Stow-in-the-
> Wold, Moreton-in-the-Marsh, and Burton-on-the-Water.
> I drove back one time through Broadway where I saw the horsemen and dogs
> getting ready for a fox hunt and through Evesham and Tewkesbury, both places
> where battles were fought by Simon de Montfort during the Wars of the Roses.
> We also visited Berkeley, Gloucestershire, and Berkeley castle (on the south side
> of the town) where King Edward II was murdered. The home of Dr Edward Jenner
> (1749–1823) is just north of the castle; he is the doctor who pioneered the concept of
> vaccines and created the smallpox vaccine, the world’s first vaccine. Berkeley Castle
> is the oldest castle inhabited by the same family (since the 11th and 12th centuries).
> At one time the Berkley family owned land over which they could ride all the way to
> London. The last piece sold was Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London. They also
> produced a famous philosopher, Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753), after whom
> the city of Berkeley, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, was named.
> 
> Wassail is a beverage made from hot mulled cider, ale, or wine and spices.
> 19. Glastonbury and lots of history                    95
> Another time we drove across the Severn Bridge by Chepstow Castle and up the
> Wye Valley as far as the ruins of Tintern Abbey made famous by the poet William
> Wordsworth.
> To the northeast we sometimes visited Aveberry on the A4 motorway east of
> Chippenham. It is known for an ancient circle of stones about a mile in diameter.
> The village is in the centre of the circle and was made famous by the film “Children
> of the Stone”. Many stones are now missing, but enough remain to tell where they
> were and also an avenue of parallel stones leading from the circle to Silbury Hill, the
> tallest prehistoric, human-made mound in Europe and one of the largest in the
> world, the purpose of which remains unknown. West Kennet Long Barrow, an
> ancient burial site, is 0.5 miles southwest of Silbury Hill.
> Southeast of Marlborough (1.3 miles) is Savernake Forest. Five miles southeast
> was Totnam Lodge (the present building is Tottenham House), home of the
> Seymour family (including Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII). All
> along this part of the Wiltshire Downs are various figures carved in the chalk hills
> by removing the thin layer of soil and grass from the chalk underneath.
> Several times we visited the Herberts, the couple who occupied the house in
> Glastonbury before we moved into it. Christine was also a member of the Baha’í
> National Teaching Committee, and they had moved to the Brecon District as Baha’í
> pioneers. They settled in a cottage in the village of Llangynidr on the River Usk
> about halfway between Brecon and Abergavenny. They were usually weekend trips
> and about a two hour drive from Wells. We would drive through Bristol, onto the
> M4 motorway, the Severn Bridge, via Chepstow Castle and Raglan Castle.
> One time there, Jeremy, who was a Baha’í Auxiliary Board Member Assistant, and
> I went over the hill above Llangynidr to Tredegar and down the valley to Blackwood
> and Newbridge where he contacted some of the new Baha’ís who lived there. We
> came back via Ebbw Vale. One drive from there was into Brecon and around the
> Brecon Beacons to Merthyr Tydfil, then along the top of the valleys.
> On one occasion they took me north past Builth Wells, Wales, to the Elan Valley
> Reservoirs. There are three of them and they supply most of the water for the West
> Midlands. The scenery throughout Wales is pretty spectacular. It was there I saw a
> rook for the first time, a very large type of hawk.
> One time Christine took me through some back roads through the Black
> Mountains. We visited the Church of St Martin at Cwmyoy (rural parish in
> Monmouthshire, Wales), parts of it have settled so it appears quite crooked on the
> inside. We also stopped at
> 96                   Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> the ruins of Llanthony Priory. Beyond Hay Bluff (Welsh Penybegwn) where a lot of
> sportsmen do hang gliding, is Hay-on-Wye, which has the greatest number of book
> stores, new and used, in the UK.
> 20. Holidays around Britain
> While in Somerset we took a holiday each year. In 1980 we went to Iceland
> for a return visit, and in 1982 we went to Canada for three weeks—more of this
> later.
> In 1979, the first year we were in Glastonbury, Joan and I took a one week
> vacation in a holiday camp in Ilfracombe on the North Devon coast. While there
> we took side trips every day. One day we toured Exmoor and we visited
> Malmsmead and the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Oare, Lynton, both
> associated with Lorna Doone by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825–1900). We
> climbed Dunkery Beacon, the highest point on Exmoor, and we visited the Tarr
> Steps, an ancient stone clapper bridge across the River Barle in the Exmoor
> National Park, northwest of Dulverton.
> On the way to Ilfracombe we went through Porloch, east of Minehead, with
> its famous hill that is too steep for cars with trailers, who have to take an old
> toll road around the hill. We took the alternate route on another occasion when
> Vicki and Asgeir were visiting. There were more steep hills at Lynton and
> Lynmouth. These steep hills have escape routes, consisting of several dozen
> metres of sand that will stop vehicles whose brakes fail on the downgrades. As
> well as the main road we also took the coast road.
> Another day we headed south through Barnstaple and Bideford where we
> left the main road and took the secondary road through the Taw estuary to the
> towns of Appledore and Westward Ho!, Devon. From there we went to Clovelly,
> a village on the coast with a very steep street impassable for cars. We walked
> part way down. This place is associated with the writer Charles Kingsley who
> lived here for a time while his father was vicar. He is most famous for The
> Water-babies.
> From there we followed the coast down to Tintagel whose castle is
> associated with Merlin and King Arthur and his father Pendragon, and
> supposedly Arthur’s birthplace. We did not walk all the way down to the castle,
> which is on a cliff overlooking the sea. It was just too much of a climb and it was
> cold and windy.
> Another time we drove down to Dartmoor and had a flat tire in Princeton,
> the site of the maximum security prison, and were there for a couple of hours.
> Then we went to the village of Widecombe in the Moor, famous for
> 
> 98                     Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> the folk song about Widecombe Fair; and Hound Tor (a heavily weathered
> granite outcrop), made notable by Arthur Conan Doyle in The Hound of the
> Baskervilles. On the upper elevations it was quite foggy, which made for quite an
> eerie atmosphere.
> In 1981 we took a large trailer at a holiday camp in Perranporth, Cornwall,
> for a week. This place had laundry facilities and a couple of night clubs where
> there was entertainment every night. The camp was on top of a hill and
> sometimes Joan and the kids, Linda and Carl, walked down to the beach, which
> was quite wide and sandy.
> On the way down there we went across the top of Dartmoor through
> Launceston, the ancient capital of Cornwall. Then across Bodmin Moor where
> we stopped at Jamaica Inn, Bolventor, made famous by Daphne du Maurier
> (1907–1989) in her adventure novel Jamaica Inn. Nearby to the south is
> Dozmary Pool, the legendary small lake where the “Lady of the Lake” rose out of
> the lake with the second Excalibar sword for King Arthur. It was supposed to
> be bottomless but actually it is not very deep.
> Each day we took side trips. Perranporth was fairly central so we could
> cover the entire county. One day we drove along the north shore to St. Ives,
> which has become quite an artistic colony. From there we went to Land’s End,
> the westernmost point on mainland England. It was quite a cold and windy day
> so we did not stay long outside. On the way home we stopped in Penzance and
> saw St. Michael’s Mount, a historic castle, garden and island community off the
> coast of Marazion in Cornwall. We came home through Helston, the home of the
> well-known Cornish Floral Dance. We passed many abandoned tin mines,
> especially around Camborne and Redruth.
> Another time we went to the Lizard Peninsular where there is a large
> lighthouse. It is the most southerly point in England. On the way we passed a
> large radio telescope facility. We traveled by back roads to Helford and visited
> Frenchman’s Creek, also made famous by Daphne du Maurier who lived in
> Cornwall and was well acquainted with the county.
> We stopped in Falmouth and walked down to the beach there and saw
> Pendennis Castle. Finally we stopped in Truro, the county seat with its modern
> cathedral.
> Another day we went to Newquay, not too far up the coast from
> Perranporth, and a much larger place with a big amusement area which pleased
> the kids. We came home to Wells via Liskeard and Tavistock and across
> Dartmoor.
> 20. Holidays around Britain                        99
> The third holiday we had in Britain was in 1983, the same year we returned
> to Canada. By this time we had sold our car and had a real cheap one for the
> rest of our stay in England. This time Linda came with us as Carl was unable to
> come. We booked a trailer in Portmadog in North Wales. It was touch and go
> every morning to see if the car would start.
> This time we went via Brecon and Builth Wells to Rhayader and across
> Wales to Aberystwyth via the Devil’s Bridge. We then went north via
> Machynlleth, past Cadair Idris, the second highest peak in Britain, to Dolgellau.
> Then via Barmouth and Harlech to Portmadog.
> One day we took Linda to Portmeirion, a fantastic folly tourist village with
> many styles of architecture that was used extensively in the TV series “The
> Prisoner”. Joan and I had been there once before and never grew tired of
> visiting the place.
> Another time we took her to Caernarfon and its famous castle. Then we
> drove to Bangor and crossed the Menai Straits to the Anglesey Island where we
> visited Beaumaris Castle, another of the castles built by King Edward I when he
> conquered Wales. We also visited the town of Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, the place
> with the longest name anywhere. The railway station still exists and you can
> buy tickets although the trains do not run anymore.
> Back to Caernarfon where we drove to Llanberis where we took the train up
> to the summit of Mount Snowdon, the highest point in the British Isles, 1,085
> metres. It was up grade all the way and the train had to stop half way up to take
> on more water. At the top there is a restaurant and there were a lot of people
> up there. There are many paths to walk to the top but it would be quite a walk
> and could be dangerous if the weather changed.
> From Llanberis we went up the pass to Capel Curig and Betws-y-Coed and
> back to Portmadog. On the way we stopped at Blaenau Ffestiniog where there
> are slate mines and no trees. This is the terminus of a mountain railway that
> runs to and from Portmadog, a distance of over 12 miles.
> Another time we went to Betws-y-Coed via the other side of Snowden
> through Beddgelert, a pretty town in very mountainous country. We also drove
> the coast road from Caernarfon through Pwllhel and Criccieth to Portmadog.
> 21. Homeless and holidays abroad
> In 1980 we received a letter from Geoff in Iceland enclosing air fares for Joan
> and myself to visit Iceland. We were uncertain about it because we had
> received a letter from the owner of the house in Glastonbury, wanting the home
> back. We consulted the Somerset Council and they said there would be no
> problem so off we went.
> When we returned we found ourselves homeless as we had been evicted.
> We hastily contacted the Somerset Council and also our local Member of
> Parliament and we were moved into a temporary shelter in Shepton Mallet. It
> consisted of a kitchen, large living room and a small pantry that Carl used as a
> bedroom. Linda slept in the living room and we slept in the kitchen. We had
> one storeroom for furniture downstairs and the bathroom was down the hall.
> While there we were visited quite surprisingly by Tony Marsolais who had
> been on holiday in Spain and was now in the George and Pilgrim Inn in
> Glastonbury. How he found us, he would not tell us but he stayed with us for
> several days. We were quite crowded.
> It was also while here I developed a rash all over my torso that the local
> doctor could not identify. It did not cause any particular discomfort and I did
> not miss any work. I had to go and visit a dermatologist at the Royal Victoria
> Hospital in Bath. I visited him several times; he found out what it was and was
> told it would disappear by itself. It did after a couple of weeks.
> From Shepton Mallet we were moved into a Somerset Council house on
> Hervey Road in Wells. We had looked at a house in Croscombe (between
> Shepton and Wells) but it only had two bedrooms. The house in Wells needed
> considerable work, including carpets throughout and we had to put in some
> portable heaters to keep warm. We walked home from downtown through the
> cathedral grounds and past the Cathedral School, famous for its music program.
> We had been there barely a year when the Somerset Council told us they
> were going to remodel all the houses on
> 
> 21. Homeless and holidays abroad                     101
> Hervey Road. They were fairly old and in need of upgrading. They offered to
> move us to a new council estate in Davies Court further from downtown Wells,
> but much better and larger. We decided to stay in the new place even though
> the rent was higher. We were there for two years.
> When we visited Iceland, we took the train from Bath to Reading where we
> traveled by bus from there to Heathrow. We thought we would miss the plane
> as our luggage came on a later bus and it was touch and go.
> We landed in Keflavík and were met by Vicki and Asgeir Einarsson who took
> us to their home in Hveragerði. We stayed there most of the two weeks. One
> day they took us up the Hvíta River past Gullfoss and behind Langjokull, the
> “Long Glacier”, where they heard there was a new glacier flowing. The two of
> them walked up the hill that was some distance away while Joan and I stayed
> down by the river.
> We stayed with Geoff in Reykjavík a couple of nights. Geoff had arranged for
> me to take a Baha’í travel teaching trip. I went from Reykjavík airport to the
> first stop, Isafjorður. I was met and stayed overnight with Inga Dan who had
> pioneered there. We had a meeting in the evening and renewed acquaintance
> with Erna and Dagny, both of whom were married with young children by that
> time.
> The next day I took a plane from Isafjorður to Akureyri where I stayed
> overnight at the hospital where a couple of nurses were Baha’ís. It was a fairly
> small meeting due to other commitments. The flight was a new experience.
> The pilot collected the tickets on the plane that only seated ten people, five on
> each side. The window by my seat was broken so it was a breezy trip. We
> pretty much followed the road as we were not very high.
> The next day I got another plane which took me to Egilsstaðir. We flew over
> Kafla, the newest volcano that was spilling out lava as we passed. At Egilsstaðir
> we took a bus that took over two hours to get to my destination, Neskaupstaður,
> going by way of Eskifjorður (or Eskifjordur) and Seyðisfjorður. I was in
> Neskaupstaður two nights, staying with one of the Baha’í friends there who
> took me on a drive up the valley one day. I held a Baha’í deepening one night
> and the other night was a dance at which Geoff, who had gone on ahead, was the
> disc jockey. Then back to Reykjavík.
> 102                   Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> The morning we were to leave Iceland, John Spencer offered to take us to the
> airport but we must have got our wires crossed because even when we went to
> the Hotel Loftludor the last bus was leaving and no John Spencer. Eventually
> we started to panic and got in touch with his home and finally got a ride to
> Keflavík with one of the Baha’ís. We barely made it as they were holding the
> plane for us.
> Getting back to Bath was no easier. We could not find our train ticket stub
> and they were not going to let us out even though we were vouched for by Jill
> and Farhad who had come to Bath to meet us and bring us back to Wells.
> The holiday in 1982 was to Canada. Carl and Linda had very little memory of
> their home as they were so young when we left for Iceland. We had three
> weeks, so we booked our flights and left London from Gatwick. We got a bus
> from Bristol that took us all the way to the airport, which is near Crawley in
> Surrey.
> We landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport and were met by Larry
> who had arranged to meet us ahead of time. He took us to Sarnia via the 401
> and the new 402 that had been built after left Canada ten years earlier.
> Larry lived in an apartment block on Devine Street where we met his two
> kids Tina and Bruce, the latter of whom was a real pest at that time. Larry and
> Gladys took us to the new mall downtown (it was the first indoor mall we had
> ever been in). While there I contacted the secretary of the International
> Symphony Orchestra, Sarnia, and I was able to get a ride to a rehearsal in Port
> Huron. There were only a few of the old players still with the orchestra.
> We had decided to go to Alberta and visit Paul who lived in Red Deer at that
> time. We traveled out west by bus in order to give the kids a chance to see
> something of Canada. It took three days to get to Calgary and on the way Carl
> met Cathy who was also going to Calgary. We were met at the airport by Paul
> who took us to Red Deer. While we were there we attended a Baha’í fireside
> and visited the high school where one of the Baha’ís was a teacher.
> Paul also took us along with Michael to Drumheller, Alberta, where the big
> dinosaur fossils were discovered. We drove around and saw some of the
> 21. Homeless and holidays abroad                  103
> Hoodoos (a group of stone columns with cap rocks) in the area. Another time
> he took us into the mountains past Sylvan Lake to the Rocky Mountain House
> where a Baha’í resided. We returned to Red Deer by a different route.
> When it was time to return, we flew to Toronto where we were met by Tony
> Marsolais who had arranged rooms for us at the YMCA on College Street. One
> evening we had dinner at the home of his new girlfriend. During the day I took
> Carl to the Ontario Science Centre while Joan took Linda to Casa Loma, a Gothic
> Revival castle-style mansion and garden in midtown Toronto. Carl also went to
> the top of the CN Tower1 on his own.
> We returned home via Gatwick and Bristol, where we discovered we had
> come back a day earlier than we were expected so we had to call Farhad, get
> him out of bed on a Sunday morning and come to Bristol to pick us up.
> 
> Concrete communications and observation tower in Toronto.
> 22. More travels around Britain
> There were many trips I had to make as a member of the Baha’í teaching
> committee. These were usually in the south west, but I also at times had
> responsibility for Wales and the Welsh Marches. On one trip both Joan and I
> took a weekend and went to visit the Baha’ís in Stoke-on-Trent. This is the area
> known as the Potteries (including Wedgwood, Spode, Royal Doulton, and Royal
> Stafford). We visited and toured the Wedgewood. A lot of the decorating is still
> done by hand.
> One time when we visited Joan’s mother and sister in Stockport, we
> returned via Wales traveling via Welshpool, Newtown and Llandrindod Wells.
> One weekend, we had a Baha’í teaching conference at Llandrindod Wells,
> which at one time was a famous spa town. It was attended by Baha’í friends
> from south Wales, Hereford and Worcester.
> One weekend I visited the Baha’ís in Truro. This was in the winter and we
> took a drive over to the seaside resort of Perranporth, Cornwall, which at that
> time of year was quite deserted. In the evening we picked up some Baha’í
> friends in St. Ives and drove to Penzance where the meeting was held. I drove
> down this time by way of Plymouth where I picked up a lady and took her to her
> sister’s place in St. Austell.
> I had another meeting with the Baha’ís in Swansea which was also attended
> by those from Llanelli, not far away. During the day I took a drive around the
> Mumbles, headland on the western edge of Swansea Bay, on the southern coast
> of Wales.
> I attended most of the Baha’í National Conventions to which I was a delegate
> on two occasions. It was held in Harrogate twice and Joan came once; that was
> the last spring we were in England. At the Baha’í Convention in Watford, I was
> named to compose a cable to the Universal House of Justice, along with Marian
> Hoffman (of George Ronald Publishers) and another Baha’í. At the one that was
> held in Great Malvern (an area southwest of Worcester) I was appointed chief
> teller for the election of the National Spiritual Assembly of the UK. It was at
> Malvern that we woke up on Sunday morning to about a foot of snow on the
> ground. I had great difficulty getting to the conference hall, our car having to be
> pushed a couple of times. Very few Baha’ís showed up that morning and right
> after lunch I set out for home.
> 
> 22. More travels around Britain                      105
> By the time I got down off the hills there was no snow. This was quite
> surprising because it was the end of April and it was the first snow we had had
> that winter.
> Most of the Baha’í National Teaching Committee meetings were held at the
> Baha’í National Office at Rutland Gate, London, but when the National Spiritual
> Assembly of the UK was meeting the same weekend we had to go elsewhere,
> except when they wanted to meet with us, which happened about once a year.
> On one of these occasions we met at a bed and breakfast in Ealing, West
> London, where the food was pretty grim.
> Other times we met at the Baha’í Centre in Liverpool, and once at the
> University of Newcastle. I traveled by train to these places, because it turned
> out to be more convenient. The trains left from Bristol. When we met at the
> Manchester Baha’í Centre, Joan and I drove and we stayed with her mother.
> In 1982 I had to chair a Baha’í National Teaching Conference in Cheltenham
> along with Jodi Munsiff, who had visited our place in Forest, Ontario, when she
> was a little girl. I drove back and forth daily from Wells as it was only about 75
> miles away and there was a motorway nearly all the way.
> The year before I represented the Baha’í National Teaching Conference at a
> North Sea Teaching Conference held in Saxmundham in Suffolk. There were
> representatives there from Holland, Belgium, Denmark, France, as well as the
> UK. I drove there via London taking the inner ring road (the M25 motorway had
> not been built yet) and through Chelmsford, Colchester and Ipswich. It seemed
> to take forever so when I came back I traveled via Bury St. Edmonds, Cambridge
> and Oxford. It was further but took less time. This was on the Easter weekend,
> so it was a three-day affair. We all stayed at the homes of Baha’ís in the area.
> One weekend I was invited along with a dozen or so other people to the
> home of Norman Stanley Bailey, an operatic bass-baritone, for a conference on
> the arts. He had purchased a large house in the country near Reigate, Surrey.
> Some of us stayed in the 8-room gatehouse but we had our meals in the main
> house. In the house he has a fully equipped recording studio. Joan and I had
> visited them when they lived in Bedford, while we were in Oakham. At that
> time he was preparing for the role of Amfortas in Parsifal for the Royal Opera,
> Covent Garden, central London.
> 106                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> There is a castle in Farleigh Hungerford, which is at the north-east corner of
> Somerset where Avon and Wiltshire come together. We were there a couple of
> times. There were antique fairs that we attended in Mells, Frome, and Nunney,
> and we also visited Nunney Castle.
> During the summer of 1983, Linda, Joan and I took day trips to the Isle of
> Wight. These were bus trips direct from Wells and were quite reasonably
> priced. We went by ferry from Southampton to Cowes, Phillip Island. The ferry
> ride was interesting as the Queen Elizabeth 2 was in port at the time and the
> Royal Yacht Britannia was at anchor in the Solent. The first trip was a journey
> around Phillip Island via Ryde, Sandown and Ventnor to Blackgang Chine
> Family Theme Park), which is right on the Channel. We did not walk down to
> the Blackgang beach, which was quite steep. We next stopped at Brighstone, an
> old fashioned village where even the post office is thatched and rose covered.
> Our last stop was at Yarmouth before returning to Cowes for the trip home.
> The second trip was during Cowes week and the Solent was full of sail boats
> preparing for the regatta. It was a shorter trip so we had more time at the bus
> stops, the first of which was at Osborne House, a summer home belonging to
> Queen Victoria. It had a Swiss type of chalet on the property that was a play
> home for her many children. The second stop was a Carisbrooke Castle where
> we had lots of time to explore. This is where King Charles I was held awaiting
> execution. From the ramparts we could see Parkhurst, near Newport, where
> one of England’s main maximum security prisons is located. On the way home
> we returned via back roads and got held up in some village where we were
> stopped until one of the natives was found and asked to move her car which
> was parked on the street so we could not get by.
> There were several events in Wells, including the annual Guy Fawkes
> Carnival, which was known all over England. In fact several floats were asked
> to take part in London’s Lord Mayor’s Parade. One May Day the market square
> was cleared of cars and a May Fair was held complete with a May Pole and
> Morris Dancers all in costume. Then one summer the Queen Mother paid a visit.
> We were so close to her car that we could almost reach out and touch her.
> Prince Charles also came to Wells from time to time as he was chairman of the
> Wells Cathedral Restoration Project.
> 22. More travels around Britain                    107
> I have already mentioned the performance of “Joseph and the Amazing
> Technicolor Dreamcoat” which was performed in the Wells Cathedral, in which
> Carl took part. And the two times I met the Bishop of Bath and Wells on behalf
> of the Baha’í Community. It was around the time of the resumption of the
> persecutions of Baha’ís in Iran.
> Then there was the Siege of Wells. This was a re-enactment of a Civil War
> battle put on by the Sealed Knot Society. This is a volunteer organization that
> often performs in period films. There were about 1,800 of them who came,
> soldiers, horsemen and camp followers and they camped in the field behind our
> house.
> 23. Time to return to Canada
> We decided to return to Canada in September of 1983. Larry had provided
> me with literature from the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), which meant
> I was able to receive a pension that would hold me over until I reached 65 when
> I would receive the Old Age Security pension. This time we hired a mover who
> came to the house and wrapped everything. We did not need to do anything
> except tell them where things were, and they were very efficient.
> After they had gone we discovered that Carl’s passport had been packed and
> panic stations were in order. We called the movers and found our stuff was
> already in the big container at Avonmouth. Carl and I took off and managed to
> retrieve the missing passport. Fortunately the container was not filled and they
> were very helpful to us.
> Before leaving the staff at the Wells Journal presented me with the gift of a
> book on Somerset; and I also received a pen set from my snooker partners at
> the British Legion, which I had joined.
> When we arrived at Toronto, flying from Heathrow, we were met by Larry
> who took us to his home in Sarnia where we stayed for a few days. At that time
> Bruce was only a little over two years old and was a real pill. From there we
> took the train into London and we stayed a few days with Ruth while I
> contacted DVA and Joan and Ruth went house hunting.
> We finally found one, a duplex, on McClary Street, London, which was within
> our price range. We moved in in October but we had to threaten the landlord
> with the Department of Health before he would properly clean it up. Having no
> furniture we were helped out by several people including Gladys’ father, Keith
> Greenham and Bob and Dorothy Smith. The place was pretty small for the four
> of us, but we managed.
> The biggest disappointment was when our furniture and the rest of our
> household did not arrive until February, and then they wanted to charge us
> extra because we were a few miles beyond their limit, but we managed to talk
> them out of that.
> In the fall I contacted a Dr Mayor who had an office around the corner on
> Grand Avenue and whom we still go to although he has moved a
> 
> 23. Time to return to Canada                       109
> couple of times since.
> Before leaving England we had received a letter from the Local Spiritual
> Assembly of London and we contacted the secretary after we had settled in. I
> attended my first Baha’í Feast at the home of Chet and Ruby Turner whom we
> had known before and who lived on Grand Avenue. At this Baha’í Feast there
> was a by-election to fill two vacancies on the Local Spiritual Assembly and
> Terry Drakhs and myself were elected. I remained on the Assembly for about
> the next seven years.
> In the spring Terry went with me to buy a car. We found one at a lot on east
> Dundas Street for $1,500, a red Chevette, so I cashed in my life insurance policy
> and bought it. Terry also went with me for my insurance, road test and driving
> licence, and I am still with the same insurance broker who has also moved twice
> since his first office on Bradley Ave.
> During that year we lived on McClary Street we would walk downtown as
> Eaton’s was on Wellington (closed 1999) and it was the largest store in a small
> indoor mall. I also did quite a bit of walking along the river, which was close by
> and had a walking path its full length. Over several weeks I walked from
> Highbury as far as Springbank Park in the Byron district.
> Joan and Linda would walk to the A & P Food Store on Byron Baseline Road
> (now Metro Supermarket and at a different location) for groceries and only
> when they had a lot to carry would they take the Richmond bus that stopped
> within a few houses of where we lived.
> Both kids eventually got jobs, Carl in an electronics firm on Dundas Street
> and Linda in a video rental store, first on Baseline Road and later on
> Wonderland Road near Commissioners Rd. They both went to work by bus but
> occasionally when the weather was bad I would pick them up.
> By fall, when we had been in that house for nearly a year, we decided we
> needed more room so we started looking for another house. The real estate
> agent we contacted talked us into buying rather than renting so Joan looked at a
> 110                   Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> lot of properties that were within our price range. I also went to see many of
> them. We eventually settled on the place we are in now, a townhouse in a condo
> complex, three bedrooms, one and a half baths, and a recreation room and
> laundry and storage in the basement.
> We moved in in October and have been here since. Carl decided to go to
> Venezuela, where Cathy Khan was living, once he had worked long enough to
> pay for the flight. He had been corresponding with her since they met on a bus
> to Calgary back in 1982.
> In May of 1985 we decided to take a trip down to The Maritimes and Linda
> decided to come with us and share expenses. We left on a Sunday and stopped
> overnight at a motel just outside the town of Gananoque, Ontario. The next day
> we drove down the St. Lawrence Parkway and took the Long Sault Parkway
> drive out into the St. Lawrence River, the other side of Cornwall.
> We got on to the wrong road through Montreal and were held up quite a bit
> so we did not get as far as we had planned. We stopped at a motel in
> Plessisville, Quebec, overnight. From there we carried on down the St.
> Lawrence on the Trans Canada as far as Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec, where we
> turned south and stopped overnight at Grand Falls, New Brunswick. Our motel
> was right beside the falls. From there we followed the St. John River first to
> Hartland where we crossed over the longest covered bridge in Canada. It is a
> good thing there was no traffic on it as we found out it was a one way bridge
> and we were going the wrong way. Next we drove through the city of
> Fredericton instead of taking the city by-pass. We had thought of visiting the
> pioneer village at Kings Landing ,but it was not open yet.
> We carried on to Moncton, New Brunswick, where we stopped for the night.
> The next morning before continuing, we visited the famous magnetic hill and
> experienced the sensation of feeling the car coasting up the hill. From there we
> went to Fort Beausejour (renamed Fort Cumberland in 1755). It was cold and
> windy and there were very few people there but we wandered around anyway.
> At Amhurst, Nova Scotia, we turned off the Trans Canada and followed the
> lighthouse route along Northumberland Straits through Pugwash and
> Tatamagouche to Pictou where I spent three months during the war. I did not
> recognize anything; even the dockyard, which was outside the town and where
> we were undergoing refit, was now inside the town. From there we
> 23. Time to return to Canada                      111
> went through New Glasgow and east the Canso Causeway, then northeast to
> Baddeck where we got a good deal on a motel for two nights. The next day we
> followed the Cabot Trail through the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. The
> following day we visited the Alexander Graham Bell museum in Baddeck, which
> contains many of his inventions. Bell spent his last years in Baddeck where he
> experimented with aircraft and hydrofoils. His home is nearby and is still lived
> in by his descendants.
> We went east from there to the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site,
> which has been much restored and is inhabited in the summer by students
> dressed in the 18th century clothing. We were there on June 1st, the first day
> they were officially open. Leaving there we followed the south shore of Bras
> d’Or Lake back to the mainland and stayed overnight in Sherbrooke, Nova
> Scotia, on the west shore of Sherbrooke Lake, where it was pouring rain.
> Sherbrooke is another community that is attempting to preserve it as it was
> back in the 19th century.
> The next day we followed the Nova Scotia south coast to Dartmouth, the first
> time we had been there since just after the war. The city has expanded
> considerably and we went out to the naval air station, now called HMCS 12 Wing
> Shearwater, but we could not find Marion Heights where we lived for nearly a
> year. We crossed the nearby, new Angus L. MacDonald Bridge to Halifax, but we
> did not stop there but went northwest up the valley to Grand Pre where the
> Evangeline Statue and church are located. We stayed the night to the west in
> Kentville.
> From there we left Nova Scotia and drove up through New Brunswick to
> Campbellton. On the way, between Miramichi and Bathurst, the road was under
> construction and we lost a lot of time there. It was not a very nice place where
> we spent the night Campbellton.
> In the morning we crossed into Matapedia, Quebec, and decided to drive
> around the Gaspe Peninsula. We had a nice day and were able to see Ile
> Bonaventure and Perce Rock. We stopped for a while in the town of Gaspe
> where my ship had put in for a boiler cleaning during the war. We continued on
> around the peninsula, which is a very scenic route, and we stopped for the night
> in the little village of Grande-Vallee where no one could speak English.
> We went on the next day through Rimouski and Riviere-du-Loup until we
> reached Quebec City where we stayed two nights. The next day
> 112                   Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> we took a well worth while sightseeing bus throughout the city. We covered
> both the upper and lower town, as well as the Plains of Abraham.
> From there we drove to Montreal along the north shore of the St. Lawrence
> River. We hit the city at rush hour and it seemed to take forever to get through
> the city. Eventually we reached Ontario where we stayed the night in
> Gananoque and returned home the following day.
> 24. Illness and university
> After coming back to Canada, I considered the idea of going back to
> university when I found it would not cost me anything for tuition as a senior
> citizen. So I went and secured a syllabus and found I could take a second year
> history course in music providing I had permission of the head of the
> department. I found out the head was Jeff Stokes so I made an appointment for
> an interview.
> As luck would have it, before I could see him, I took quite ill and was
> admitted to hospital. I went into the emergency room and do not remember
> anything after that until a week later. I learned that I had been in the intensive
> care unit during that time with tubes all over me. Joan was with me a good deal
> of the time and when I came to in the recovery room I was transferred to a
> ward. I found out that Joan had called Dr Stokes and postponed the interview.
> I came out of hospital after about five days and then went to the school for
> the interview. It went well and I started in September. I went to the registry
> office where they were able to obtain my transcripts from high school and the
> University of Toronto, but they could not give me any credits for the courses I
> took back then.
> The only reason I can think of for my illness was as a result of the stress and
> pollution I experienced when we went through Montreal during rush hour.
> I obtained a parking permit for the university and parked the two days a
> week in the Medway parking lot. The course itself was a lecture, one with
> tutorials and my tutor was Jeff Stokes. The other professor was Philip Downs.
> It was a large class of about 75 students, and I was the only one over 25 years of
> age. I only got to know a couple of kids that first year but they seemed to accept
> my presence with no difficulty. I had to write three essays that first year,
> something I had not done for nearly 50 years.
> Before starting school, I took a two-day course at the public library through
> Fanshaw College to prepare me, consisting of how to take notes, prepare for
> examinations, etc., and I think it helped. I ended the year with a B average.
> 
> 25. A trip back to Britain
> The next year, 1986, we decided to go back to England. I would be 65 that
> year and I wanted to sort out my pension, both from the paper and from the
> government. I had some money in the bank in Wells and it would be a good
> opportunity to close the account.
> We left around the 25th of May and flew into Cardiff airport because it was
> close to Wells. We had arranged to rent a car for a month and we picked it up in
> downtown Cardiff. I had been feeling not all that great and by the time we got
> to the service centre just over the Severn Bridge, I was bushed. I sat in the
> parking lot while Joan got some coffee.
> We went on to Wells where we had arranged to stay a few days with Gwen
> and Gordon McKenzie. Since we had returned to Canada they had moved out to
> Coxley, a little village between Wells and Glastonbury. While there I went to the
> bank in Wells and to the Wells Journal and renewed acquaintances. Another
> day we drove over to Shepton Mallet to visit Jill and Farhad Shahbahram who of
> course knew we were coming. We learned that one of the men that worked at
> the Wells Journal had become a Baha’í since we left. When we arrived at Wells, I
> went on Prednisone medication and it seemed to help.
> While in Wells, we went to Bath. I left Joan there while I took the train into
> London where I sold some of my stamps of Greece. I also visited the Baha’í
> National Office at Rutland Gate and took the 4 o’clock train back to Bath. On our
> way out of Wells we stopped to visit Josie at the Rifleman Arms where Joan
> worked for a while.
> After a few more days in Wells, we set out. We drove south through
> Glastonbury and Street to the M5 motorway and past Taunton. We left Exeter
> and crossed the north boundary of Dartmoor and entered Cornwall at
> Launceston. We spent a short time at Jamaica Inn. From there we drove south
> to St. Austral and then turned back east and visited the castle at Restormel, just
> north of Lostwithiel. From there we went northeast to Liskeard and Tavistock,
> then through the Dartmoor National Park and spent the night at a B & B at
> Bovey Tracey.
> The next day we went to Exeter and drove along the Dorset south coast. We
> stopped for an hour or so in Lyme Regis, which we had visited
> 
> 25. A trip back to Britain                       115
> several times before. From there we drove east through Dorchester, bypassed
> Bournemouth, Southampton and Portsmouth, then through Chichester and on
> to Brighton, East Sussex. Here we left the south coast and went to Lewes and
> then to the opera house at Glyndebourne. There was a performance about to
> begin and we could see over the fence the patrons in their evening dresses
> strolling in the garden before the curtain went up. The theatre is located in an
> old manor house. We did not attend; as well as not being properly dressed, it
> was much too expensive.
> We left there looking for somewhere to spend the night. We headed north
> towards London, confident that we would find a B & B somewhere along the
> route, but there were none. When we reached the M25 motorway (the ring road
> around London), we decided to bypass the city and head north. We did not
> realize that we were on the ring road going clockwise for over fifty miles before
> we left it. We came off at Enfield and drove north; the first place we came
> across was a pub in Ware. Joan went in and we managed to get the last room
> available. However, we were able to relax and a little after 8:30 pm we came
> down and had an excellent pub meal in the bar. The place was right on the
> highway and there were trucks passing by all night long but we were tired
> enough that we slept well.
> We headed the next day north east by back roads. We went through
> Sudbury to the pretty little town of Lavenham where we had a lunch. Then we
> went east to the north of Ipswich, we took a “B” road north to Snape where,
> although it was a miserable drizzly day, we wandered around The Red House,
> the former home of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, and where many of their
> operas were first performed. As well as Snape Maltings Concert Hall, an arts
> complex on the banks of the River Alde at Snape, Suffolk, where there were
> master classes, piano workshops, etc.
> We did not go to the coast at Aldeburgh but headed northwest through
> Saxmundham, Suffolk, where I had stayed one weekend, to Framlingham Castle.
> Then by back roads through Eye, and by-passing Norwich, spent the night at a B
> & B in West Rudham.
> Next day we went to visit the royal residence at Sandringham. We did not go
> into the house but wandered in the garden and bought a souvenir booklet.
> From there we went on to King’s Lynn where we stopped in the centre of the
> town. It was pretty dead as it was Sunday afternoon and we drove out of the
> parking lot the wrong way on a one-way section but
> 116                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> did not meet anybody. When we left there we crossed the Ouse River and
> headed straight for Grantham where we stayed for a couple of days with Tim
> and Lyn.
> The following day we visited some people in the morning and in the
> afternoon we went to Tattersall Castle where I got a great picture of a peacock
> with its tail feathers spread; it seemed to do it on queue when its picture was
> about to be taken. The next day we decided to go to Skegness. It was cold and
> windy and there were not many people at the Butlin’s Holiday Camp there (now
> the Butlins’ Skegness Resort). Tim and I played a couple of games of snooker
> but a lot of the attractions were not open. Maybe it was too early in the season;
> it was the first week of June.
> The third day we went over to Oakham to see if it had changed much in the
> past eight years. The only person we saw that we knew was Tony, the cobbler
> who was a member of the local Baha’í community.
> The next morning we set off fairly early and drove straight up the A1
> motorway as far as Wetherby where we turned off to the east. A few miles
> down this “B” road we came to the site of the civil war battle of Marston Moor
> (1644), west of York.
> There was nothing there except a monument. We carried on to Castle
> Howard, by-passing the city of York. This is one of the stateliest manor houses
> in England and was used in the TV series “Bridgehead Revisited”. It rained all
> the time we were there and we were able to tour of the interior but had to
> forego the grounds. They had a shuttle service to the house from the parking
> lot.
> The next place we went to was Riveaulx Abbey, one of the five large abbeys
> of Yorkshire that were looted during the reign of King Henry VIII. It is situated
> in a kind of hollow and above it is a terrace with Greek styled temples at either
> end. There were not many people there as it was quite dull and drizzly most of
> the day. The walk to the terrace was quite a distance from the parking lot
> through the woods.
> We decided to get a B & B in Ripon and it was here we had the unfortunate
> experience of getting some chicken in a restaurant that was inedible; Joan
> ended up with a hot dog we got from a street vendor.
> The following day we went to visit Fountains Abbey. It is in a large park
> area and the abbey itself is a good mile from the parking lot. We had coffee in
> the visitor centre and set out. I was unable to walk the full distance to the
> abbey but we walked far enough that we were at least able to see it.
> 25. A trip back to Britain                         117
> When we left there we headed north. We went by way of the interior
> avoiding the heavily traveled roads, through Heapham, Lincolnshire, before
> joining the A1 motorway north to Newcastle upon Tyne, and then west where
> we got a B & B in Haydon Bridge, a quiet little town in Hexham. We spent the
> night there and next day visited Hadrian’s Wall. We did not have time to go to
> the Roman town there but we drove along the wall and at one point walked a
> bit along the wall for a short time. We stopped at the Roman Army Museum,
> Greenhead, and saw a lot of artifacts. Many new items are still being
> discovered. Joan bought a little model of a Roman soldier. From there we went
> north via Jedburgh to Galashiels where we got a B & B. It was very nice so
> decided to stay two nights.
> That evening it was quite nice out so we drove back over to Melrose Abbey,
> made famous by Sir Walter Scott and where Robert Bruce’s heart is supposed to
> be buried.
> The next morning we drove east to Kels and onto Coldstream, where we
> visited the church at Culloden, the battle site, 1746, of the last battle on English
> soil between the Scots and English. From there we drove over to Lindisfarne or
> the Holy Island, to visit Lindisfarne Castle and the ruins of Lindisfarne Priory.
> This is the place where the Vikings first raided the coast of Britain. We crossed
> to the island on a causeway at low tide, so we had to return before high tide
> when the road is under water. Then we went south to the town of Bamburgh,
> Northumberland, which has one of the largest castles in the northwest. It has
> been used in many films including “Mary Queen of Scots”. On the way west to
> Galashiels we stopped at Floors Castle northwest of Kelso. This castle has been
> the estate house of the Innes-Ker family for over 300 years, and was used in the
> movie “Greystoke, the Legend of Tarzan”.
> Next day before setting out we visited Abbotsford House, the home of Sir
> Walter Scott, on the banks of the Tweed River, just outside Galashiels, and
> where his great granddaughter still lives. Much of his possessions are
> preserved in the house. We then drove north, by-passing Edinburgh, and
> crossed the Forth Bridge. We drove north through Perth, past the ancient city
> of Scone and arrived in the early evening at Braemar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland,
> where some of the famous Scottish highland games are held. We stopped at a B
> & B, and went downtown for some pizza. I phoned Wendi Momen from a call
> box and we had a good chat. Back at the B & B we went into the common room
> where there were quite a few guests.
> The next morning the rain was pouring down. We set off east, past Braemar
> Castle and stopped at Balmoral Castle, another royal residence. In
> 118                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> spite of the rain we walked the considerable distance to the house where we
> went through those parts of the castle open to visitors and had coffee in the
> coffee shop. Then we went north across the Lecht, a ski area. The elevation is
> fairly high and we were surprised when the rain turned to snow—this was June!
> Coming back down the snow turned to rain and we stopped at Cawdor Castle.
> We did not go in as it was so wet.
> When we turned back east it cleared up somewhat and we stopped at the
> Culloden Battlefield, the last stand of Bonnie Prince Charlie. We only stopped at
> the visitor centre as it was so miserable and windy, but we saw a film on the
> battle. From there we went to Inverness where we found a very nice B & B. The
> only other guests were a couple on leave from the Israeli army.
> The following day we drove down the north shore of Loch Ness. The road is
> right on the edge of the loch but we did not see any monster. We left the loch at
> Invermoristan and turned west along the lonely road to Kyle of Lochalsh,
> passing through Glen Moriston and near the Eileen Donan Castle made famous
> in many photographs and paintings, on the tidal island of the same name. We
> took the ferry on the short ride to the Isle of Skye and drove north as far as the
> capital Portree where Joan went to do some window shopping. We would have
> liked to drive on to Dunvegan, but did not feel we had time. We returned to the
> mainland via Kylerhae over a rough track and took the ferry that does not run
> often and we had to wait for it. The road came down a little grade over a hill
> and ended right on the edge of the water.
> On the other side we stopped for coffee in a nice coffee shop, and then drove
> on to Invergarry, Scotland, where we stopped for the night.                  Our
> accommodation was not a B & B so we had to drive up the road for food.
> Next day we drove south, past Fort William to Ballachulish where instead of
> crossing at the bridge we drove all the way around Loch Leven to the village of
> Kinlochleven, and down the other side. We stopped at the Glencoe visitor
> centre. Glencoe was the site of a great museum at one time but is now a ski
> centre. From there down Loch Linnhe to Dunstaffnage, where the HMCS Orkney
> underwent a refit back in 1945, and we stopped and toured the partially ruined
> castle there.
> We then drove through Oban south as far as Lochgilphead and back north to
> Inveraray. We did not arrange B & B’s there so we went on east to Arrochar at
> the head of Loch Long. The next morning we went back to
> 25. A trip back to Britain                          119
> Inveraray and stopped at the castle. It is a kind of fairy tale type castle and it is
> where Rudolph Hess detained during World War II. We returned to Arrochar,
> travelled east to Loch Lomond, down the west shore of the loch and south to
> Dumbarton, then southeast to Kilpatrick where we crossed the Erskine Bridge
> over the River Clyde. We then turned west to Greenock and nearby Gourock, but
> we could not find the place where we lived or where I was stationed that last
> year of the war. We headed south and stopped for lunch at Largs, and then
> drove on past Ayr to Culzean Castle. This is where General Dwight Eisenhower
> had apartments during the war, where he lived when he could find the time,
> then down the coast past Ballantrae, South Ayrshire. We could see the small
> island of Ailsa Craig out in the Firth of Clyde. We stopped for the night in
> Newton Stewart.
> In the morning we drove to Castle Douglas where we had coffee and on to
> Dunfries where we took a side trip through Lockerbie to Ecclefechan, the
> birthplace home of Thomas Carlyle whose most famous work was The French
> Revolution: A History. We visited the house and then west on to Gretna Green,
> which at one time was a favourite destination for English couples who wanted
> to get married in a hurry. They still capitalize on this heritage, although it is no
> longer serving that purpose. We crossed back into England and stopped at
> Keswick, in the Lake District National Park, where we stayed for two nights.
> The next day we went back towards Penrith and drove down the shore of
> Ullseater glacial lake, and then continued south until we came to the tourist
> visitor centre in Windermere. We had coffee or coke there and then to Leven
> House in Windermere where there was an exhibition of the work of Beatrix
> Potter who wrote her Peter Rabbit books near here (Hill Top Farm, east of Near
> Sawrey, is 3 miles to the southwest).
> On our way back to Keswich, we stopped at Dove Cottage, where William
> Wordsworth and his sister lived for a time and where he entertained other poet
> friends.
> The next day we drove down the west side of Lake Windermere and then
> drove around Coniston Water (a lake). We then headed for the M6 motorway
> through Kendal and headed south. The weather turned quite warm. The M6
> motorway enabled us to by-pass Birmingham, and apart from a short side trip
> to visit the battle site of Edgehill, we arrived at Banbury for the night. We went
> in the centre of Banbury for dinner. It was here we had a slight accident with
> the car backing out of the B & B driveway.
> The next day we went into Woodstock and spent the morning at Blenheim
> Palace, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Marlborough. From there we went
> to Moreton-in-Marsh (the Cotswolds district) and Bourton-on-the-Hill where
> we stopped as there was a kind of fair going on. We then headed for the M40
> 120                   Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> motorway through Broadway and stopped at Rose-on-Wye for coffee. Leaving
> there we came down through Monmouth to join the M4 motorway at Newport,
> which we left to drive into Llanelli and found a B & B at Pembrey where we
> stayed for 2 nights.
> The following day we visited Kidwelly Castle and then went to the tip of
> Wales through Carmarthen and Haverfordwest to St. Davids, the cathedral city
> of Wales. We visited the cathedral and Bishops Palace, which was at the bottom
> of a hill. From there we went to Fishguard where we watched the Sealink Ferry
> (now with the Stena Line) setting out for Rosslare, Eire, and saw a couple of
> young people struggling with a sailboard. We stopped on the way back to
> Pembrey at Cardigan for coffee.
> In the morning we visited the local park before setting out for Brecon. We
> went via Llandovery and spent some time finding Jeremy and Christine’s house
> which was off the main road between Brecon and Sennybridge. We spent the
> evening there but had to sleep on the floor downstairs as their daughter had
> chicken pox. In the afternoon of the next day we set out for Cardiff over the
> Brecon Beacons to Merthyr Tydfil and Pontypridd. We spent the night at a
> motel there and returned the rental car and took a taxi to the airport where we
> left for home the next day. We caught the Robert Q Airbus back to London.
> 26. Holidays in Ontario,
> Alberta and British Columbia
> The next year, 1987, we had planned to take a long trip around Ontario going
> up to Hearst and across to Cochrane but it did not pan out. We set off okay and
> drove part way along the Lake Huron shore through Kincardine and
> Southampton. We stopped for the night in Wiarton at a motel just to the north
> of the town. The next day we drove along the western shore of southeastern
> Georgian Bay, over near Cape Croker and stopped in Lions Head where Joan and
> Rita had stayed back in the sixties. We caught the afternoon ferry from
> Tobermory to South Baymouth and drove north to Manitoulin and through to
> Little Current where we stayed the night in a motel on a hill. While there we
> decided not to on with our original plan for some reason, and, as near as I can
> remember, we returned home going around the east side of southeastern
> Georgian Bay.
> On our way home we stopped at Sault Sainte Marie among the Hurons, near
> modern Midland. We had been there once before when the University of
> Western Ontario was excavating the site. It has now been completely restored
> and is quite impressive.
> By the next year, 1988, Linda and Jack were living in Vancouver. They
> invited us to visit them so we set out on May 12th by Airbus to Toronto where
> we caught a plane to Calgary. Paul met us at the airport and we went north
> straight to Innisfail, central Alberta, where he was living. The next day we took
> a drive around Innisfail, saw the dam and went to the mall. That evening we
> met Laddi’s sister.
> On the Saturday we picked up Michael who was living with Debbie in
> Calgary and went for a drive to Banff and Lake Louise, which was still frozen. It
> was quite cold in the mountains. We drove along the secondary roads rather
> than the Trans-Canada Highway and saw lots of elk and mountain goats, as well
> as a couple of wolves. We drove on up to where the Canadian Pacific Railway
> Upper Spiral, located inside Cathedral Mountain, emerges at the top of Kicking
> Horse Pass. On the way home we stopped for supper in Banff.
> On Sunday we spent the day at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, 6
> km northwest of Drumheller, Alberta, the dinosaur capital of Canada, and also
> saw where the original dinosaur find was made by Joseph Burr Tyrrell in 1884.
> On Monday Michael took us into Calgary where we boarded a bus for
> Vancouver. The first stop was Canmore and at Banff picked up some lifesavers.
> Lunch was at Golden. There was a coffee break at Revelstoke and supper was in
> Kamloops. We drove down the Coquihalla Highway, a
> 
> 122                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> fairly new road and had coffee at Hope. Jack and Linda met us at the bus depot.
> On Tuesday we did not do anything as we were quite tired. Not until
> Wednesday did we go out and Jack was able to borrow a car for us from the
> dealership where he worked.
> The next day it rained so we went to the planetarium. On Thursday in the
> morning we went to Queen Elizabeth Park and the arboretum there. On Friday
> we drove across the Lions Gate Bridge and up Howe Sound as far as Squamish.
> We were there a few hours after lunch and on the way back we stopped at
> Horseshoe Bay.
> Saturday we took Linda to Burnaby Mall and on Sunday went downtown to
> Gastown; it rained all day. The next day we went to the University of British
> Columbia to visit the Museum of Anthropology. The building itself was closed
> but we could see through the windows. Outside in the grounds were several
> Haida buildings and totem poles. We drove around the campus and back along
> English Bay. In the evening the five of us (including Lori) went to play bingo but
> none of us won anything. We had been here a week by this time.
> On Tuesday morning we took the ferry from Tsawwassen, just south of
> Vancouver airport to Sidney, Vancouver Island. Ferries do not go from
> Vancouver itself anymore. After passing through the Gulf Islands we reached
> Sidney where we had lunch. On the way south to Victoria we stopped a few
> hours at Butchart Gardens which are well-known all over. We got a motel in
> Esquimalt for two nights. We drove to the Canadian Forces Base in
> southwestern Esquimalt where I was stationed at the beginning of the war but
> nothing was familiar.
> Next day we went east to downtown Victoria. We visited Miniature World in
> the Fairmont Empress Hotel and parked for a few minutes on the harbour
> where there was a good view of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
> building. We then drove around Beacon Hill Park and then out to Oak Bay and
> the Marine Drive to Uplands.
> Thursday morning we drove north out of Victoria and made our first stop at
> the Maxwell International Baha'í School (1988–2008) on Shawnigan Lake. We
> were treated to a tour but there were no classes as it was not quite ready to be
> opened. Some of the buildings were not quite ready. We stopped later for
> coffee in Duncan. We got lost just past Ladysmith while looking for the
> Petroglyph
> 26. Holidays in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia         123
> Provincial Park. We arrived in Nanaimo in time for the ferry that we took back
> to Horseshoe Bay where we had dinner before returning to Vancouver. We were
> tired so the next day we stayed in and did not go anywhere.
> On Saturday we went back to the planetarium to pick up some gifts. Then
> we took a drive around the grounds of the Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.
> On Sunday the 29th Jack took Lori to Victoria for a day. I took Linda to work
> in the morning and at two o’clock we picked her up and went for a drive up to
> Capilano River canyon—it is very commercialized now. We did not go on the
> swinging bridge. We came back to Vancouver via the Narrows Bridge.
> Next day we did not do much except take a walk. In the evening when Jack
> and Lori returned, he took us all up Grouse Mountain in the cable car where we
> had a very dinner—but there were magnificent views over the city.
> On Tuesday we went to Stanley Park and after a while we crossed the Lions
> Gate Bridge to Park Royal Mall in West Vancouver. It was the first shopping
> mall in Canada. We stayed home in the evening while Jack and Linda went to
> play bingo.
> Wednesday it rained but the three of us went downtown to Chinatown. We
> visited some shops and tried to get coffee in a shop but they only served tea.
> We visited the Sun Yat Sen Gardens before returning home.
> The next day we all had breakfast out and then went to Burnaby Mall again.
> When we came home Jack took us to the Maritime Museum. When we came
> home we got packed and Jack and Linda took us to the bus station. We decided
> to return to Calgary by the Kettle Valley route which takes longer.
> The first stop was at Hope where we had coffee, then Princeton and
> Penticton where we had breakfast. Then Grand Forks for a coffee break and
> lunch at Rossland. Stops then were at Trail, Creston and Cranbrook to Radium
> Hot Springs. Paul met us in Calgary. We had supper on Saturday and in Calgary
> on Sunday where we visited the museum. We left Calgary by plane on Monday.
> 27. Side trips to Ontario and Winnipeg
> During the fall Tim visited us. Since leaving Waterloo where we had visited
> him, he had worked in White River and then gone on to North Bay, Ontario. The
> next spring we decided to visit him where he had a job as a bartender at the
> Golf Club. We stopped off at Reinette’s on the way and got as far as Parry Sound
> that night. We went on to North Bay the next day after picking up a map at the
> Chamber of Commerce.
> Tim gave us a tour of the hotel where he worked and we had ginger ale on
> the house. The next day we drove to Algonquin Provincial Park where we went
> into the park on the north side at Kiosh on the north side, and later drove to
> Callander and North Bay. In the morning I discovered I had a flat tire so I had to
> have it repaired. Then we took a 3-hour cruise on Lake Nipissing to Callander
> and back to North Bay. That evening Tim treated us to a meal at the hotel and I
> remember I ate venison for the first time.
> On Saturday, after 3 days, we left, stopping for toast and coffee at Mattawa,
> and stopping for the night at Perth. The next day we went south to Gananoque
> where we stayed two nights. On Monday we took a cruise to the Thousand
> Islands in the St. Lawrence River that lasted most of the day. We had lunch on
> the boat.
> The next day we set out for home. After having lunch at Presqu’isle
> Provincial Park we arrived back in London via Guelph where we had dinner,
> then home via Stratford.
> Next year we did not take a long holiday but made several one-day tours in
> the area. One weekend we went and stayed at a motel in Kingsville. The first
> day we spent at Point Pelee National Park where we went down to the point
> and also walked around the marsh on the boardwalk. The next day we went on
> to Amherstburg where we spent some time at Fort Malden, part of which has
> been restored. We returned home via Highway 2 along Lake St. Clair, Chatham,
> Moraintown and home.
> Another day we went to Dresden where we visited the Uncle Tom’s Cabin
> Museum. Then we went on and drove around Walpole Island. On another
> occasion we went to Brantford where we spent some
> 
> 27. Side trips to Ontario and Winnipeg                      125
> time at the Bell Homestead. Then we went on to the Iroquois Museum and the
> Chapel of the Mohawks. We drove from there to the Six Nations Reserve where
> we visited the Pauline Johnson home.1 It is in a badly dilapidated condition and
> needs restoration. We came home through the town of Ohsweken on the Indian
> Reserve.
> On another occasion we drove to Norwich and Otterville where they have an
> old water mill on Otter Creek and also an herb garden.
> Another time we drove up through Kitchener to St. Jacobs, Elora and Fergus.
> We visited the West Montrose Covered Bridge, also known as the “Kissing
> Bridge”, it is one of the oldest Canadian covered bridges, it is in Mennonite
> country.
> We also did used some of The London Free Press Shunpiker Mystery Tours2
> vouchers that we had collected but not used. Some of these tours included the
> Longwood Conservatory area and an interesting windmill near Goderich. We
> generally stuck to back roads where there was less traffic. We often visited
> places like Bayfield and Port Stanley as well as Sparta, Port Bruce and Port
> Burwell.
> The next year, 1991, we were invited to visit Tim in Winnipeg. It was late
> August and very hot. We did not get away until ten o’clock so we only got as far
> as Cheboygan, Michigan. The next day, after crossing the Mackinac Bridge to
> Mackinaw City, we stopped at a small village for some great lemon pie.
> We had lunch at a picnic area on Lake Superior near Marquette. We spent
> the night near Ashland. The next day we went through Duluth and stopped on
> the other side at Starving Marvin’s, a truck stop, for coffee. Stopped at Bemidji
> for groceries and went on to Grand Forks, which we overshot and had to turn
> around and come back to get the last motel room. After breakfast we stopped at
> Pembina on the Manitoba border for some duty free and here we damaged the
> tailpipe on a speed bump and had to wait an hour for repairs. We stopped for
> lunch at St. Jean Baptiste and arrived in Winnipeg around four. On Saturday,
> Paul, Laddi and Linda arrived from Alberta. They stayed at a motel and we all
> had brunch on Sunday morning and Tim and I went back to the house while the
> others went down to the Forks Market.
> That evening Joan and Paul had a confrontation that had a bad effect on Joan,
> which still exists. Monday we did nothing and on Tuesday we took Tim up to
> Gimli, the old Icelandic settlement on Lake Winnipeg. The next day we had
> breakfast at Tim’s work place—it was still extremely hot outside.
> 
> 1   Chiefswood National Historic Site: the home of Six Nations Chief George H. M.
> Johnson (1816–1884), the birthplace of poet Emily Pauline Johnson (1861–1913), and
> the Johnson family home until 1884.
> 2   Shunpiking is the act of deliberately avoiding roads that require payment of a fee or
> toll to travel on them.
> 126                        Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> We set out for home on Thursday and stopped at the visitor centre at the
> Ontario-Manitoba border. We stopped early for the day at Kenora.
> The next night we stopped at Uppsala. We bypassed Thunder Bay and got as
> far as Marathon. The next morning we stopped at the White River Cafe where
> Tim worked for a while; we also stopped at the Wawa Tourist Information
> Centre. We stopped in Lake Superior Provincial Park so Joan could make a
> sketch. We stayed the night at Batchawana Bay. The next day we got as far as
> Little Current.
> The next morning we arrived at South Baymouth, but there was no room on
> the morning ferry and we had to wait for the four o’clock sailing. We left the car
> in line so we would not miss the next one and had to spend six hours on a cold
> and rainy day. Joan walked around the town several times while I stayed put;
> we were on this ferry at twenty to four. The crossing was quite rough and Joan
> spent the trip in the washroom along with several others. After arriving at
> Tobermory, we went straight on to Wiarton, where we had a bit of supper and
> on to Wingham for coffee at ten o’clock. It poured all the way home where we
> arrived at 11:30 pm.
> The next year, 1992, we had a fair amount of company, so we were only able
> to get away for a short holiday. We decided to go back to Gananoque, Ontario,
> and we set out in that direction. We took the northern route and stopped to
> visit Reinette on the way. That evening we stayed at a motel just outside
> Orangeville and the next day went into Kleinburg, a very pretty town just north
> of Toronto where we spent a couple of hours at the McMichael Art Gallery
> where they have an extensive collection of Canadian paintings, most notably the
> work of the Group of Seven and Emily Carr.1
> Coming out of the art gallery it started to rain and then it poured. We
> stopped in King City for coffee and continued east. The rain did not let up and
> the forecast was not good, so we stopped for the night in Norwood where we
> had stayed before. The next day we turned back and decided to go to Huntsville
> driving up the east side of Lake Simcoe, through Minden and Dorset. We stayed
> at the same resort we had many years before when we had rented a cabin on
> the lake. This time there was a motel and we took several drives around the
> area. After three or four days we set out for home.
> 
> 1     The Group of Seven, was a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933,
> originally consisting of Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Frank
> Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley. Emily Carr (1871–
> 1945) was a Canadian artist and writer who was inspired by the Indigenous peoples
> of the Pacific Northwest Coast.
> 28. A holiday on Prince Edward Island
> Next year, 1993, we decided we would like to visit Prince Edward Island
> where we had never been. We got away on a Sunday morning in early June and
> stayed the first night in Gananoque. We crossed the Ivy Lea Bridge into New
> York State where we crossed the Adirondacks. We were held up awhile by
> having to detour around Saranac Lake. We got lost in Plattsburg trying to find
> the ferry across Lake Champlain but eventually made it into Vermont where we
> started looking for a motel. We could not find one around Montpelier because
> of road repairs but did find one at Marshfield, which looked like the Stratford
> Inn on the Newhart show. Next day we entered New Hampshire and took a long
> detour to go through the White Mountain Park where the scenery was quite
> spectacular. We stayed the night at the Farmington Motel. Next day we went
> through Maine as far as Calais where we crossed back into New Brunswick at St.
> Stephen where we stayed the night.
> Thursday morning it was raining. We stopped at St. George and in the
> afternoon left the main road to drive through Fundy National Park. We could
> not see much because of the rain. After leaving the park we also stopped at the
> Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park where it was still pouring rain. We stayed the
> night at a motel in Shediac. In the morning we boarded the ferry and it turned
> out to be a nice day. After docking we drove to Summerside where we checked
> into a motel there for three days. After lunch we toured the west end of the
> island, going to O’Leary where they have a potato museum—big
> disappointment, then followed the coast road up to the North Cape Wind
> Station where we had coffee and then back to the motel.
> Next day we visited the Woodleigh Miniature Garden where they have
> scaled down replicas of famous buildings, but not so small you could not go in
> them. Then on to New London and visited the birthplace of Lucy Maud
> Montgomery (1874–1942; author of Anne of Green Gables and many other
> novels). Then we went to Green Gables, made famous in the novel, and also
> visited Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum. Then we went on to Rustico Harbour
> and Brackley Beach where we had dinner.
> On Sunday we drove along the south coast as far as Fort Amherst. This was
> not open but we wandered about the old fort. Then to a doll
> 
> 128                   Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> museum but it was not open either. We returned to Summerside by a different
> route.
> Monday morning it was raining so we went straight into Charlottetown. We
> toured the Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly building, which is called
> the Confederation Building because it was here that Confederation took place in
> 1867 when Canada became an independent nation. Joan also looked through the
> Art Gallery next door while I waited for her. Then we went on to Wood Island
> where we booked into the only motel. We took a ride around part of the east
> coast of the island visiting Murray Harbour, Montagne and Georgetown.
> On Tuesday the sun was shining when we boarded the ferry over to Pictou
> where we lunched and then took the Glooscap Trail from Truro to Noel. In
> Wolfville we drove around the campus of Acadia University and then down the
> Annapolis Valley to Middleton where we spent the night.
> Wednesday (our wedding anniversary) we went on to Fort Anne, Annapolis,
> and then on to the 1930s replica of the 1605 Port Royal Habitation, which was
> founded by Samuel de Champlain (1574–1635) and the first French settlement in
> North America. Then we stopped at the Annapolis Power Station that is
> powered by the Bay of Fundy tides, which are the highest in the world. We
> went on to the Champlain Motel outside of town that we booked for two nights
> as it was a quite nice place with a view over the bay. We drove on to Digby
> passing HMCS Cornwallis naval training base, but it started to rain so we went
> back to the motel.
> Thursday we drove back to Digby and then down Digby Neck visiting
> Gullians Cove, Centreville and Sandy Cove. We crossed by ferry to Long Island
> and dropped into the visitor centre, then on to Flour Cove, and Freeport, and
> Tiverton where we went up to the lighthouse. We then returned the same way
> and stopped in Mink Cove and around Sandy Cove again, and the visitors park
> at Middle Lake. Had supper, pizza, in Digby and then back to the motel.
> The next day we set off across the province to the Atlantic Ocean coast, to
> Kejimkujik National Park, one hundred miles of bush. At the edge there was a
> visitor centre but Joan would not get out of the car because of the black flies.
> We reached the coast at Liverpool where we had coffee. We drove along the
> coast via Petite River and Le Havre where we took the ferry and then on to
> Lunenberg, where we spent some time at the Maritime
> 28. A holiday on Prince Edward Island                  129
> Museum. This is where the Bluenose fishing and racing gaff rig schooner was
> built in 1921, commemorated by a replica, Bluenose II, built in here 1963. We
> went on from there and took a motel in Chester.
> In the morning we drove around Chester, even though it was raining again.
> Then we stopped at Hubbards for coffee—Joan would like to live here (this is
> when the TV series “Black Harbour” was filmed). Then on to Peggy’s Cove that
> we had visited before. We were on our way again in the afternoon bypassing
> Halifax, not stopping until we reached Parrsboro, then past Springhill (Anne
> Murray’s home) to Amherst where we spent the night. We had to drive down
> the Trans Canada Highway into New Brunswick to find anything to eat, but it
> proved to be pretty good.
> Next morning we set off for home again. We stopped outside Sussex for
> coffee. Another hot day, no picnic areas, so stopped at 4 o’clock at a motel at
> Woodstock and had our lunch for supper. The next day we reached Riviere-du-
> Loup by 2:30 pm and stayed the night at Berthier-sur-Mer just outside Quebec
> City where there was a lovely view across the St. Lawrence River.
> Next day was a bad one. In the morning we stopped at Saint-Antoine-de-
> Tilly and chatted in our broken French with the new young owners of a
> restaurant. Then we got lost crossing the Quebec Bridge. We traveled west on
> the north side of the river and after by-passing Montreal tried unsuccessfully to
> find a motel at Lachute. We then drove all the way to Hull and got lost again, so
> we crossed the St. Lawrence River into Ottawa and headed out on Highway 7.
> We did not find a motel until about 8 pm at Carleton Place—not great.
> Next morning, Wednesday, we stopped at a park in Perth, then on through
> Madoc to Norwood where we stayed at the Highlander Motel, stopping around
> 2:30 pm where we could rest up after the previous day. The next day we went
> via Peterboro to Port Perry where we had coffee, then on by Uxbridge and
> Newmarket to Schomberg for lunch. It was a very hot day. We stopped to see
> Reinette in Palmerston then on home.
> 29. Short trips, golden anniversary,
> graduation and failing health
> In 1994 we thought we might tour Northern Ontario again but it did not
> happen. We set out and lost our tail pipe in Wiarton. By the time we got it fixed
> with a new muffler we did not get to Tobermory until 5:30 pm where we
> stopped for the night. We caught the ferry to South Baymouth, Manitoulin
> Island, in the morning.
> We stopped at Manitowaning for coffee and booked into a motel in Little
> Current early in the afternoon. After lunch we set out around the island. We
> stopped first at Kagawoug and then on to Gore Bay. Then we went south to
> Providence Bay for coffee and a walk on the boardwalk. Then north to
> Mindemoya and east to Sandfield and dinner at Manitowaning. We stopped at
> the Indian Trading Post at Ten Mile Point and then back to the motel where we
> had to change rooms because of the smell.
> The next morning we went north to Espanola and then east to Sudbury. We
> drove by the Big Nickel and into Sudbury and further east to Sturgeon Falls and
> North Bay where we stopped for the night, but drove south to Callander for
> dinner. The following day we drove as far as Huntsville to the motel we had
> stayed at two years earlier. We did nothing on the third day but we drove out
> to the “Wairgaty” for dinner. In the morning we drove to Dorset and went up to
> the fire tower lookout. In the afternoon went through Algonquin Provincial
> Park where we saw a couple of moose and looked over the visitor centre at the
> east end. We had dinner at Spring Lake.
> Monday morning we drove around Hidden Valley, Huntsville, and stopped at
> Deerhurst Lodge and Great Western and picked up rate cards. After lunch we
> drove down to Fox Inn and then around Lake of Bays. Next day we wandered
> around Huntsville in the morning and the afternoon drove to Rosseau and
> Windermere and back to Huntsville via Port Sidney.
> Wednesday we set off for home down Highway 11, which we left at Orillia
> and had lunch at Bear Lake Provincial Park. On to Penetanguishene but we
> could not find a motel there so went back to Midland. Next day we went back to
> Penetanguishene and visited Discovery Harbour where we rode an old
> fashioned wagon around the area and went aboard one of the tall ships that was
> guided by a man who had been in the Canadian navy. Very hot today,
> 
> 29. Short trips, golden anniversary, graduation and failing health   131
> the temperature was in the thirties. We stopped for lunch in Wasaga Beach
> Provincial Park. We stopped at Brussels and Seaforth on our way home taking
> back roads, and finally home.
> The next two years, 1995 and 1996, we did not go anywhere. I was admitted
> to hospital in late May or early June each year and I was feeling pretty rough,
> especially since we had a lot of company both summers.
> Linda was staying with us and in June of 1995, Joan and I celebrated our 50th
> wedding anniversary. We received congratulations from both the Canadian
> Prime Minister and the Governor-General of Canada. Our children living in
> Iceland came: Vicki and Asgeir came with Nadia, and Geoff came with both
> Viktoria and Dagrun. Also Larry and Gladys came with Bruce, and Carl and
> Cathy with their kids. We had an open house the day before and on the day we
> all had dinner at Hooks Restaurant.
> The next year, 1996, was the year I graduated from the University of Western
> Ontario with a Bachelor of Music degree. It took ten years to get enough credits,
> and when the convocation came, I was too ill to attend. The office at Talbot
> College arranged to have the Dean, Geoff Stokes, and the Assistant Dean, Peter
> Clemens, come to our house and perform the ceremony. The faculty secretary
> and Public Relations representative were there and I got a write up in the
> university Western Alumni Gazette periodical. I also got a good write-up in The
> London Free Press that resulted in my receiving congratulations from people I
> went to school with 50 years ago and even one from the Baha’í Universal House
> of Justice in Haifa. For this occasion Tim and Aglesh came down from Iqaluit
> and she brought her three children with her. For both occasions the women
> decorated the house with streamers and balloons and it was quite festive.
> We did not go further than Sarnia once or twice or Port Stanley in 1995–1996.
> So the next year, 1997, we took two holidays—each a week in length.
> We left on June 8 1997 and arrived at San-Man Motel in Manchester, a small
> place just southwest of Port Perry. We had arranged with Medigas to carry a
> medical oxygen tank in the car. The next morning we went to Cullen Gardens in
> Whitby. This place has a fantastic miniature village, and we took two hours to
> walk around it. After returning to the motel, we went down to Palmer Park on
> the shore of Lake Scugog and then out to the end of Scugog Island. Next
> morning we went northeast to Bobcaygeon, which is on the Trent-Severn
> Waterway, and investigated
> 132                   Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> apartments overlooking the lock in Bobcaygeon. After lunch we went to
> Petroglyphs Provincial Park (site with Indigenous rock carvings) to see the
> exhibit, which is quite impressive. We returned to Port Perry via Burleigh Falls
> and Lakefield.
> The next morning we left for Huntsville, stopping on the way to visit the
> Kirkfield Lift Lock (Trent Severn Waterway, Lock 36). After lunch at Carnarvon,
> we booked into the Colonial Hotel, Huntsville for four nights. It is now under
> new ownership. We took it easy and the next morning we went into Dwight and
> Dorset and up to Lookout Point and around Lake of Bays, and took it easy for
> the rest of the day.
> After Medigas came from Orillia the next day to refill our medical oxygen
> tank, we took off for Windermere and Port Carling for lunch. Then we went on
> to Rosseau and returned to the Colonial Hotel, Huntsville. On Saturday we went
> into Huntsville and looked around after having car fixed (we ran out of power
> steering fluid).
> We left for home on Sunday and got lost around Camp Borden. After
> stopping at a park in Grand Valley, we dropped in to see Reinette before
> returning home.
> In September we booked into Buckeye Inn in Bobcaygeon and had Medigas
> from Peterborough install a medical oxygen tank in our room. On Monday Joan
> walked around town and picked up a street map and after lunch we drove
> around the town.
> On Tuesday we drove into Lindsay to get the tape deck fixed and on the way
> saw a field of llamas! The shop in Lindsay could not fix the tape-deck, but he
> directed us to another shop outside town on the way to Peterborough. While it
> was being fixed, we went into mall in Lindsay for lunch. On the way back we
> travelled along some back roads. Next day we went to Lagoon City on Lake
> Simcoe via Fenelon Falls and looked for Frank Nutson, one of my relatives on
> my grandmother’s side. After visiting him for a while we returned to Buckeye
> Inn in Bobcaygeon.
> On Thursday we drove to Bancroft where we had lunch and then on to
> Combermere, where it took about half an hour to find Terry’s place (Terry is my
> sister Ruth’s daughter). After visiting him, we had supper at Woodview on way
> back to Bobcaygeon. Next afternoon we drove all around Lake Pigeon,
> eventually stopping at Buckhorn for coffee. Saturday morning was Fall Fair day
> and watched a parade go by Buckeye Inn. In the afternoon we drove all the way
> up to Gooderham to see the fall colours which were quite spectacular. It was on
> the way back to Bobcaygeon that my disabled permit flew out the window and
> we drove at about 10 km an hour back along our route looking for it. After
> several kilometres, we stopped to let some cars go by and Joan spotted it just
> outside the car.
> 29. Short trips, golden anniversary, graduation and failing health   133
> We left for home on Sunday stopping for lunch at Newmarket. We stopped
> in to see Reinette but she was not home so visited another lady who lives in the
> same place, then home.
> During the winter (1997–1998), Dr Patterson referred me to Dr Richard
> Malthaner, a thoracic surgeon in London who performs a lung volume reduction
> surgery to make breathing easier for people with emphysema who are in
> otherwise good health. Appointments with Dr Richard Malthaner occupied me
> for most of the next year.
> I was referred to a thoracic rehabilitation program that is exclusively for
> people with lung problems. They only take eight people at a time and it consists
> of daily exercise, Monday to Friday, for six weeks. It took about an hour and a
> half each day and necessitated going to the hospital every day. It involved
> weights, stretches, and stationery bicycle and treadmill exercises. Following
> this I had numerous tests consisting of pulmonary functions, stress tests,
> nuclear scans, CAT scan, ECG and echo, etc. During this time I also had to have
> some liquid removed from my scrotum, and I have had cataract surgery on both
> eyes over the past couple of years.
> Last fall Vicki and Nadia came over for a holiday in October and this year she
> and Asgeir came. We went back to Bobcaygeon for a week at the end of
> September.
> We did other things since returning from England, the United Kingdom. The
> first spring after getting back we got in touch with Claude Lambert in
> Farmington Hills, Michigan, whom I had not seen since World War II. He invited
> us down and we took the bus and spent a few days with him and his wife. One
> day we went to the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn that I had
> never seen before. Another day we went to Belle Isle where we watched some
> people flying kites.
> We went to Niagara Falls several times. On one occasion we visited Norma
> Wiley at Niagara-on-the-Lake, and also visited Fort George which was occupied
> by the Americans during the War of 1812. Another time we attended her
> birthday party but we did not see much of her as there were so many people
> present.
> On another visit we went towards Lewiston, just north of Niagara Falls, to
> visit the Brock’s Monument in Queenston Heights Park and then to the
> historical museum on Lundy’s Lane, St. Catherines. We drove home along the
> Parkway to Fort Erie and home via Highway 3.
> 134                    Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> One time we took Tim with us and visited Marineland of Canada (a themed
> zoo and amusement park), Niagara Falls. It was a wet day in September and we
> had all the rides to ourselves. Joan would not go on Dragon Mountain, but Tim
> and I did. We went to Marineland of Canada one other time with Carl, Kathy
> and family but it was a hot Sunday and the place was crowded. We did not go
> on any rides. We saw the whole show but that was all we had time for as we
> were with a chartered bus trip and we had to leave with the bus. However, the
> bus broke down on the way home and it took forever to arrive home.
> The first eight years after returning to Canada, I was elected to the London
> Local Spiritual Assembly and I was the secretary for part of the time. I was also
> a member of the Baha’í teaching committee and remained on it after leaving the
> Assembly. I was also for a couple of years an Assistant to the Auxiliary Board
> Member Gordon Naylor and visited several nearby communities and also
> attended meetings at Keith Greeham’s and Gordon Naylor’s place in Dundas.
> While on the Local Spiritual Assembly of London, I was appointed London
> community representative on the Multi-Faith Committee for this area. We met
> monthly, mostly at the Canadian Pacific Railway office (where the secretary’s
> office was; now the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway). Part of our duties
> was to monitor inter-faith facilities at various institutions and their chaplains. I
> had the occasion to visit Sarnia General Hospital, North Lambton Rest Home,
> Woodstock Hospital, the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre and the London
> Psychiatric Hospital. I was with the committee for five years.
> 30. Childhood recollections
> It is really a privilege to have lived through most of the 20th century. I lived
> through the 1920s and have many memories of that period, bearing in mind that
> during the year 1930 I was only 8 years old.
> One of my earliest memories was living at the Comfort Terrace, a quadraplex
> on Jefferson Street near the tennis courts. We moved from there to the house
> my parents bought on Prince Street when I was four (the house at that time cost
> $2,000 and it took 15 years to pay off the mortgage). An early recollection was
> very general, that of impressions of the town. At that time the streets of Forest
> were not paved and the gravel streets had to be coated with oil every spring to
> keep the dust down. In the winter I remember a lot of sleighs and wagons on
> runners in the town pulled by horses. I can almost remember the smells at that
> time.
> Very few people had automobiles then and since anti-freeze had not been
> invented, they had to drain their radiators, remove the tires and put their cars
> up on blocks before the first freeze-up. Most car owners had either a Ford
> Model T or the later Model A’s, but there was the odd Pierce-Arrow, Stutz
> Bearcat and LaSalle.
> At that time there were four or five livery stables in town that looked after
> horses and rented buggies. There were two blacksmith shops, one of which
> lasted into the 1930s. Most of these livery stables evolved into garages and
> eventually car dealerships as the number of automobiles increased.
> The Kineto Theatre on King St. West opened in 1917. My parents took me to
> two or three films—they were silent of course. One was “Noah’s Ark” and
> another was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. I did not see a talkie movie until about 1928
> when I was taken to the Toronto Fair for a few days. The Kineto converted to
> talking pictures around 1929 or 1930. All I remember of them was the Saturday
> afternoon matinee where they showed serials that always ended with a cliffhanger to get you to come back next week. I think the admission price was 5
> cents.
> I remember being able to buy bubble gum with a sports or movie star card
> for a penny. We collected these things avidly and traded duplicates.
> 
> 136                   Harper John Pettypiece autobiography
> These were not the first premium cards. Cigarette packets contained cards, one
> of which was a series of golf players. My father collected poker hands in his
> packets and when you collected a certain number, you could redeem them for
> prizes. I know we got a card table with these poker hands and probably some
> other gifts.
> Kids today do not realize that up to the age of ten we would have maybe one
> birthday party where our friends would be invited. Other birthdays were
> family affairs and then not very special.
>
> — *Autobiography of Harper John Pettypiece (1921-2002) (Used by permission of the curator)*