Born in New Zealand, I lived mainly in small towns on the North Island. My father was a Bank Manager, and a Rotarian. My mother was a homemaker and I had 2 older brothers. We were a family of car enthusiasts.
In 1967 I joined the Union Steam Ship Company of NZ, working in Wellington, NZ’s Capital City. I spent 2 years there, handling ferry reservations before deciding to travel overseas.
Kaikohe was a small town I had lived in for 9 years and it had a sister-city in Canada, which was Duncan. In 1969, from NZ, I arranged a job with Whittome’s Travel Agency in Duncan and I arrived in Canada in July 1970 at age 21.
I worked for Whittome’s Travel for 19 years, 11 of those years as Manager. Duncan was a pleasant town to live in, fairly quiet and not too big.
Lynette and I met at a night-school class in 1972, trying to learn conversational French. We were married in 1975. Our only child, our daughter Kara, was born in 1981.
I joined the Rotary Club of Duncan in 1980, and have been a Rotarian ever since.
In 1989 I joined BCAA in Nanaimo as Travel Supervisor. I commuted from Duncan for the first couple of years and made-up my Rotary attendance at this club, officially joining the Rotary Club of Nanaimo North in May 1990.
Lynette worked for 18 years at the Cowichan District Hospital in Duncan, she retired in 1989, and in 1992 we bought a home here in Nanaimo.
After working for 20 years for BCAA, they closed down their travel agencies at the end of 2009. I next worked for Uniglobe Travel for 3 years before I was hired back for a year by BCAA as the Greeter for the Nanaimo office, finally retiring in 2014.
In 2016 our family was matched with a family of 5 refugees from Syria. For 4 interesting and enjoyable years we helped them to adapt to their new life in Canada. Eventually they moved to Vancouver, but we still stay in touch.
I’m still a car enthusiast, and for the last 16 years Lynette and I have been members of the local chapter of the Vintage Car Club. For many years we have been assisting in putting on the club’s annual Swap Meet held in Nanoose each June.
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