Editorially speaking...
Years ago, when I was invited to launch a weekly historical column in the Nanaimo newspaper (I think it was the Daily News which became the Harbour City Star then something else, I've lost track) a friend predicted that I'd be starved for research material "in four months".
Not a chance, I said; in four months I'll have more to work with than I do now.
This was part bravado on my part. I had hardly anything in my files in the way of Nanaimo history; just a couple of books and an abiding interest in the Hub City area's coal mining heritage, particularly Extension, where I'd scratched for bottles and artifacts for years.
But I knew I was right. History is like digging a hole: the more you dig the bigger it gets!
Looking Back ran for 10 years (500-plus columns) and I never wanted for stories. I did have a trump card, although not at first. My late friend and fellow historian Doris Benjamin, of the pioneering Cobble Hill Dougan family, volunteered to go to the Nanaimo Public Library for me on a regular basis and to print out the microfilmed pages of the Nanaimo Free Press. We covered from the paper's start in 1874 through 1895 before life intervened and Doris began devoting her time and energies to the Cowichan Heritage and the Cowichan Historical Societies, and volunteering in the Duncan Museum and Archives.
The column brought me another bonus, the chance to get to know Nanaimo's foremost amateur historian, the late John Cass, a retired ferry worker who grew up in neighbouring Lantzville. What a wealth of knowledge, much of it firsthand! I'd buy him lunch and then he'd walk me around downtown Nanaimo and identify every building, every landmark, and blow me away with great stories.
Tape recording would never have worked with John; he spoke in bursts like a machine gun. I did take some notes but even that was challenging and I finally gave up and trusted to memory. But, oh, how I wish I'd been able to record even some of what he told me. For years in the 1970s he had a regular full-page historical photo feature in the Nanaimo Free Press. People would dig into their family scrapbooks for him and the result was a priceless photographic archive, now in possession of the Nanaimo Museum; it's without equal.
That column brought me another wonderful source and a new friend, the late Ray Knight of Ladysmith. I already knew him by name, he having been accredited in books and newspapers for having supplied historic photos of the Ladysmith area. The bulk of the artifacts and archives of today's Ladysmith Historical Society are the result of Ray Knight's personal crusade to save the town's history.
It all began when he operated the family store and created a display of photos and borrowed artifacts in a front window. He'd see something rusting or mouldering away in a customer's yard when he delivered their new washing machine. One thing led to another, more relics were donated for the store window and, before long, he found himself in possession of a treasure house of antiques and relics, all relating to Ladysmith's history as a coal mining and logging town.
When he built his new house overlooking Ladysmith Harbour he dedicated the entire basement, complete with walk-in vault and showcases, to what had become a museum, and built a two-storey barn/garage for the bigger items.
Other than Doris, however, my writing about B.C. history, begun when I was 14, has been a one-man job. There are few real longterm "perks" in writing for a living: no pension, no paid vacations or medical plan. But I've met and become friends with some wonderful people who shared my passion for the past.
Without their help and encouragement and friendship I might have taken up a new career long ago. You know, something that offered more in the way of tangible benefits. My father was a career naval firefighter whose general work schedule was 24 hours on, 48 off. He used to encourage me to become a firefighter. With two days off in every three I could still write while having all the benefits of a "real job."
But, no, I had to do it the hard way. The result is 30-plus books, 1000s of newspaper and magazine articles and millions of words in print, 99.9 per cent of them dealing with B.C. history such as you read here in the Chronicles.
I wouldn't have had it any other way. —TW
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