It was the Depression years, but for a bunch of boys growing up in Sapperton, they were full of fun. These days it’s a gang of geezers that gets together once a month. They’re still having fun. Lots of fun.
“We played together, grew up together, we were almost like brothers,” says Digby Turney, 88, who grew up on Kelly Street and still lives in the area. “We’ve always hung out together.”
For the last 15 years or so, they’ve been meeting monthly at Sawbucks Pub in White Rock to reminisce. At first, there were about 18 who gathered to live life in the past lane. Since then, their numbers have dwindled.
When they were little whippersnappers in New West, they weren’t packing smartphones and ear buds. What they did have was the neighbourhood. And they loved it.
“The kids just don’t do things like we used to do. We didn’t have any of this electronic business, or television or anything in those days,” says Turney. “We had to make up our own activity, which was really great because we did. This is why we were so close.”
It was simple stuff, but it was also stuff kids likely couldn’t get away with today.
On sunny days, the boys would go skinny-dipping in Brunette Creek. They didn’t have swim suits, or bathing suits as they were called back then. Couldn’t afford them. Their favourite swimming holes were at Minister’s Dam, Kids Dam and Boys Dam. After the swim, they’d sun themselves on the creek bank.
After one refreshing dip, they were sunning themselves when a woman came along. They scrambled to cover themselves up, but it didn’t do much good. “It’s all right boys, I have some sons of my own,” she said, much to their relief.
“We had a great time,” says Turney. “We did some great stuff together, some crazy stuff.”
For example? Well, on one occasion, a few of them got a hold of some dynamite. They took it down to Hume Park, wrapped it around a tree and set it off, says Turney.
Then there was one evening when they were teenagers, a few of them, including Turney, were at one of their favourite hangouts, Spot’s Cafe on East Columbia Street. Some of their buddies came busting through the door declaring breathlessly, “Hey, there’s a bunch here from East Hastings Street, and there’s a gang of them. And they want to have a fight with us!”
The fighting grounds were to be the grass triangle at Braid Street and East Columbia.
“Of course, word got out, and I’d have to say there was darn near 40 or 50 of us who showed up there,” recalls Turney. “Of course, we just overwhelmed them. They didn’t want to have any part of it. They asked us if we would go with them, and maybe we could go somewhere and pick on someone else. We said, ‘No. Take off!’ ”
The groups goes so far back their high school years predate the building of New Westminster Secondary School, which is now on its last legs and slated for demolition. After they finished McBride Elementary, some of them went to Duke of Connaught High School, which was located where city hall is now. Others, including Turney, attended T.J. Trapp Vocational School. It became John Robson Elementary when NWSS opened, and has since been torn down to make way for Fraser River Middle School.
Some, like Turney, ended up working with the City of New Westminster. He was with the city’s electric company. Ron Booth worked in the public works department. He’s become the group’s “one-and-only telephone committee” calling everyone up to remind everyone.
Booth says he was having a beer with a pair of Sapperton chums, Bill Clark and Bill Emerton. They thought it would be a great idea to find some more of their old buddies to get together and chew the fat, to use a phrase from their era. So that’s what they do every third Tuesday of the month.
Right from the start, Booth, 86, kept a list beside his phone in South Surrey. When 2017 started, there were 12 names on it. Since then he’s had to cross off three.
“We’ve very proud of being from Sapperton,” says Booth, whose son Ron is the facility manager for Queen’s Park Arena and Moody Park Arena. “We thought we were just a different part of New Westminster where we were brought up.
“We talked a little about when we were kids, and then about the girlfriends we chased around, then we’d talk about our wives. Now we talk about our illnesses and who’s in the hospital, and who’s dying. Typical bunch of old guys. We have a lot of good conversations.”
Turney usually picks up a couple of ‘the boys’ who still live in New West for the drive out to White Rock. One of his regular passengers, until he passed away in May, was Ray McNeney, a former detective with the Vancouver Police Department who was in charge of the major crimes division when he retired. Now his only passenger is Norm Bradford.
“I’m not too fussy about driving all that way by myself, so that’s why I pick up other fellows,” says Turney. “It’s still nice to hear what everybody’s doing.
“We usually talk about the old days, the good times, and how we miss some of the guys. You get real close to them. It’s quite sad when they pass on.”
The group included Lorne Clare, a provincial court judge for 23 years and a New West lawyer for 23 years. He died in 2010. Keith Bennett was head of Forest Industrial Relations, the umbrella organization that represented the B.C. lumber companies in contract negotiations, putting him face-to-face across the bargaining table from legendary provincial International Woodworkers of America union boss Jack Munro.
“We’re from all walks of life,” says Booth, who grew up on Fader Street.
The Sapperton bunch has seen a brewery come and go, and a penitentiary demolished to make way for a subdivision. Their old elementary school is still standing, though.
“It’s all right, there’s nothing wrong with it really. I don’t mind the neighbourhood, it’s pretty good,” says Turney. “It’s different than when we were growing up. The kids that are around now in our area, they just don’t do the same things. I don’t know if they enjoy it as much as we did, because we really enjoyed ourselves.”
Some of the bunch of boys who grew up in Sapperton eight decades ago, but continue to meet monthly:
• Ron Booth, worked for the City of New Westminster’s public works department;
• Digby Turney, worked for the City of New Westminster’s electrical utility;
• Bill Clark, an executive with the Telecommunication Workers Union, which represented employees with B.C. Tel
• Terry Keenan, former manager at Valley Lumber in New Westminster which was at 10th Street and Columbia;
• Bill Purser, a mechanic who had his own heavy duty truck repair shop;
• Alex Tritco, tugboat operator;
• Ron Poussette, an accountant whose father used to own Brunette Machine Works;
• Bill Jobb, a New Westminster firefighter who is considered a ‘guest’ of the group because he grew up west of McBride Boulevard, but he did marry a Sapperton girl, Mary Ellen Smith.
• Norm Bradford, press operator at Columbian and Vancouver Sun newspapers.
• Glen Matheson, owned a clothing store in San Francisco
• Bruce Smillie, reporter/editor Vancouver Sun
Some more reminisces about the Sapperton bunch during their years at Trapp Tech from Digby Turney:
Our routine for lunch was to eat our lunch on the way down Eighth Street to the wharves on Front Street starting at Monk’s Fisheries looking at all the fresh caught salmon.
Then we’d continue and board some of the freighters to look around them, continue up to Brakemen Kerr and out to the railway tracks, where usually at this time a freight train
was coming and we would hop on to one of the cars and ride back to Eighth Street. We’d hop off, go in to Piggly Wigglys, buy a bag of peanuts and walk back up the hill to school.
At this time, being our first year, there were only about six of us. The second year, the rest showed up and then there were about 15 or more doing the same routine. That was until the day we were visiting one of the ships one of the fellows fell into a hold and had to be taken to the hospital. We had an assembly in the gym at school and that ended the visits to the ships. Next on one of our return trips on the freight cars, of which we occupied six or more, one of the fellows was looking out the door of the freight car and said, “The cops!” Someone said, “What side?” and the answer was “both.” If you remember what the paratroopers looked like jumping out of the planes on D-Day, this was just like it with guys jumping out of all the cars. Two were caught and taken back up to school. There was another assembly in the gym and that ended our trips on the trains.
