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Page 3 West Vancouver Historical Society March 2003 SCRAPBOOK This page contains scraps of West Vancouver's past - from personal memories, magazine or newspaper articles, from stories told by parents and grandparents, also from letters or diaries passed down through families. We welcome your contributions - an important way to help preserve our history. As promised in the last issue, "Jack" Lancaster has sent us excerpts from writings of his past which his father left behind. Do you remember "Captain Gerry"? GERRYS STORY Jill Schrauwen (nee Lancaster) and Jack Lancaster were bom in 1934 and 1939 respectively, and were raised in West Vancouver. Jill left as a young woman for a life of ranching in the interior, and still lives near Kamloops. Jack spent his working life in contracting and teaching in Greater Vancouver, lived for a long time in Deep Cove, North Vancouver, and is now retired in Victoria. Their father. Captain Gerald Lancaster, worked on the West Vancouver Ferries both before and after the Second World War. Here Jack introduces the story of his father's arrival in West Vancouver in the middle of the depression. "My father, Gerry Lancaster, wrote his autobiography a few years before he died, with some wonderful stories of his life as a seaman. In 1920 one day before his seventeenth birthday, he had gone to sea as an apprentice (midshipman) for Officer's Training with Alfred Holt & Company, the "Blue Funnel Line". Ten years later, having just turned 27, with his deep sea Master's Ticket, but no job, he arrived in West Vancouver. This is Gerry's story of starting to work on die West Vancouver Ferries." ARRIVAL IN VANCOUVER After a stop-over in Hong Kong I finally arrived in Vancouver in September 1930. During the actual trip from England, though naturally I had wondered how things were going to turn out, it was not until I was walking down the gangway of the "Protesilaus" and onto Ballantyne Pier that I realized I was entirely on my own in a new country and knowing only a small handful of people whom I had met eight or nine years before. It was a very funny feeling, however it was of my own doing and so I had to make the best of it. When I landed I had been to the Customs and Immigration people. The Immigration Officers gave me a bit of a shock because when they found out that the only money I had with me was about $50 (I had more coming from England) they were not going to allow me to land. However, when I informed them that I had left England before the Immigration Act had been changed by the newly elected Conservative Party, and had included new sections regarding the amount of money an immigrant had to have, they relented. FINDING A JOB The first morning after my landing I went to see the Blue Funnel Line Agents and I received another shock when I was told they had nothing for me and the only suggestion they could make was that I should read the "Help Wanted" columns in the papers - but there was a depression here too and there were far more men looking for work than there were jobs available. On the third day after landing, having spent the previous two days unsuccessfully visiting various shipping and tow- boat companies, I remembered that I had been told there was a man, Charles Nicol, who had previously sailed with the Blue Funnel Line and who was now working with the West Vancouver Ferries, so I decided to go to see him. Fortunately I met Charles just as he was about to board the Ferry at the West Vancouver wharf and so on the way back to Vancouver we had a good chat, and also with the mate of the ferry who happened to be a man whom I had met at the British Apprentice Club in New York in 1924. The next day I visited the Nicols for lunch and after lunch we met the Ferry Manager who came up with the usual story "Sorry, we have no work for you, but I will take your name and address". It was indeed very lucky for me that I had told Nicol where I had my evening meal because that very evening I was in the cafe when the phone rang and it was for me. Nicol told me that someone on the ferry had reported sick and I had to go to work the next morning. Immediately after supper I made a couple of round trips on the Ferry to learn about the work and started the next morning on my first job in Canada. WORK ON THE WEST VANCOUVER FERRIES With a few days of work I left my one room accommodation in the rooming house on Howe Street, just off Davie, and moved in with the Nicols until I had enough money for me to take a small apartment near the Ferry. Being close to the Ferry, it was easy for me to get to work and I did (Contd. on page 4) Captain Gerry Lancaster in RCN Uniform PHOTO: John Lancaster.