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Page 5 West Vancouver Historical Society September 2005 Commodore Roger and the Prison Hulks -by David Roberts During the Second World War a strange phenomenon was noticed about the survivors of merchant ships sunk in the Atlantic by German U-boats. Those who survived tended to be the old salts rather than younger seamen. Those who know about these things concluded that this was because the more experienced seamen knew that they could drive themselves well beyond the normal and expected limits of human endurance, whereas the inexperienced fledglings gave up in the face of too much adversity. Out of this conclusion was developed the Outward Bound School; boot camps where merchant seamen went through rigourous training to harden their morale and survivorship skills. In the early 1960’s the B.C. Corrections Department hit upon the idea of creating Outward Bound Schools for the juvenile delinquents consigned to its care. Lighthouse Park had been used during the war as a location for searchlight batteries and some coastal artillery. The gun emplacements can still be seen down by the lighthouse and the huts that were home to the gunners are still there, used, on and off for various worthy endeavours. The Corrections Department perceived these huts and Lighthouse Park as the ideal location for the correction and training of its juvenile wards. The implementation of this plan was set in motion, with true bureaucratic insensitivity. The neighbourhood found out about this project by accident; and the news spread through Caulfeild like a brush fire across dry savannah. Strident representations were made to the Corrections Department. Incensed letters were fired off to the local newspaper. The Lion's Gate Times. Members of the Legislative Assembly were inundated with complaints and the assistance of the West Vancouver council was urgently invoked. There was a high incidence of hysteria in the neighbourhood. Then the blessed Corrections Department realized that it had forgotten the diplomatically necessary step of consulting the neighbourhood first. An emissary approached the vicar, at that time a gentle, kindly ex-social worker with a strongly ingrained sense of naivete. Pressed by the Corrections Department for help, he leapt to the conclusion that the proposed school was an ideal solution for West Vancouver’s juvenile delinquency inmates, which it was, except that the location of this project had not been thought through. The Department decided that it had become necessary to mend some fences. A meeting was proposed, in the hall of the church of St Francis in the Wood. There, and then, the Department would explain the project to the parishioners, inspire support and subdue the growing opposition. We would all easily be influenced to adapt to the Department’s point of view. Both the vicar and the Department had misread the local concern. There was fear that the park would become unsafe for women and children to walk in. The thought of dozens of male youths, some convicted of unpleasantly violent crimes, stalking the pathways of Lighthouse Park was not a welcome one. The meeting was duly convened. The church hall was overflowing and it was standing room only for any late comers. The meeting was opened by the vicar, who made an eloquent speech in support of what he viewed as a worthy and truly Christian approach to juvenile delinquency. His plea was received in stony silence. Then the Director of Corrections rose to explain the project. His name was Selwyn Roxborough-Smith, an experienced senior administrator in the Department, his accent gave away the country and culture of his birth. A tall man, he addressed the assembled crowd with his thumbs inserted in the arm holes of his waistcoat. With the lofty superiority fostered in the English public school system he embarked on an explanation of the project designed to suppress the opposition that had been brewing. He was very soon overwhelmed with questions and assailed by arguments against the chosen location. As the evening wore on he grew visibly more harassed and one could discern a look on his face that revealed that he himself was gradually realizing that his project was doomed. His thumbs vacated their resting place in his waistcoat arm holes and he began to use them in gestures of supplication. The vast bulk of his constituency was invincibly opposed. Then Commodore Roger rose to speak. Now Commodore Roger had never darkened the church door before. He was an ex Royal Navy officer, a Scotsman, who had served as a midshipman in the battle of Jutland. He lived with Frances Baker in the house next door to us. They had moved David Roberts and his wife Gillian have lived in Caulfeild for decades. in just before we bought our house and they kept very much to themselves, very rarely socializing with the neighbours, they maintained a hermit-like existence. Everyone was surprised to see them at the meeting at all. The Commodore was a short bulky individual with an expression that had certain martinet qualities about it. His little speech disclosed that he had no understanding of the problems of or solutions to juvenile delinquency and he had clearly not been listening to the explanation of the basis for the philosophy of the Outward Bound movement. He was against crime. He was for punishment as punishment and he would have no truck with these new fangled, fancy ways of dealing with prisoners. “When I was a boy in Edinburgh”, he said, in a voice that was clearly more accustomed to the quarter deck than a church hall, “When I was a boy, and first went to sea, we used to deal with prisoners very effectively. We had a number of old ships’ hulks that we moored in the Firth of Forth. Prison hulks. Two or three were enough. They were impossible to escape from. We had no trouble with prisoners once they got aboard the hulks. I don’t see why you can’t find somewhere around here to moor some hulks. You should be able to buy some old hulks cheaply enough. That would solve your problem. Just take my advice. Mark my words; you’ll have no more trouble with these young knaves”. He sat down, satisfied that his gift of this wisdom had solved the problem; there was nothing more to be said. This dissertation was received in complete silence. Roxborough-Smith stared at the Commodore in bewildered disbelief His eyes flickered around the room as if he were looking for the culprit who had put the Commodore up to it as a joke. The rest of us looked at each other, almost in embarrassment. We all thought hulks had gone out of use in the days of Pip’s convict, Magwitch, in Great Expectations. There was a momentary and edgy shuffling of feet, a few whispers and then the meeting slowly wound up and we all went home. The Department did not buy any hulks. It abandoned Lighthouse Park as a location for Outward Bound and moved it to Porteau Cove, a few miles up the east side of Howe Sound, where it has functioned in peace ever since. The Commodore and Mrs. Baker went home to resume their troglodyte existence and their daily intake of rum. It had been their first, last and only involvement in local affairs.