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The Early Days - cont'd. the Constabulary, and of course, your Navy Service, during W.W.I. Where did you serve in the Navy? Chief: We did our basic training at the Crystal Palace, I don't know whether you recall, Rupert, but I think it was Prince Albert, that caused Crystal Palace to be built, and it was all glass. The whole grounds contained buildings with various resources of the countries, there was Australia, New Zealand, Canada House, South Africa House and full of all their products, fruit and everything you could think of in jars. Lovely big jars of fruit with, I don't know if they were full of Gin or what. But anyway, I had three months there taking a signal course, and our people were disbursed onto merchantmen, as signalmen on merchantmen. Well, apparently there was a glut of them and so I went to Chatham then and took a seamanship and gunnery course, and did three months there, then was shipped down to this sub-depot at Sheerness to await discharge- demobilization. They didn't know what to do with us so they put us on one of the little minesweeping trollers that was in for a boiler repair or something. We would be given a candle and a chipping hammer and give the odd tap on the watertubes, with our eyes closed, until lunchtime, when the old Chief, or Officer would yell down, "come out of there". We carried on doing all sorts of things until I got my discharge. Rupert: When you came to Vancouver in 1923, was your first position or your job in this area with the Police Force in West Vancouver? Chief: No, when I was in Penticton an Insurance Agent got me to buy a $1000.00 insurance policy so I came to Vancouver to see the Provincial Manager for Sun Life and he gave me a job. I didn't sell enough to make a living, I think he was paying me $100.00 a month, which was good in those days but I wasn't making enough. Finally we came to West Vancouver, we worked along with Walker and Fagan and all those local fellows - under old Blanchflower, that was the foreman, waterworks foreman. Rupert: No, wasn't it Duckworth? Chief: I always mix the two names, Jim Duckworth. I was helping to dig a trench to lay waterpipe opposite Seeds Store and Greenwood, he had a store. Rupert: So then you just responded to an advertisement, I suppose? Chief: Well, the way that came about, Rupert; Snelgrove left, but he told his friend, Vern Fagan, to go and see the Chief and get his place. Vern did go, but he was turned down, and he came back and told me Page 4 Cont'd. next column The Early Days - cont'd. he'd been turned down. So I didn't apply, but Harry Wilson, who worked along with old Shepherd and Frank Squires, said "you damn fool, why don't you go and see the Chief and see if you can get the job". V.V. Vinson was the Reeve, so I saw the Chief and funnily enough Chief Bingham of the Vancouver City Police was a partner of my father's at Scotland Yard. So I went to see him and he put in a phone call, I presume that helped. Although it was Chief Squires that was the one who really gave me the job, and it was $100.00 a month. They had no uniform and did not send me to a tailor; I got a pair of $3.00 Leckie red stitch boots from that old cobbler, B. Wright, a pair of riding britches from somewhere and Snelgrove's Army cap, which was an officers army cap, with a Royal Artillery badge I was so ashamed of myself; I used to go through the lanes. Rupert: What was Policing like in West Vancouver at the time you started here? Chief: All they had was a motor bike. They got a sidecar then and that's what we started with, then they got two. Rupert: When you came; by then there was already a connection road to Horseshoe Bay. Chief: Oh, yes. Then the first car we had was Doctor Stainsby's Terraplane. Rupert: It was really quite an event when West Vancouver got a Police Car. Chief: Yes indeed, no heater either. From then on there was Chief Squires, George Shepherd, Albert Kruger, Roy Lowes, then Elmer Bell, then myself. First West Vancouver Municipal Hall Photo Source: West Vancouver Memorial Library Rupert: Finlayson came into the force quite a bit later, after he'd been up on Hollyburn Ridge. Chief: Yes, he had been up there as a ski patrolman and Cont'd. page five.