CFB Kingston....Memories.
cloud
Fishing down behind the FHH
Climbing the rocks behind Batouche school.......
Walking the Pipeline.....
Arrow Head Beach......
Sliding down the Hill at FHH...
Lundy's Lane....Niagara Park...
Playing Ball .....
wrcn33_66
"cloud" <cl...@miramichi.net> wrote in message
news:n9C58.1096$Ek1.1...@news-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
> Memories....
>
> Fishing down behind the FHH
?? Do mean down behind the fort? Deadman's Bay was where most of us went,
but were NOT suppose to, for years, as it was polluted.
> Climbing the rocks behind Batouche school.......
Climbing the rocks at Red Rock and catching tadpoles, frogs and snakes in
and around the pond, BEFORE Batouche Ave. School was built. Some trees and
long, tall grass, with a well worn path to the pond. The carvings
(petroglyphs ??) inside the caves, which were filled in, when they created
the playground area. The ravine between Red Rock area and the post office
(right at the foot of Batouche Ave./Lundy's Lane). The *river* which flowed
each spring from somewhere up the other side of the highway, down between
the houses (east side of Batouche Ave), then under Lundy's Lane, into the
ravine, to Deadman's Bay. Same area of Batouche ... no churches when we
moved there ... instead trees and bushes on the east side if I recall
correctly. West side .. big skating rink in the winter, with a little hut.
Summer time .. a boxing ring and we also played neighbourhood baseball games
there, after school & weekends.
> Walking the Pipeline.....
Remembering when they put the pipeline in! Believe it was around 1956, with
loads of blasting to remove the rocks and tree stumps. One of the older
kids .... Johnny Horton was his name, lived on Oswego Way ... his sister,
Mary, babysat for my mother .... anyway, Johnny and his mates found some
dynamite caps, down where the line was going to in. Believe it or not, they
use to drill and prime the holes one day, then detonate them the next
morning!! I remember when the blast went off, everyone rushing outside ....
the sirens of the police, ambulance and fire trucks ... then when they
brought Johnny up, on the stretcher. He wore horned rimmed glasses, and
when the blanket they had covered his face with blew off, his glasses where
still on his face, askew and the lens were cracked. We all thought he was
dead, but he wasn't. Took a long time, but with steel rods in his legs, he
eventually walked as if nothing had happened. Darn lucky, no doubt about
it. Wonder where he is these days??
> Arrow Head Beach......
Well, cloud .. one of the many people you can thank, for there even being an
Arrowhead Beach, is my mother!! There was NO place for us to go to swim
except RMC, IF you were lucky enough to be able to get up at 6 am on a Sat
morn, then walk to RMC, to swim from 7 am to 8 am. Then, around 1960 (??)
Anderson Gym was finished. Again you can thank my Mum [for one], as she was
a part of the group who fought the Army for several years, to get the gym.
Their main goal was to get it for the apprentices, as they were only between
16 & 18 yrs old, which was too young to get into the bars downtown, but they
kept trying to and getting into a great deal of trouble, which in turn
caused the civilian population to be quite anti-military. It was felt, they
needed something to keep them occupied on the base. The hope of the group
was that we [brats] could use the facilities, when the apprentices weren't.
In the beginning, we barely got the chance to use them ... very short times,
here and there ... really a hit and miss sort of thing. Some of us (& yes I
was one of them) started going down to Deadman's Bay, to swim. The Bay had
been quite poluted for years and off limits, but with the instulation of the
pipe line and the *new* treatment plant (Ravensview), it was not too bad by
this time. There was an old tree (only way to describe it) in the water.
It had no leaves and only one branch sticking out sort of sideways. The
tree did rise slightly above the water and there was a big boulder, in the
water at the base of the tree. We called it *The Log*. We would rush down
there, after school and on weekends, to swim at *The Log* ... and had a
ball. Everyone eventually heard about it and it would be crowded. From
that humble beginning grew the beach, which did not have a name at first.
When I joined the Navy, in July '66, the Army had started to clean the area
up and a small area was prepared for swimming. When I returned to FHH, in
1970 ... it was a real beach, called Arrowhead, complete with sand!! There
wasn't any sand in '66. Also, they had put in a fairly large building, with
wash/change rooms and a canteen. Later they made a marina there, but I
think the beach area is smaller now because of the marina. Well, it looks
smaller to me. My mother is only one of the women who fought hard to get
both Anderson Gym and Arrowhead. The fathers had little or nothing to do
with it.
> Sliding down the Hill at FHH...
Still THE place to go .. but we used the hill behind our house (9A LL, with
Normandy Cres. above us), Windmill Drive hill (and often ended up running
between the row houses on Windmill, or going into the concrete doorsteps!),
hill on Caen Cres, (wasn't a park there when we moved there .. again my Mum
was one of those who fought for it too. My Dad used to be terrified of what
might happen to him, when she would help *go after the Army*. It just was
not a *done thing*, by the wives, in those days and the husband could be
called upon the carpet, for it. We also tobogganed down the hill, in the
backyard, of a house on Cambrai Drive. Broke my two front teeth, Christmas
Eve 1955 on that hill. Was the year the Flying Saucers came out and they
worked best on ice .. really fast, they were on ice, because they were
metal. I did not know that Johnny and Bob Slack had iced the whole hill,
not just a strip of it (which they had been doing & said that was what they
were doing!! when I had passed earlier in the evening. They changed their
minds later and went out and iced the WHOLE hill ..... I have Never forgiven
them! and is probably why I remember their names ... well, Johnny was in the
Navy and soooooo handsome!!). We also used the hill at Chateauguay Park (a
road); the hill between Pardeburg Place and where the Catholic Church is,
but before the church was built. Plus, the hill on Normandy, where it meets
Falaise Way. Many of these hills would not be suitable for kids today, as
everybody and their sister has a car now ... back then, it was not the norm.
Big event if one got or had a car. Then we would sit in it for hours on
end, listening to the radio (but that is another story!!) ... funny, but I
do not recall batteries going dead either.
> Lundy's Lane....Niagara Park...
Assuming you mean the schools, not the streets. When we arrived in FHH, Oct
'53, there was but one school, Lundy's Lane. It was overcrowded, so I could
not go (grade one) until April. Over the next couple of years, it because
worse and the grade 8's attended school at the Fort. Not sure if grade 7's
did or not. It was decided a new school was needed, so the wooded area,
between Montcalm & highway and Lundy's Lane & rock cut, was chosen. There
were the few houses on Montcalm (which were recently torn down) and about
5/6 houses on Sicily .. that's it, no more .. no Brock Cres nor Ypres Drive,
so no apartments etc. Just woods, with a path or two through them ... short
cuts to town. Down came the trees, up went the school, then the creation of
Brock and Ypres .. sometime around 1956/7. Both schools were soon over
crowded and students then had to go to H-huts in RCEME (McNaughton Side, it
is referred to now). Grades 5, 6 & 7 only, I think. I went for two years.
Our H-hut was right next to the *new* fire hall and the firemen made us a
skating rink each year, so we could use it at recess and for gym (broom ball
games). Then they built Batouche ... and we lost Red Rock ... :-(((
... right SugarShack?
> Playing Ball .....
At Lundy's Lane School .... up by Chateauguay (across from the wading pool
... built between '66 & '70) and right where the wading pool is! Between
the houses and trees (lol .. our bases!) in the front yards of the houses on
Oswego and Popular Place, which faced Lundy's Lane. Between the houses on
Normandy Cres & also in front of the houses on Falaise Way .... we played
ball where ever and when ever we could, in between swimming and most of the
time we were barefooted.
Memories of FHH / CFB Kingston?? Kiddo, I have a million and a half of 'em
... we lived there from Oct 1953 until May 1971. Looking for someone? Ask
away. It is slightly possible I may know where they are or know someone who
does. Slightly because I am fairly certain you are MUCH younger than I am,
but I had 5 younger brothers and sisters, though the baby brat is now 46 yrs
old.
BTW cloud .... welcome to the NG ... hope we will see you often here and in
the brat chat room, where every brat is welcome.
wrcn .... a one base brat ... :-) until she married a Kipper ... :-))))
Wonders
getting to go to school in Fort Henry, per chance?
Tom
"wrcn33_66" <wrcn...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:HVJ58.2009$TP1....@read1.cgocable.net...
wrcn33_66
"Wonders" <lik...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:FZP58.2049$TP1....@read1.cgocable.net...
> Do you have any memories of a school burning down in FHH and the kids
> getting to go to school in Fort Henry, per chance?
>
> Tom
Hi Tom ... welcome to the NG
.... most definately nothing like this happened after Oct '53. I do not
recall ever having heard such, prior, but am not 100% sure. I tried to
phone a fellow I know from the early years on the base, but he was not in.
Prior to the Q's being built, families lived in *The Huts* on/in the Vimy
side, within what we all later knew to be the boundaries of Vimy. The kids
went to school there, up until they build the Q's and Lundy's Lane School.
The school took in the first students in Sept 1950 and the fellow (Ken) I
tried to phone, was one of them. I will be visiting another one (Bob) this
coming May. I know Bob's family moved into the Q's before Ken's, in 1949,
but Bob still went to school over in Vimy. I know the house we lived in, a
duplex, was built in '49, as Bob lived on the other side of us. We were the
second family to live in *our side*, the first family being McKenna. My
cousins did not move into their Q, on Queenston Heights, until the summer of
'50, when the houses were finally ready.
Some of the teachers, who taught at the school, in Vimy, moved with students
to LLPS. Mr Fowler being one, Madame "Cat-see" (cannot remember how to
spell her name, but that is how we said it), who taught gym, as well as
French. Think she was one ... was going to check this out with Ken. Mrs
Murphy, I think was another and Mrs Grace Wilson, Mr Mosier, Miss Anderson
(my gr 2), Mr & Mrs Howes (latter my gr 1) ... actually over the years, I
had all of these teachers, at one time or another. Miss Whitmarsh, Miss
Sexsmith (taught us RC religion each morning, in primary) were two others
who moved with the students. I still see Mr Fowler around occasionally. Mr
& Mrs Mosier sometimes .. they and seveal other teachers came to my
brother's funeral, in '93. Most of them had been his customers, so he saw
them more than I. Mr Mosier also came to the reunion, last year. My son
was on course in Kingston, at that time, staying next door, so he popped in.
He had lived on the base, for 9 months (1970), when I brought him from the
UK, then again when he was stationed here, but he had never met any of the
teachers. He got quite a kick out of meeting one of my (very early)
teachers. His principal at Sydenham High, was my first home room teacher at
QECVI .... before LCVI and LaSalle were built.
I will try to get in touch with Ken, to find out for sure about any fire.
It has always been our understanding, the Fort was used due to overcrowding
at LLPS .... and I see/am in contact with many, many brats, who lived in
*The Huts*, then FHH, before and during my time there. No one has ever
mentioned a fire at the school.
wrcn
wrcn33_66
> news:n9C58.1096$Ek1.1...@news-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
> > Memories....
More memories, of the earlier FHH years ....
... the little RC chapel, in Vimy (on the other side of the fence, behind
the RSM's house, on Riverview Dr.) .... we attended 9 am mass there ... my
3 sisters, one brother, father and I were all baptised (or re-dedicated) in
this church, by Father Alan B. McRae (we still see him!) and my parents were
re-married by him, with all of us in attendance, at the same time. Lou and
Marie Bateman were the witnesses. It had folding metal chairs, which my
sister Kris knock over, during the wedding ceremony. My Dad held my
youngest sister Debbie (1+ yrs), during the ceremony, too.
.... the two bigger churches, on the RCEME side ... about where the water
tower is now (which is closer to the hwy, than the original water tower).
We attended 11 am mass here. Think the RC church was on the east side of
the narrow road ... can't quite recall ... my Dad and I made our First
Communion (April '54 - have the group photo & my brother's from '55) and
were both Confirmed in this church. There was only a small gate, to the
footpath, which led to the narrow, road. The road was a dead end, just
south of the churches. It was MUCH later, after 1966, that they opened it
up, widened the road, taking it down to the highway, allowing cars to enter.
... the old, sprawling, connected to each other, H-huts which was the
military hospital. I assume, at one time they were all separate H-huts.
We went to the dependants' clinic there, for everything. I do not remember
ever seeing a civilian doctor, until I got ill, in Jan '56 and was put into
the hospital, downtown (the Dieu). Was terrified as they put me into a big
room with a bunch of really old ladies. Turned out I had the mumps.
... when the *new* military hospital was built .. operational around 1957/8
.. still had the dependants' clinic too, for a couple of more years. I
remember having to go to a civilian doctor, in the early '60's ... our first
civilian family doctor, had been one we had seen at the military hospital.
Major Glendon VanCott, who got out and set up a practice on civy street. He
was my doctor up until he died, in Aug 1988. He had known me since I was
about 8 yrs old and knew every member of my family, including an aunt from
the UK, who had been a nurse at the military hospital, when he was an
intern.
.... when the Fire Hall, was at Vimy ... JUST about .... when you turn off
Riverview, going toward *Jimmy* .... dead ahead, just a tiny bit to your
right, but if you turned to go into Vimy, the fire hall was then on your
left. Later, they put the red brick guard house square in the middle of the
road ... a guard house use to be at the entrance, just off Riverview Dr., on
that little stretch of road leading to *Jimmy*. The road was narrower, than
now. There was another guard house, on Riverview, where it met the
highway. Riverview use to go straight out to the highway ... that was the
eastern entrance to the Q's, not where *Jimmy* is now. There was another
guard house on Niagara Park, at the highway (middle entrance to Q's) and
another, at the Fort Henry gate (western entrance). This gate, which still
stands, I think, was locked at 6/7 (?) pm every night. No one, absolutly no
one, got into the Q's without a pass of some kind. If you had civilian /
family, coming for a visit, they had to have a letter of invitation, from
the military parent, which in those days, was your Dad. If the MPs saw a
car or a stranger on foot, and they did not have a pass/letter and could not
give a name of a resident (to vouch for them), then they were escourted out
of the Q's. If they could name a resident, who they were intending to
visit, the MPs escourted them to that home and got the proper ID. Very
strict they were, in those days. Our parents never had to worry about us,
with regards to strangers accosting us ... extreemly safe place to live.
Many other dangers ... Red Rock, Deadman's Bay etc ... but not people. Even
the bus from the city had to stop and passengers *looked at*, back then.
Was a big clamp down, during the Cuban Missile crisis. They had by this
time gone to using the Commissionaires as the guards, but during the CM
crisis, we had soldiers again, tho this time, they were more heavily armed.
While it was quite a scary time for all, most of us (myself & friends) were
quite use to seeing our soldiers with rifles, as it had not been all that
long, since our fathers had carried a rifle nearly every day, back & forth
to work!! I kid you not. My Dad was stationed at Artillary Park, down on
Barrack St., where the Service Corps was located, before they moved them up
into Vimy (sometime after 1966). When we first moved into the Q's, in '53,
he carried his rifle, back & forth .... maybe not EVERY day, but certainly
alot and on the civy bus (when he could afford to take a bus!) or when he
walked into town, to work. It otherwise, it stood in the corner of
[parents'] bedroom, with magazine in it, most of the time. If the magazine
was out, it was under the pillow! We were NEVER allowed to just enter our
parents' bedroom, at any time. It was strictly Off Limits, unless one
parent was in there and ivited us in .... and most of our friends had the
same rule, in their house ... which I now believe was mainly due to our
Dads' rifles being kept there. To me, it seems that rule became more
relaxed, AFTER the rifles were no longer being brought home.
..... when there were no sidewalks, on LL, Riverview, or Niagara Park. Big
ditches along areas of LL, and other places. We had one in front of our
house. It use to fill up with water which flowed along, meeting up with the
*river* at Batouche Av, then into the ravine, down to the lake. The south
side of Batouche had a stream/creek, year 'round. You would never know it
now. There was a guard rail (white wooden, one piece), right opposite to
Batouche, on LL, to stop cars from sliding off the road into the ravine,
which had enormous boulders (fill?) in it. One night, as a fire truck (from
Vimy) was rushing to a call and had to go up Batouche, one of the firemen
flew off the back of the truck, into the ravine. He lived, but never walked
again. The call was a false alarm. Don't have any idea of who pulled the
alarm, but I can tell you, positively, none of us (who remember this
happening) ever even thought of pulling such a stunt after that. In those
days, most of the firemen were military personel and the fire chief lived on
LL, (around # 23 LL).
..... of my friend's little 2 yr old brother, drowning in one of those
ditches, up on Mons Way ... the ditch was at the back of the houses, between
the yards and the highway. Father had applied to the *powers that be* to
erect a fence in the back yard, so the little ones could play safely. There
were strict rules, then, about what you could or could not do. When the
father returned to work, after the funeral, the permission chit was awaiting
him ... stamped, with permission granted, the day his son died.
... more another time ... [geesh, I must be related to Rasta!]
wrcn