My sister . . . lent me her copy when I visited her recently in Vancouver. I started to read it on the ferry and couldn’t put it down and finished it in two sittings with exception of the last chapter, which I completed shortly before lunch today.
Your recollections of your life in south Vancouver and your days at Jayo parallel my own thoughts and recollections and a feeling of a happy and carefree nostalgia has prompted me to write to you now. Almost immediately, within minutes of reading your last chapter, which is a retrospective on your thoughts and feelings about your career, I came across the following quotation (source unknown):
Achievement is not about seeing
The light at the end of the tunnel,
It’s about finding the light
Throughout the whole journey
Which I thought was most appropriate as I sense that is how you saw yourself. Your comments about Law and Order are most succinct and I share your concerns about our future and hope that future politicians and judges heed your words of warning. I hate to think of my grandchildren’s future if we continue on this slippery slope of lack of respect for law and order and for one another which is present today.
G. Prince, Victoria
March 2004
Just a belated note to tell you how much I enjoyed reading “Short Pants to Striped Trousers.” The history of Vancouver, the legal profession and the courts was informative and intimate at the same time – it gave me a glimpse into lives and incidents I did not know of, and reminded me nostalgically of things I had forgotten.
The book reveals a side of you that as a colleague I did not get to know well enough – the deep respect and compassion that you hold for the law and the public it serves.
A Judge – March 2004
Most attempts to recount the experiences of a life hand-hewn by non-professional writers stagger into blind alleys and inconsequential minutiae.
Firstly, I must say I’ve been struck, good and hard, by the clean, direct-line precision and continuity of your accounts of the main events and passions of your life.
And secondly, I must say you’ve moved me greatly – at times almost to tears, in your descriptions of decent people facing up to hardship. The cumulative effect was extraordinary and shows them as life’s true heroes.
You are to be congratulated on a truly fine creation, by any standards.
D. Purvis, West Vancouver
January 2004
When I read the book review by Patrick Nagle in the Vancouver Sun I knew I had to read the book “Short Pants to Striped Trousers.” I was able to purchase the book at Blackberry Books on Granville Island and on reading it just had to let you
know I thoroughly it and thank you for offering it for sale in certain bookstores.
Your descriptions of how Vancouver has grown (for better or worse) are so true and including the appropriate photos really enhances the story.
I was drawn to the fact that while I was born in Feb. 1931, you were born in March, 1931 so our lives have spanned the same time era.
In 1961 . . . I moved to Vancouver because of its’ temperate climate and settled in the area of Kitsilano. I have seen the area go through many changes from the “hippies to the yuppies”
Thanks for expressing the exact sentiments I have about our politicians and . . . the Justice System and how things in some ways have gone “downhill” since our parents immigrated to Canada in the early part of the Twentieth Century. They arrived with the right values and passed them on to their children and I feel greatly blessed in that regard.
In closing I wish you a happy and healthy retirement and thanks again for writing such a good book.
E. McElwain, Vancouver, May 2004
Just a few days ago Eleanor Fawcett presented me with a copy of “Short Pants to Striped Trousers,” as she knew I was born at the Vancouver General Hospital on June 22, 1924 together with my twin sister Mary Lee ….
As stated, I enjoyed your book immensely and found such interesting accounts partly reflective of my first 23 years of gracious living . . . in West Vancouver. . . . . You have painted a lively and descriptive account of people, incidents and the geography of a place I still call my “home town” and I thank you for such an epic for those of us who can share at least part of the joy and what else you have aptly described.
Donald T. Mcleod, Kenora, Ontario
June 2004
Both my wife and I have read your extraordinary “Short Pants to Striped Trousers” and we’ve really made a meal of it. As two Vancouver born “kids” you in your book talked to us as if we were two of your intimates: we relate so heavily to so much of what you share.
H. Ewert, Surrey
June 2004
Riveting!