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Although Clive was born in Sheffield, England, he spent most of his younger years in Bournemouth, New Hampshire, on the southern coast of England. There he went to school until he was 12 years old, afterwards training as a plasterer in the building industry.

During the war, though, he had to leave much of his work experience behind. He was enlisted on October 18, 1941, and held his position until November 4, 1945. During that time, he served with the Royal Engineers, and Royal Artillery, then later as a Ground Observer. He qualified as an Airman and Pilot, then later as a Staff Pilot. During the first year, he served for a brief time in Ireland, but later primarily in South Africa training other pilots.

After the war, he never flew again. He found the experience full of anxiety. He described how in one type of plane they used for training, the landing gear had to be wound down from the cockpit, and the pilot had no confirmation lights to indicate whether the wheels were down or not. The pilots often had to land on a prayer, a few of them not surviving.

Instead, Clive went into other fields in 1945. For a time before emigrating to Canada he operated his own dry cleaning business in Bournemouth. He married Peggy, too, in 1947, and began to raise his family (Colin, Meg and Sharman). But when the Korean War broke out in 1950, he and Peggy decided that in order to avoid another world war, they would leave their beloved Great Britain. Life was hard there; rationing was still in effect, even though the war had ended several years before that. They thought Canada would be the right place to go, and so in 1950 Clive and his brother, George, set out for Lethbridge, in Alberta. Peggy and the children followed a few months later to join them in the house Clive and George had built for them.

The building industry unfortunately started to decline in Lethbridge. Clive took a job with the Canadian Pacific Railway to earn a living and subsequently moved to Nelson, B.C. But business there, too, started to fail when the station in Nelson was closed, and so he, Peggy and the children moved to Vancouver, B.C., in 1961. Clive worked there for many years, the last working years as an owner operated taxi driver with Bonny’s Cab in Burnaby.

In 1983, as he retired, Clive and Peggy moved to Sooke, on Vancouver Island. There he had the time to pursue his passions: darts, for one, and fishing for the other. For many years they lived happily in the Island community, but when they were in their 80s, they found they wanted to be closer to family. They then moved to Riondel to live near Colin and Sylvia in 2001.

Both Clive and Peggy loved the Kootenays. Clive enjoyed playing golf here, and the seniors’ pool with a few of the other men in the village. He was a well-read man and had learned many expressions over the years. One that he learned in South Africa was “daar’s a dingus” (meaning “there’s the thing!”), and when he putted on the golf green and missed, he’d say “very adjacent.” He loved to tease his grandchildren with these odd expressions, and they miss hearing them.

Clive was a family man for nearly all of his life, a devoted father and grandfather. He passed away in Nelson just two months short of his 99th birthday.

“Daar’s a dingus, Clive!”



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