poesia profile Lawrence William. Clay, age 1614, has been a Notary : Publici in Terrace since 1967. He is not-going to retire. ‘I a shall not leave here and shall work ’til the last minute,” elo he said. by Pam Whitaker . “When 1g die I hope there will be no memorial. If someone would just. say when I’m gone... ‘you know — he was a good notary. — -he helped me’, that would be most gratifying. 2 _-L.W. Clay is British.: That is evident the moment you enter the antechamber to his office. _ British. newspapers and magazines dated from 1911, curios and antiques are placed in precise spots all along the cor- ridor. A poster of King George VI and his Queen hangs beside ' the carved Tudor door to his of- - fice. Winston Churchill pensive- ly contemplates clients from another poster. . Clay is a tall dignified man who ‘smokes a pipe. He sat behind his expansive. desk while fragrant smoke from the finest English tobacco’ wafted about the room. He opened the win- _dow a bit and gestured at the NO SMOKING sign. “I cannot stand cigarette smoke,” he an- ‘nounced, “We do not’.allow Cigarettes in the house.” “Pipe smoking is an art,’’ he reiterated, and indeed he has a collection of more than 35 pipes. He also has a large collection of 78 rpm records recently put on 150 tapes. These include all of the original speeches of Winston - Churchill and a recording of the crash of the Hindenburgh. He rates Churchill with Prime. : Ministers of England Gladstone ‘and Disraeli, and says his speeches give one a ‘“‘lease on life’, - When L.W. Clay goes ‘home’? from his basement of- fice he goes upstairs, where his wife Carolyn awaits him. He describes her as ‘“‘one of the best wives a man could ever have’’. She is English too, an artist who” spent 23 years of her life in Nor- way. While living there she en-. - joyed singing in the opera. - Having been married twice ‘before, Clay lost both former wives to cancer. Enid in 1967, and Mary in 1978. He recalls:- ‘Four years ago I has a pacemaker put in, The nurse _ Said sympathetically ‘you are so ‘unfortunate Mr. Clay!’ I an- swered, no, I am.a most for- tunate man. I have had three wonderful wives... I wonder why I am so blessed?” - When he arrived in Terrace in 1963 he was not a Notary Public. Rather, he worked for the Health Department, having been transferred from Smithers, and to Smithers from Qualicum Beach. The period prior to that, however, in his words, ‘‘were - the best-years of my life”. Seeing Lawrence Clay striding ‘down Lakelse Avenue in his tweeds, itis not hard for Terrace residents to imagine him a policeman. He was with the B.C. Provincial Police Force for 12 years. This lawkeeping ofganization came into being during the Klondike goldrush of 1858: and served B.C. for 92 yeats. Clay began. with them in - Nanaimo when he was 24 years old and newly. married to Enid. During his ‘career he. was sta-. - tioned in Dawson Creek, Pouce 42 and — Coupe, Fort St. John, an Qualicum — Beach, There he retired in order to have more time to spend with Enid and * daughters Wendy and Sandy. In Terrace, the old police building at the corner of Lakelse Ave, and Kalum St. is where the B.C. Provincial Police Force was housed. It has recently been deemed by the town not worthy _ of the expense to make it a Heritage Building. Clay has mementos in his of- fice -of those nostalgic years spent on the Force: a badge, a riding crop with buckshot hid- den in the end, photos and historical books. His uniform is ‘in the B.C. Museum, “‘Those are the best bunch of men I have ever seen,’’ he said. “I have always been interested in law and if I had it to do over I would : probably be a lawyer.”’ The. lure of a mild climate brought young Lawrence Clay from harsher weather in Ontario to the West.Coast. ‘Vancouver had been painted in my mind as a magical place where cherries grow,” he explained. “I had read much on Vancouver Island as well, and imagined a lot of English fruit farmers who > played tennis and generally lived the life of Riley,”’’ After a gruelling trip on a bus that arrived in Vancouver via Salt Lake City, Portland and Seattle, Clay slept for 18 hours (at the St. Regis Hotel), He spent some time in Vancouver but it was not long before he decided to seek his fortune in the | city that was named for a Queen of England. His first job in Victoria en- ‘abled him to experience first- hand a taste of the fruit farming he had visualized. He gained employment as a gardener for Christ Church Cathedral, where they had a productive orchard of apple and pear trees, It was Clay’s job to prune them — but he took too much off. _ **T killed them all,’’ he said. “The Dean was aghast — I know he wanted to say ‘My God!, but of course, he couldn’t. He just paid me $2.00 and said, ‘Don’t let me ever see you again!’ I did attend church the following Sunday, however, .and the sermon was something about ‘fools and idiots’!’’ L.W. Clay had done a lot of growing up during the years he spent in Eastern Canada before moving to the coast. Three years in the army at St. John, Quebec preceded a surveying job in Northern Ontario, both unique experiences in themselves them- selves, Ironically, he was to cross paths with a friend he met . in that sutvey crew, Hank Buncombe, more than once. never leave Terrace. . Tertace notary public and jong-time local resident L.W. Clay in his office, surrounded byt the: tools of his trade and British memorabilia. He’s English through and through, but says he'll” oy a a ved Buncombe became District Engineer of Highways when Clay was stationed in Qualicum Beach, and then ended up in Terrace as a City Engineer. He - has since passed away. - Clay described their surveying crew in Northern Ontario as “living on the fat of the land, We were paid $75 per month plus board,’* he said. “I was wealthy! We even had a night watchman who kept our tents warm.’’ . ' Not so during the two years he worked on a mixed farm 15 miles south of Lindsay, Ontario. Clay described it as hard, brutal work. “‘I worked 17 hours a day with no days off except . Christmas Day and May 24 or July 12.” He arrived in Halifax from Southampton, England on the 8.8. Pennland February 24, 1929. You might say that he was one of the Little Immigrants de- scribed in a book and a-CBC television show, about orphans from the First World War who immigrated to Canada. Clay’s father had been killed during the war and his mother died of peritonitis in 1924, Con- sequently he lived with an uncle in Chelnsford, England (35 miles from London). After a stint in the Merchant Marines at. age 14, his relatives agreed to allow him to come to Canada at 16 and one half years of age. “*In those days every railway station in England had large posters of golden wheatfields _with wagons being loaded by healthy, contented-looking peo- ple,'’ Clay related. ‘‘ “Come to Canada’, the posters read, ‘live on a farm and see the world’. My uncle gave me a return ticket.” - He continued: “I .had been taught by my mother to always clean my teeth and wear a pair of polished shoes. So when I ar- -rived at the town hall of the - farming community of Lindsay, Ontario, I was dressed in a grey Harris tweed suit, polished shoes and a hat. (I still polish my shoes every night), “There were 15 other boys. All our names were thrown into | a hat and a group of burly farm- ers drew nates. When the farmer who drew my name came to collect me, he said gruffiy: ‘another damned: Englishman, eh!’, “We got into a sleigh cutter pulled by a spanking three-year- old named Major. It was 40 degrees below zero (F) and it took. three hours to travel .15 miles to the 160 acre farm. **Dinner that night was boiled pork, fried potatoes and bread and butter. When I asked what time we were to get up in the morning I was told that they ‘sleep in’ in the winter and that 4:30am. would do.” The next morning Lawrence Clay got up, put on his tweed suit and shined shoes, After sourly appraising. the young man’s outfit, the farmer, soon purchased more appropriate clothing for Clay, taking the cost out of the boy’s wages. __ “I worked over 700 days . there,’’? Clay said, “117 hours a. day, and every day I was called a damned Englishman.” He has worked hard all of his life and has little patience for those who do not value the work ethic. His daughter Wendy, it seems, does value it. She gradu- ated from UBC Medical School as an M.D. at age 24 and has been the director of preventa- tive medicine for the Canadian Armed Forces. Wendy Clay has just been informed that on April 1, 1989, she will receive a pro- motion from Colonel :to Brigadier General, Comman- dant of the Department of Na- tional Defence Medical Services Center :in Ottawa. That is one . step below Surgeon General. She ‘is also the first woman accepted as a full-fledged pilot in the Canadian Forces. This achieve- ment did not come without .a struggle, . Clay’s daughter- Sandy i is the wife of an Anglican clergyman and the mother of his very first grandchild. They live in Port McNeil on Vancouver Island. . “Tam not going to retire and I am not going to leave Terrace,’’ Clay states. He enjoys classical music and reading, but his work is also his hobby. “¥ shall always be an English- man,” he said, ‘“‘but am also Canadian. Canada has served me well and I hope that I have served Canada well.” - vice, you need assistance, you, BC Funeral | Association We care Did you know that tradlttonal funerals are possible, even with cremation? Cremation can | still include public visitation and a memorial ser- .. Funerals of today offer more alternatives than ever before to honour the person who has dled. And, fust like your willl, pension plan, and your lUfe insurance, pre-planned funerals are part * of that {mportant preparation for the tnevitable. Consult your B.C. Funeral Association today for more {nformation on cremation. They‘tl answer all the questions you’ve ever wondered about. They'll take the mystery away! Your local Funeral Director ts always there when Contact the B.C. Funeral Association for the affiliated member nearest MacKAY’S FUNERAL SERVICE LTD. — and TERRACE CREMATORIUM . Concerned Personal Service _In The Northwest Since 1946 BRONZE PLAQUES & MONUMENTS ' TERRACE - 635-2444