Looking Astern...

This area of our web site is intended for members who would like to share some history about The Days Gone By

The current entry has been provided by: Barrie MacLeod

Mr. Gilkie (1) lived in Melville Cove and was Ron's grandfather. The monkey belonged to Ernie Cameron. If you think there are some characters at the club now, you have no idea of the stuff that went on in 1950. Speaking of characters, "Gibby", Mr. Roy Gibb skippered Dr. Arthur Marshall's Roué 20 and took nurses and six year olds like me sailing. Mrs Gibb convened the teas after the races with real, sterling silver trays, coffee pots and cute little sandwiches.

"Gibby" (2) is shown here in 1950 with me (Barrie MacLeod), my mom Irene MacLeod and a rabbit that one of the members brought to the club for me. Other members gave me Lionel Trains and drove me to Sunday school as, of course, the club was open on Sunday and my parents were the stewards and we lived upstairs. Then we moved across the street and joined as members. I spent from 4 years old to 16 years old at the club and the members were, without exception, good, kind and generous to me. Stephen Penny's father, Frank, taught myself, Roy Levin and dozens of others to swim and sail. The water was clean enough in 1950 that we swam every day off the wharves at AYC and it was a tradition to toss the winner of races into the drink. In the windows of the basement are beautiful models of warships. The bar was down there in the small area where the lower bar is now. The present bar and lower area where darts are played was another build on in the 1950s. Members brought in their own bottles of booze and put them on what was called corkage. You drank your own stuff. If you didn't drink someone stuck your name on a bottle and there was extra for all.
 
This house on Dead man's Island (3) was torn down around 1992. There was another house on the island closer to the mainland. When Mr. Boness would dig out a bit of the hill behind his house, it was not uncommon to come across a skeleton and, as I remember it, the N.S. Museum would come and take it. In the winter an arm might stick out of the bank until spring when the rest could be dug out. his photo was given to me in the 1950s by member Steve Sebago's ' daughter Valerie.
 
Barrie MacLeod and Roy Levin had lunch at AYC. on Sunday. January 19, 2004 as usual. This photo (4) was taken in 1950 when we were out sailing on JETO (Jessie & Tom), a Tancook schooner owned by Imperial Oil Captain Tom Mountain. In the photo we are on Smitty's harbor craft looking at two of the Bill Lynch Show ponies being ferried to McNab's Island. When we were a little older we would sail ourselves to McNab's and try to jump on the ponies for a ride. Lynches owned land on the island and the ponies ran free on the island in the 1950s.
 
The boy standing on the steps is me, (5) Barrie MacLeod, in 1950. The steps went into what is now the dining room but was then the sun porch. There was no deck in front of it then. There were Adirondack chairs, in bright colors, on the lawn by the flag pole and on the roof of what is now the dining room. The present main entrance is a "new" build on.

Barrie MacLeod - AYC - SKYEBOAT.