Date: 2012-11-10
Name(s): Senyk, Hal
Description: Hal Senyk Nov. 10 2012 Born: Anthony Harold "Hal" Senyk, March 4th 1950 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Youngest of 3 siblings. Siblings: Older sister was a Highland Dancer, which is how he became involved in bagpiping. His brother was not involved in Scottish dance or music. Sister became involved in dance through their maternal grandmother, and took lessons from Liz Merrimen. Hal also took dance lessons starting from age 5. Attended Lord Nelson School for primary years. The family moved to Montreal in…
Date: 2005-06-18, 2005-07-13
Name(s): Robertson, Hamish, Robertson, Isla
Description: June 18 2005 (Isla Clark and James Robertson) Isla Mary Clark Robertson (Montgrew Farm, Keith, Banffshire, 1 September 1940, her name comes from the river Isla in the North East, not the place). She has an older brother, Ian, and two older sisters, Audrey and Josephine-Jessy, a younger sister, Wilma Mackay, and younger brother, Alastair. Her father was William Clark (Fortry Farm, Grange, Banffshire, May 12, 1912). He came from a family of six: James, George, John, Alexander, Elizabeth, and then…
Date: 2011-11-22
Name(s): Aird, Hugh
Description: Hugh Aird Nov. 22 2011 Born: Hugh Norman Aird in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1925. Moved to Vancouver at age 2. Older sister Catherine Marian born in 1918. Father: Born in Lochinver, Sutherland, Scotland in 1890. Came with his parents to Winnipeg in 1904. Served his apprenticeship under his father. Enrolled in the Canadian Army in 1915, and was shipped to France in 1916. Severely wounded, and spent the rest of the war in hospital in England. Discharged in Winnipeg in 1919. Two sisters and one brother…
Date: 2004-05-25
Name(s): McLennan, Hugh
Description: May 25 2004 Hugh McLennan Audio is distorted by background noise and difficult to hear/inaudible at times. Born: Montreal, Quebec, Oct 22nd 1927. Eldest of two children. Younger sister Elizabeth passed away several years prior to the interview. She had 3 children. Father: William Durie McLennan, born in Montreal on Nov 24th, 1889. Youngest of 3 (2 older sisters). Worked as an architect. Also worked with the Canadian Field Artillery. Paternal Grandfather: Also William. From a large family.…
Date: 2005-04-13
Name(s): Mason, Ian
Description: 13 April 2005 Ian Maclean Mason (Glasgow, 22 April 1938). Ian was the oldest son of four children. He had two sisters, Mary and Margaret, and a brother, Johnnie. He went to school in England, Sheerness, which was then a naval base. But when his father was away on work, he would go to and live at one of his grandmothers at Sandbank in Dunoon or Clynder. He then went to Lochdonhead, Mull. Then he went to Dunoon Grammar School. From there he went to a boarding school in Kiel, Dumbarton, which at…
Date: 2005-02-01
Name(s): Ross, Ian
Description: Ian Simpson Ross (9 August 1930, Dundee). He remembers growing up in the Depression and watching unemployed men line up outside the "burro" – the bureau – to get their dole money. He went to Blackness Primary, Dundee. He then received a bursary to go to Harris Academy, Dundee, he started out doing technical subjects, but was encouraged to take Latin in his third year. He didn't pass his Higher Latin, however. He remembers being very active in Sports at school – rugby, football, golf, cricket.…
Date: 2005-03-23
Name(s): Campagnolo, Iona
Description: 23 March 2005 Iona (as in from the Hebrides) Victoria Campagnold (1932, October 18th). Iona's father's (Frederick Hardy) family came from England, but his mother, Marianne Burn, was of Scottish descent. Her grandfather on her father's side, Frederick Hardy, moved to Merritt, Canada, in 1910 and had three sons: Harold, Kenneth, and Oswald. He worked as a port engineer. She remembers Marianne being very strict and a perfectionist. They moved from Merritt to Galiano in 1913. Her great-grandfather…
Date: 2005-04-26
Name(s): Macpherson, Isabel
Date: 2004-03-08
Name(s): Buchanan, James Balfour
Description: March 8, 2004 James "Jim" Balfour Buchanan (b. March 31, 1921 in Vancouver) is the only child of James Buchanan (b. Feb. 1877 in Shanghai, d. 1944 in Vancouver) and his mother (b. in Kingston, Jamaica), whose maiden name was Balfour. Father: sent to boarding school in Yorkshire, England at age 8. After completing his schooling, he lived in Germany for one year, learning the language and thus preparing him for later services as an interpreter at the end of the First World War. He was living in…
Date: 2005-03-22
Name(s): Barrie, Jamies
Description: 22 March 2005 James Allan Barrie (Vancouver, Canada, 28 March, 1941). James is the oldest of three children, his two sisters are Elaine and Jean. Although he was born in Vancouver, he lived in New Zealand for 27 years. His father started to teach him piping around the age of five. At the age of seven he got his first set of Macdougall pipes – a set that was owned by King Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales. The story goes that a man named Campbell, who was Queen Victoria's piper, was given…
Date: 2004-05-11, 2004-08-31, 2004-12-08
Name(s): Russell, James
Description: 11 May 2004 Professor Jim (James) Russell (Glasgow, Scotland, 11 September, 1935). James went to Fulwell primary school in Roker, Sunderland, England, during the war. They were in England due to his father's job as a civil servant working for the Ministry of Labour. He talks of having a duel tongue: Geordie and Scots. On coming back to Scotland, he went to the Royal Edinburgh High School and gained an interest in Classics. Although he says his whole family have been and continue to be…
Date: 2005-03-23
Name(s): Troy, James W.
Description: March 23 2005 James Wallace Troy (b. 1942 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan) is the eldest of three children (one younger brother, Gordon (d. 1961 in a motor accident), and one adopted sister (still living in Victoria)). His father, John ("Jawn") Thomas Troy (b. 1900 in New Brunswick), was the second youngest of four boys. As a railroad dispatcher in Duncan, John commuted daily from Victoria (where they moved to when James was a few years old). During the Second World War he served as a sergeant major…
Date: 2011-12-23
Name(s): Hammond, Jane, Hammond, Peter
Description: Dec 23 2011 Jane Hammond (née Jane Elle Campbell, b. 1949 in Toronto) is the youngest of four children. Her father, Albert McTaggart Campbell (b. 1910 in Strathroy, Ontario, d. 1973) was the eldest surviving son of seven-eight children, two of whom died from appendicitis. Growing up in a farming community, he received his Bachelor's of Science in Agriculture from the University of Guelph before teaching science in northern Ontario. After marrying he moved to South Ontario where he became very…
Date: 2004-11-12
Name(s): Bain, Jim
Date: 2004-03-16, 2004-04-21
Name(s): McMillan, Jimmy
Description: March 16 2004, April 21 2004 Jimmy McMillan Born: James "Jimmy" Graham McMillan, Sept. 27, 1911 in Argyleshire. Oldest of 4 children (two sisters and a brother). Father: Born in Argyleshire in 1888. One of 13 boys and 2 girls, all the men in the family were blacksmith. He was the 4th born and was a twin, they both served in the military, and his twin brother was killed in the War. He continued to work as a Blacksmith in Victoria. Paternal Grandfather: Killed in a boiler explosion around age 48…
