The minute David Wrinch heard that Shirley Handford had broken up with her boyfriend, he made his move. There was no way he was going to let any of the other Grade 12 boys at Lord Byng Secondary school take the smartest, prettiest girl in the school out for a date.
She said yes and two years later they got married. Next year, they’ll be celebrating their 60th anniversary with their four children and 12 grandchildren.
But right now they have to get over their embarrassment of being chosen as the 2015 Citizens of the Year.
Just as Shirley feels much more comfortable working behind the scenes in local theatrical productions, the Wrinches don’t quite know what to do after being thrust into the limelight after the selection committee’s choice became front-page news in the Undercurrent. It’s not that they’re the shy, stay-at-home types, but they’re accustomed to doing what they’re doing simply because they love doing it, not because they want or seek recognition.
Recognition they’ll get on August 29 when they have a starring role in the Bowfest parade. They’re debating whether to play it straight or play with the parade’s theme, which is Mythical Creatures. (Since Shirley’s costume was a pig last year, maybe she could add wings and become the mythical when-pigs-fly pig.)
Shirley was born in Red Lake, a tiny Ontario gold mining town 250 kilometres north of Kenora. She arrived earlier than expected so her mother didn’t have time to make it to the closest hospital. To find out how much the tiny baby weighed, Shirley was hooked stork-like to a scale used to weigh fish.
It’s hard to describe how small and isolated Red Lake was in those days, when there wasn’t even a road linking it to the outside world. There were 85 kids in Grades 7 to 13 so when her parents said that they were moving to the West Coast, 17-year-old Shirley rejoiced.
“My mother had enough of 10-month-long winters and bitter cold,” Shirley says. When the Handfords arrived in Vancouver, “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The school was amazing. I loved it.”
Her boyfriend had made the move with them but the relationship didn’t survive the transition. Word soon got around Lord Byng’s hallways, even in the days before Snap Chat, “and that was it,” David remembers. He “rushed over” and asked her to grad.
“And we haven’t looked back since, have we, dear,” Shirley says, turning to look at him with a smile.
It’s in that moment — a smile shared by two people who have been together for six decades — that you witness a friendship that’s alive and as fresh as it was when they first met. Any disagreements have had their edges cushioned by a genuine liking and fondness for one another.
David had been born in Vancouver. “My grandparents had built a house in Point Grey to get away from Saskatchewan winters,” he says, and it was to this house they all returned after spending the war years in Saskatchewan while his father was overseas. “I used to think that the east side of the city started at Granville.”
David and Shirley both enrolled at UBC. David studied to become a teacher; Shirley left partway through to go to work and then stay at home with their children — Debbie, Michael, Noel and Shael. (Shael was named after one of David’s students, who he really liked. When David suggested the name to Shirley, she agreed, saying it sounded Gaelic. Turns out it’s a Hebrew name that means “to inquire”, although for the blond-haired, blue-eyed Shael, he’s the one usually answering people’s question about how he got his name.)
Shael was 10 and Debbie was 15 when David applied to the Canadian International Development Agency for a teaching job in Africa. “Our kids needed to experience something other than our own culture,” says Shirley, who also felt compelled to expand her world view.
They were happily surprised when CIDA offered them a two-year post in Zambia.
Zambia? Where’s Zambia, they wondered, pulling out an atlas. Once there, they spent weekends and holidays exploring the country, camping everywhere and anywhere, including the Serengeti. Since Rhodesia was at war with Zambia, there were some tense times, especially when the food supply from South Africa stopped.
But they, and the children, loved it. David found his students to be incredibly keen, anxious to learn everything they could. “Education was so important to them.”
They all came back “completely changed” and when David was asked by the University of New Brunswick to set up a teaching program in Kenya a few years later, they all enthusiastically said yes. Debbie was 20, and enrolled in university, but she didn’t want to miss another adventure so she took her courses by correspondence.
David finished his career back in Vancouver as the district principal for technology.
And now for the How I Got Here part of the story…
In the early 1960s, David helped a friend’s parents wire their house in Hood Point. To say thanks, the Wrinches were invited to spend a week every summer at the Bowen Island retreat. They later tried camping in a trailer but didn’t enjoy it very much so in 1970 they decided to build their own cottage.
“We had friends on Saturna and it was so difficult to get there,” David says. Bowen was close enough to make it possible to leave Vancouver Friday after work and spend the weekend away from the city. With only 600 people living on the island, no paved road, no stores to speak of, it seemed like a true getaway.
“It was a family project,” Shirley says. Everyone pitched in as they dug through roots for the septic system and framed in the house, where they still live in today, albeit with another wing.
Although many on the island didn’t want newcomers, the Wrinches’ four children were highly coveted. The school, which was where Bowen Court is today, was down to nine students and was threatened with closure.
The idea of living here was attractive. However, when the Wrinches built their cabin, the hydro line stopped a few hundred metres away. It would cost them $750 to have the power line extended to their property. “We couldn’t afford it,” David says of why they decided to stay in Vancouver. “It was an unbelievable amount of money — two months’ salary.”
Electricity arrived long before David retired, however, so it was a natural choice to move here. And, Shirley says, “If you’re going to move somewhere, you have to get involved.”
For David it started with the Eaglecliff water board because they ran out of water every summer. Then he started at the recycling depot, which used to be across the road from its present location, often covered in two inches of water. When the late Ross Carter suggested he run for council, David asked, “Why? No one knows who I am.” Ross said being a relative unknown might be a good thing for Bowen politics….
David served three three-year terms, which he thoroughly enjoyed, and became known for his as-yet-realized plan for double-lane ferry loading.
David and Shirley have a bit of a chicken-and-egg debate going on about why she became so deeply involved in Bowen’s theatrical world. An avid sewer, she says that because he spent so much time attending meetings, she had many hours to fill. He says that because she was spending so much time on her sewing machine, he might as well run for council.
Regardless, Shirley has become an invaluable fixture with any event requiring costumes, including their son Michael’s wedding. (Michael felt that since a tuxedo was in effect a costume, you might as well go all the way. Shirley made everyone a rabbit costume for the Easter wedding, which was officiated by someone dressed as a clown; the pianist was Santa Claus.)
It’s natural for people to want to pull up the drawbridge once they arrive on Bowen; it’s what people felt back in 1970 when the Wrinches arrived and David admits it’s a bit of how he feels today.
There is, however, a knack to living on Bowen. “Once you’ve accommodated the ferry and have a book in the car, and once you accept the fact that people have different points of view and in some cases are very passionate about expressing those views, then everything falls into place,” David says. Shirley smiles and nods her head in agreement.
