The Late Bays Blackhall on Some Fort Langley History

*Interview conducted August 11, 2016.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s go a little bit over your family and personal history. Just general picture stuff.

Bays Blackhall: I was born in Victoria at the Royal Jubilee Hospital and lived out of Mount Tolmie, where my grandfather owned part of the mountain, part of Mount Tolmie. Then my father and mother after they were married moved up to Cowichan. I went to Queen Margaret’s School. You can get rid of some of this if you want. I went to kindergarten where I still have some friends, the Vogel family, eventually, Hunter (Vogel) was the [first] Mayor of City of Langley. So, that was a kind of a strange coincidence. We had been friends all of our lives. We went to kindergarten with them. I went to Queen Margaret’s School. That was the girls’ school and very Anglican and British. We had best friends there for years and years, and played on the grass hockey time, and tennis, and swimming, and horseback riding was the major thrust of the school. My sister and I shared a large horse called Serious [Ed. unsure on spelling]. Wait a minute, excuse me, after that, we, first of all, moved to Cultus Lake during the war because my father was in charge of the camp up there. After that, we were sent back to the private school because we were badly behaved and ran off with cowboys up in Cultus Lake.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Blackhall: So, the governors were sent home and we were sent back to Queen Margaret’s. After grades 9 and 10, I moved over to West Vancouver and finished my schooling in West Vancouver high school, and thence to UBC (University of British Columbia).

Jacobsen: Now, you are getting your education in UBC. What degrees?

Blackhall: Double degree in English and Psychology.

Jacobsen: Where did you apply that education if at all after you finished schooling, or where you worked?

Blackhall: You can’t really asked where I worked because from the time I was in grade 10. I worked as a waitress, at a fish cannery. My father always thought it was a good idea if we got jobs. So, we worked everywhere for a long time. When I graduated from UBC and after my internship at Shaughnessy, I worked as an aphasia therapist, which is in head injuries and stroke cases for about 5 years until we had our first child. Then we moved to North Vancouver and I had private patients for a short time and found it a bit difficult having children and private patients. I then became a volunteer and volunteered ever since.

Jacobsen: Now, you’ve come into the ‘Town of Eccentrics’ or the town of Fort Langley.

Blackhall: [Laughing].

Jacobsen: So, what is your own history with Fort Langley? What is your own perspective on Fort Langley? Those are associated questions, I think.

Blackhall: It is. And of course, as everyone will probably verify, a lot of people don’t know the origin of Fort Langley. So, I became very interested and became one of the members of the Heritage Society, which we formed in the ’70s and started helping with the preservation of all the old buildings around the Fort and around Fort Langley, around Langley itself. The same time I was working at the Fort as a friend of the Fort, which we founded. At the same time, working in the Fort Langley Community Improvement Society, which was the old community hall that was in the center of the old village. My time was very well taken up. I had to quit and work out in Fort Langley. My very close, old friend had moved out as a neighbour to us, the Robertsons [Ed. Unsure as to spelling.], which is another story because Sue Northcott and her sisters both live out in this area too. They are the daughters of my friend, Bell Robertson, and they were our neighbours and we were brought up in Duncan with them. So, it is a sort of confused history. But we worked at the VanDusen gardens for a little while in Vancouver, but it became too far to go — and so we signed up at the Museum. We were there, the Langley Centennial Museum, for about 15 years. All these things together, I can’t remember. Each time covers a part of another time like the friends of the Fort and the museum, and now the legacy foundation. They lump into one large just keep busy. Plus, we built our house out on the 20 acres, which we bought. We haven’t finished it yet. So, it has taken a long time, but I do have a large garden. I cycle every morning on Allard Crescent, which has another wonderful history. [Laughing] Everything brings another memory.