Vicki Harris (niece of Hazel)

Entered July 7, 2017 from Wolfville, Nova Scotia

My thoughts and prayers to all of you to carry on the Howes family history of a great love that lasted a lifetime...rare these days. Thank you for sharing some wonderful family photos of a happy couple from the early years to some very recent days. Memories to warm your heart in the days to come. May peace everlasting be with you all.

Dee Stapleton (Friend on third floor)

Entered July 9, 2017 from Christie Gardens

Cy was very lost without Elma. I am glad that he is at peace now. My sympathy goes out to all the family. Dee

Irene Ty (was a member at St. James United Church)

Entered July 9, 2017 from Toronto

I got to know Cy and Elma at St. James United Church, when I joined there between 1996 - 2001. I was co-chair with him on the Social Justice Committee. I really enjoyed working with him and I learned a lot from him. He was a tireless advocate of social justice. May you rest in peace. You have done good work my friend.

Anne Dance 

Entered July 11, 2017 from Ontario

My condolences. I am sending good thoughts and prayers to the Howes family.
-Anne

Timothy Howes (Nephew)

Entered August 1, 2017 from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, UK

I've only just come across this Guestbook. We all miss Cyril, such a lovely person, and thankful he passed away peacefully. Again, our love to all the Howes and relatives.

Tim and Celia Howes - Harrogate, UK

More on Dads Wartime Experience
After returning to the UK, again on the Queen Mary, he continued training at several Air Force bases, before he was assigned to 298 Squadron at Tarrant Rushton Air Base, near the English Channel in the South of England. This was January, 1944, five months prior to D-Day, the invasion of Normandy.
His flight logbook shows pages and pages of all the training exercises his crew performed. Starting in March, 1944, are occasional records in red ink with code names: e.g. Operation Footman, Operation Pimento, etc. These were actual sorties over the channel and into France and Belgium. What is not shown explicitly is the fact he became part of the preparations for a very secret operation that was to be a crucial part of the planned invasion, and that was operation “Coup-de-Main”, which enabled the capture and defence of the Pegasus Bridge in France.
The operation commenced at 10 pm the night before the invasion, and Dad’s role as a Bomb Aimer/Navigator, was to guide one of the six Halifax Bombers towing gliders, each carrying 28 infantry, and release them at a precise location, direction and altitude so that the gliders could descend 6,000 feet in darkness, and land in pastures beside the bridge. This operation was an incredible success, resulting in 5 out of 6 gliders ending yards away from the two target bridges which were seized and defended. The story of the Pegasus Bridge has been featured in books and movies about D-Day.
After this sortie, Dad flew about 23 more missions into Europe and Scandinavia, towing gliders with troops or supplies for resistance fighters, before the tide of the war turned in our favour, and he was eventually released in April 1946.

Dad enlisted in the Royal Air Force, but I am not sure when and he did not become activated until 1942 at age 19. He began training first at several bases in the UK, but his main Air School training was to be done in Canada. In October 1942, he sailed to North America on the Queen Mary, a large passenger liner, which had been converted to a troop transport. Dad started Air School Training in BCATP Air Navigation School taking courses in Bombing and Gunnery, and Air Navigation for Air Bombing, which apparently became his specialty. Somewhere in this training in 1943 he met mom at a dance for the servicemen at the West End YMCA. Maybe she had something to do with his success?

A Voyage on the Queen Mary
In October 1942, he was booked to sail to North America on the Queen Mary, a large passenger liner, which had been converted to a troop transport. However, while sailing to the UK with 15,000 US troops, the Queen Mary had a tragic accident, while trying to evade a German submarine. It rammed an escorting cruiser, cutting the smaller cruiser in two and sinking it immediately. The Queen Mary suffered minimal damage to its prow and no casualties, while over 338 of the crew of the cruiser died. This tragic event was not disclosed publicly until newspaper articles of May 1945. Dad sailed on the damaged Queen Mary the following week.

I found a note written by my mother on a newspaper clipping about this incident as follows:
“Cyril was on Queen Mary on its next trip to Boston to be repaired. Cyril (in RAF) was brought by train from there to Moncton NB for training. Audrey Taylor and her parents were on the same trip and came up to Toronto. I (Elma) met Audrey at West End YMCA and Cyril too about same time in 1943 but we did not realize they had made that trip together until many years later (about 1970).”

Audrey has been a life long close friend of the family.

A poem by Dad:
Mama’s on a Health Food Jag

Mama’s on a Health Food Jag
And she fills her shopping bag
With nutrients queer of many types,
With potions, brews and anti-gripes;
Soy oil, sea salt, herbs and chives,
Catastrophic laxatives,
Apple cider vinegar,
Pure bee’s honey by the jar.

Mama’s on a health food binge,
The stuff she gets – it makes you cringe:
Eggs from chickens that have fun
Because they’re always on the run;
Whey and kelp and bentonite,
Slippery elm and dolomite,
Oyster bones, psyllium husks,
Lactose, dextrose, termite’s tusks.

Mama’s on a health food kick,
The rarest dainties she will pick,
Provided that she’s satisfied
Their natural cures are bona fide.
We’re filled with rock and clay and seeds;
We’re fed on grass and leaves and weeds.
Oh, help us quick- it’s getting late.
Just place two aspirins on our plate.

Mama’s on a health food spree,
The things she gets from land and sea
Are culled from distant parts of Earth;
Of different kinds there seems no dirth.
The trouble with this nature food,
Although the idea may be good,
Is that the cost is killing me!
I’d rather pay the doctor’s fee!

Another poem by Dad

A Reverie – The Seasons

Idly on my back I lie
Idly watch the clouds go by
Multi-mound or fragile lace
A Springtime fantasy in space.
Or by a glass-still pond I sit
Watching dragon flies that flit
In summer time, from reed to reed –
Reflected beauty, light and speed.
Or quietly gaze into the trees
As, rippled by a summer breeze
The leaves and light in interplay
Shimmer on an Autumn day.
I hear the moody drip of rain
Rat-tat against the window pain
And watch its straight relentless beat
On patterned puddles in the street.
And as it changes into snow
I see the flakes drift to and fro
And madly rush and swirl around
As Winter freezes hard the ground.
And then I doze in fireside light
In comfort on a Winter night
And trace the play of smoke and flames
In wispy flickering coloured games.
At times like these in reverie
From worldly cares my mind is free
To see a natural world abstract
Of beauty, true, complete, intact.