Reception following Church Service. Saturday December 7, 2024
Kevin said some words:
Thank you to all for coming; in particular those from out of town. I would like to especially thank my uncle ‘s Joe and Norby for coming. I know that it was a long journey, and dad would have really appreciated it. In fact, he used to tell me that he would go to Joe’s funeral if Joe came to his!
This has been, for our family been a menses horribilis. The Queen had her annus horribilis and we had our horribilis mensis. Horrible month. Our boys lost their last two grandparents who they knew from the time they were born. They were sad and we were sad.
As my father used to say, things happen when you least expect them! He would often say this when one totally expected things to happen. However, we did not expect this although we knew that the inevitable would indeed one day happen. But not now and not so close to the passing of my mother-in-law, Teresa.
C’est la vie!
I had been asking my father to write down his recollections, but he never did; claiming he was too busy. About a year ago, I sat down with him and asked him questions about his life which I then began to write down. We only managed to get through a couple of sessions before he took ill and his memory just wasn’t the same after. So, what I am about to go over with you is what he told me. in his own words.
My grandfather, Antonio (aka Anthony) Jochem Vincent Pinto moved to Karachi from Goa in his teens. He got married in Goa to my grandmother Euphemia. They had two children (girls who died in their infancy) before the birth of my Uncle Jospeh, Dad’s older brother in 1926. My father came along in 1928 followed by my aunts Helen in 1930 and Sybil in 1933,
My grandfather was a clerk who worked for David Sassoon & Co. At night he worked to fill up the steamers with crushed cow bones for export to the UK to be put into porcelain (i.e. bone China). During the day he worked in the office as a clerk. Eventually he became chief clerk earning 100 rupees a month; a living sum in those days but about 50 cents today.
He died unexpectedly on Nov 1, 1943, when my father was only fifteen. He had a lung infection, Pleurisy, was sick for a week and recovered but shortly after suffered heart attack and died.
Dad then helped his mother sort through things, went to David Sassoon’s office and got some money to cover them until he completed his matriculation in the spring of 1944. Being the second son, he was slated for the priesthood but because of his father’s death, he had to work to support his family. The Priest who recommended him for priesthood, Father Modestine, offered him a teaching job instead. He received his certificate from Bombay as St Pats, the school he went to, was regulated from Bombay at the time.
In February 1945 he bluffed his way into the British Auxiliary Forces as a private, saying he was 18 when he was 17. About the same time my father got a job offer from Father Modestine to teach at St Pats High school. He taught English, Geography, History. He taught fifth standard Class E. Some of his pupils were Ceasar D’Sliva (who was our neighbour in Dollard) , Monsignor Terence D’Souza (who was our parish priest in Mississauga) and Melito Dias who also became a priest. There were many others.
He worked nights in the army and days teaching. In the army he guarded the infrastructure like the dock yards. The war ended in September 1945. He taught about a year and then joined BOAC (now British Airways). After 6 months he volunteered to go to Bahrain with BOAC and went there with his cousin Max. He did this to get extra money. He worked at the Bahrain Airport for Sea planes. These were big sea planes guided by boats for take off and landings. Dad would prepare flight services reports and draft schedules for landings and take offs. The planes were passenger planes carrying 25 to 30 passengers mostly British.
He worked in Bahrain for a year and sent his paycheck to his mother keeping only what he needed to live on while in Bahrain. Cigarettes were 25 pisas a packet and a bottle of scotch was 5 rupees.
There were lots of Goans in Bahrain. Dad played cricket, hockey and soccer in his spare time. They played against the “Tommy’s “ whom they would wallop in cricket and hockey but not soccer.
After Bahrain he returned to Karachi and continued to work for BOAC for 3 to 4 years at the Karachi airport in Air traffic control. Only one plane crashed when we worked there he said. No survivors. An engine fault he said.
After BOAC, he got a job at Benjamin Raymond Herman and Mohatra. He worked there for 18 years in accounting. I remember him being chauffeured to work and his lunch being freshly made and delivered in a tiffin. We lived in a nice, detached house in a new development of Hussain D’silva town.
In mid 1962 my mother and I moved to England. In those days you got British citizenship after 12 months. My mother got to almost 11 months and decided she could not stay in England. Too damp, too cold and too clammy and it was making her sick. So she packed up with a two year version of me in tow and we moved back to Karachi. After all, how bad could it get? It got bad. There was a war with India in 1965 with bombs dropping around us. I still remember my mother reminding my father to stop lighting his cigarette as we were under blackout!
We were the last of our immediate family to leave Karachi. We moved from our house to a rented flat to my maternal mother’s house and then to my dad’s sisters house liquidating assets along the way and smuggling funds out and hoping we would not get caught.
My mother’s brother Joseph who was established in Canada sponsored us and we finally moved to Montreal in August 1967.
It took a few months for my father to find work but he did find work. First at Allis Chalmers and soon after ended up with Connolly and Twizell, a plumbing and refrigeration contractor based in Mount Royal where he worked until he retired as the Company Controller in 1988.
Those first few months were hard. My dad contracted malaria and almost died. The disease was not known in Canada and it took a while to diagnose it. But they eventually did and he recovered and the rest is… history.
Kevin Pinto December 7, 2024
