John Patrick Gordon

They asked me if I’d like to go out on The [HMCS] St. Clair, if there was, they seen material that’s broken down and everything. I repaired it or I went down on the ship and I’d repair it or try to repair it. And it was that much simple in a way and yet it wasn’t. Some of that stuff, you’d take a wristwatch apart, put it together, it’s simple. But to put it together, again, that’s hard. It bugs you, that there’s no way that should be fixed. When they put on radar, we’d go down and we’d check it. Like what they’re doing, because we were learning something on it. It’s a day job, let’s put it that way. My wife and I, we had a one room little suite, I sent from Calgary and then in the morning, I got up like any workman get a little tug [boat] and they’d take us out to the St. Claire and then wait for the boys to come, would come in and that ship would be put on the dock and this would be in and we had what you’d call men that really know their stuff and we all worked together. That’s the way we teach each other, to which is smart. For fun is hockey, it’s hockey. Yeah, we had a lot of fun, little party after. I mean, we were a good bunch of boys. I played right, like I was fast. I wasn’t big, I was 135 against 250 pounds. And I was a speeder. And the navy, yeah, they sent their team there and so they’d come over and they’d have a hockey night. It’s just like right now, you go to rink and you play against a team from another city. Well, this is team from another like [HMCS] Tecumseh and they’d play against another team from another just like home, only against each other.