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Retired dentist reflects on early memories with dad

Charles Stanley Bellamy and his son Charles Peter Bellamy share much more than a name: there’s the navy, boats, fishing – and teeth. This story begins almost a century ago in the 1920s.
Charles Peter Bellamy

Charles Stanley Bellamy and his son Charles Peter Bellamy share much more than a name:  there’s the navy, boats, fishing – and teeth.

This story begins almost a century ago in the 1920s. Charles Stanley Bellamy, “Charlie” as he was known, was on a round-the-world voyage aboard the HMS Curlew. At an onshore soirée in Victoria, Charlie met Violet Cross, “and that was that,” according to son Charles Peter Bellamy, who goes by “Peter.”

When the Curlew returned to homeport in Bermuda, Charlie invested 50 pounds to buy himself out of the Royal Navy and hitched a ride to Halifax on the HMS Dauntless.

Just before reaching the safety of Halifax harbour, heavy fog caused the cruiser to run aground on Thrum Cap Shoal. The Dauntless was stripped of its moving parts and the crew, including Charlie, mustered at the quarterdeck, had to bounce up and down with their combined weight until the vessel lifted off the shoal. 

It was an unusual experience, even for a sailor. For Charlie, crossing the vastness of Canada after many months at sea may have been equally unusual. Certainly, with his true love waiting on the far side of the continent, it was romantic.

Charlie and Violet reunited, married and welcomed their son Peter into the family on Aug. 28, 1929, followed by daughter Barbara Ann a few years later.

Fishing and boats figure in Peter’s early memories of his father. “I remember fishing for coho with him off Brentwood. I helped dad rivet the copper headed nails on one of the boats he built. That one, a 14-foot International, was built in a garage near our house on Estevan Avenue in Oak Bay,” Peter recalls.

Go back almost 80 years, to the outbreak of the Second World War. Charlie returned to the service, enlisting in the Canadian Army Dental Corps.

Peter spent the summers of 1945 and 1946 aboard the CGS Estevan, servicing the lighthouses and channel buoys along the west coast of Vancouver Island.

“The trip took about three weeks and we did it twice, one trip to service the lighthouses and another to maintain the channel buoys. One of my jobs was to climb inside the buoys, scrape off the barnacles and mussels and paint on a new coat of red lead.”

There was opportunity in the post-war world, and Charlie found it in dentistry. With a partner, he set up a dental lab in Vancouver to supply a group of dentists and colleagues from the war.

The family found lodgings in the Vancouver Hotel, repurposed as a hostel for returning veterans. The arrangement was temporary. The Bellamys purchased a lot in the new development of Capilano Highlands in North Vancouver.

“There wasn’t much there back then,” recalls Peter. “The road was bulldozed through a week after dad bought the lot, $675 with a discount for cash.”

The family lived in a trailer on the property while Charlie built the house himself, taking the better part of two years to complete while setting up his own business, North Shore Dental Lab, on Eastern Avenue.

Peter was a cadet at Royal Roads by then but the naval life was not for him. A job at the Nechako Dam led to another at the Lajoie Dam in the Bridge River country, and a winter memorable for the boat Peter built.

In a long, narrow and heated room at the Gold Bridge post office, Peter built the 16-foot runabout by hand, right down to the 1800 copper-headed nails that held her together. He christened her the Curlew after the ship that brought his parents together.

Peter moved on, studying forestry at UBC until the day came when he invested $10 to de-register himself in order to enter dentistry at the University of Toronto.

Soon after the newly minted dentist opened his practice in North Vancouver, he met Grace Clemens and “that was that.” Peter and Grace enjoyed life with children and grandchildren until the family lost Grace in 2015.

For Charles Peter Bellamy, retired dentist and son of Charles Stanley Bellamy, there’s time for memories that reach back across a century, time for fishing trips with old friends, and for making new memories with family.

There’s a new memory in this column, with Peter’s photograph taken by Cindy Goodman, North Shore News photographer and his daughter.

Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or email her at lander1@shaw.ca.