When Wilfred Fawcett was 25 he accidentally cut the top of his finger off while working with a saw.
It meant the end of playing the clarinet he had started on when he was 14 years old. Before the accident, Fawcett played with swing bands all over Vancouver in the 1940s and 1950s.
His boyhood music experience was with a well-know musician named Lance Harrison.
"Everyone knows Lance Harrison and Mr. Baker, they used to have a nightclub right at the corner of Marine Drive and Park Royal," recalls Fawcett, noting Harrison was a Dixieland musician and taught him all about it.
Fawcett tried to play professionally but "most musicians are very poor," he notes with a laugh.
He decided to get a good job and a bit more schooling, and ended up with an insurance company called Fawcett Insurance Agency. When he retired in 2000, he passed the firm on to his son. Despite leaving the scene, Fawcett never lost his love of music, and 45 years later found himself at Mount Seymour Lions Club and was asked to join their musical group playing saxophone. He told them he hadn't played in years.
Fawcett recalls thinking to himself on the way home that he had never considered playing the sax because the tip of his finger was gone, but he decided to give it a try. He borrowed a saxophone from his neighbour's son and "within minutes I was playing again," he recalls. Later he went to an instrument mechanic, who fixed his clarinet so Fawcett could play even with his injured finger. In 1995, Fawcett got together with some other local musicians and formed the Deep Cove Swing Band. But after seven years, Fawcett says the group wasn't getting enough gigs to please him.
He explains that it's difficult to find venues to hold a group of 16 to 20 musicians.
Still not ready to give up on performing, Fawcett formed the Deep Cove Old Time Jazz Band in 2002. He explains that old time jazz is Dixieland style from about 1900 to 1950. "It's real old, old time music," he notes.
The group currently has between six and eight members and performs 20 shows a year.
The goal of the group is to put on a good show and have fun while doing it.
When asked what he likes about performing, Fawcett jokes with a laugh: "Well, it gives you a high without taking liquor."
