TRANSCRIPT

Clair: When you started school, because there was no kindergarten in those days we started grade one at age six and I moved to 138 Douro Street. Which is where I remember most things happening. I was close enough to walk to school and back at Immaculate Conception, to walk to church at Immaculate Conception and to walk down to the ballpark where I spent most of my free time. And there we watched people like Ray Judd pitch and we played basketball, football, horseshoes, tennis, anything you can imagine. And in the wintertime there was a free rink with a pot belly stove where you could go into the dressing room and change your skates. There was one rink for skating, one rink for hockey. The rink actually where Bob Gainey, a famous hockey player for the Montreal Canadiens honed his hockey skills and prior to that George ‘Red' Sullivan who lived on Rogers Street practiced his hockey there. And the coach for hockey and baseball was a man called Rube Brady who lived on Douro Street. Gale: And the ballpark you talked about is that where East City Bowl is? Clair: that's East City Bowl yes, then behind that was a hardball park where baseball was played and there's basketball courts, tennis courts, and so forth. There were no video games, there were no computers, and most people in East City were working class people who could not afford to get a membership at the golf course. So sports was the thing and it wasn't organized ad infinitum the way it is today and we had to learn to make up our own games and our own teams and go to the park and play, which we did. Football, basketball, baseball, hockey, you name it, we did it.

Clair Leahy