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Robert Laing as a baby with his mother Dorothy, grandfather John Ridyard and great-grandmother.1948
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
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Robert Laing was born in 1948 and lived at 837 Armour Road (formerly 137 River Road) in Peterborough until he was 15 years of age. His parents Stuart Laing and Dorothy (nee Ridyard) Laing both grew up in Peterborough.Robert was the second of four surviving children, 3 boys & 1 girl. He had a twin brother, William, who died at birth. The twins were premature and Robert was in an incubator for 2 months after he was born. He only weighed 3 pounds. In order of birth the siblings were Ron, Robert, Christine and Gordon.
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Robert talks about how he spent his Sundays as a child.28 March 2006
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
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His father had been working at Canada Packers (located where Holiday Inn is now), when it closed he was given the option of moving to Toronto. He decided that he didn't want to move his family to Toronto so instead he bought a Super Test Gas station on Chemong Road which he named Laing's Super Test Gas Bar. They ran a grocery store, restaurant snack bar and gas pumps. The family also lived on the property. They were there for six years. The business and house on Chemong Road have since been demolished, but it was just north of the 3rd Line Road.When his father sold the business on Chemong Road the family moved to John Street, Robert's Grandma Laing's house. Stuart had grown up there. While they were living on John Street his younger brother Gord died of leukemia at the age of 19.
Robert recalls they would often go to his Grandma Ridyard's for roast beef dinner. The family spent a lot of time with his Ridyard relatives, they were closely connected. The Ridyards spent a lot of time at the Laing household for tea and for meals as well. His grandma helped with the store – she was a good cook – she ran the canteen at the Civic Arena. His grandpa cut the lawn on the grounds of the Exhibition and also at the golf course. He used to bring them bags of golf balls.
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Robert Laing's Aunt Ruth's Wedding: His mother Dorothy is 4th from the right in the front row.1940
Rubidge Street, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
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Robert Laing's 7th birthday.7 June 1956
837 Armour Road, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
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Robert wanted to go to school so badly, because his older brother was in school, but he was too young so his parents sent him to the Dixon House Nursery School (in the North End off Parkhill Road). His mom always said that he was the first student enrolled in the kindergarten class at Armour Heights Public School. It opened the year he started school in 1953.During the six years the Laing's ran the Super Test Gas Station on Chemong Rd. Robert started grade 9 at Adam Scott Collegiate. He walked to Adam Scott but it was a long walk. He would travel down Hilliard Street where there were very few houses. When he was in grade 10 Crestwood Secondary School opened and he started going there. He rode a school bus to school. At that time it was the only ‘country high school' and since the Laing's didn't live in the city limits Robert had to switch schools.
When his father Stuart Laing was attending high school in the 1930s there were only two high schools in Peterborough, St. Peter's Catholic School and PCVS (Peterborough Collegiate & Vocational School).
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SS#3 at Chemong and the 3rd Line was where Robert's younger siblings went to school. It was a one room school with a partition down the middle and the younger and older students were separated into two groups. Then that was torn down and a new school was built but it burned down a few years later – there is now a small commercial building housing several businesses on the site.Trent University opened in Peterborough in 1964. Robert attended Trent for his first year, however he did his second year abroad in France at the Université de Grenoble He came back and did his 3rd year at Trent and finished his teaching degree at Queen's University in Kingston. He was one of the first ones in his family to get a university degree. In those days getting a job was a higher priority then getting an education.
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Robert Laing with his siblings. From left: Ron, Christine, Gordon and Robert.7 June 1956
837 Armour Road, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
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As a youngster Robert was in Cubs but was not allowed to play sports because he was not as healthy as his siblings. He was really protected as a child. His mother always worried about his health especially since his twin had died at birth. His older brother could water ski but his mother got upset when he tried such things.Instead he was encouraged to get into the arts and took piano lessons where he reached the grade 8 level.
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Robert Laing talks about some of the things he would do for fun when he was growing up.28 March 2006
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
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Robert remembers when he was growing up living on Armour Road that it was all countryside across the road. They had the canal on one side, the river on the other, and a gravel pit behind their house. The kids spent a lot of time outside because they didn't have TV. Robert really enjoyed the wooded areas. He would go fishing along the canal or camping along the canal with a friend.Often Robert and his friends went down to the Whitaker woolen mill and would throw rocks at the pool from the mill. He remembers going to Nichols Oval Park where there was always summer activities for them to do. It was a kind of summer camp with things like cricket games. He often went swimming at Inverlea Park. He remembers he had his first bike stolen from there and he found it later on Wolfe Street.
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Robert's favourite places have always been outside. He's always liked being in the woods. The family also had a cottage on Clear Lake, north of Lakefield, where they spent every August. When they had the store their father would commute and they would try to send him mental telepathy messages to ‘bring home ice cream'.In the early years they used to have to go through a farmer's fields to get to the cottage. A road was built down to the cottage in the late 1970s. After the road was made the milkman would come and leave milk at the top of the hill in glass bottles. Robert remembers he tripped once going down the hill and spilt the milk all over.
The cottage was very primitive in the beginning and the family used coal oil lamps and a wood stove and then they made improvements. Robert says they had a small sailboat, and he remembers getting stranded in the middle of the lake with a friend when the wind just stopped.
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He recalls looking for strange varieties of trilliums, digging them up and trying to grow them in their backyard. Also there was a huge limestone rock at the top of the hill at their cottage that had some huge fossils in it that their dad had someone come and look at. At night he would often go out to the middle of the lake or the top of the hill to look at the stars, and watched for shooting stars. There were lots of other kids on the lake he played with – they had a trail beaten across everyone's properties from going back and worth. They also had a trading library. He noticed that this didn't happen anymore when he went back as an adult – the kids had all grown up.He remembers going with his dad to Juniper Island on Stoney Lake to go square dancing at the pavilion on Wednesday nights. It was just for kids and they loved it. Robert would go canoeing, swimming, and for picnics at the Kawartha Park Marina, his dad knew the people who owned it. There was also a church across the lake and Robert was in the choir, he would go across the lake once a week for choir practice and then go over for church on Sunday.
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