Part 1

Jim was in school. He was in Scouting all his life, of course. That would be a whole other story, what Scouting was like in those days. You wouldn't recognize it as Scouting these days. I found a. lot of those pictures in here. Anyways, the Scouts got permission to use Bigwin Inn on Lake of Bays. Well, it was the biggest, most expensive summer resort' we had in Canada. Wealthy people came up from the States. And they asked the Scouts to supply all the caddies out there. We started a camp, and from June to the 1st of September, they ran a regular. Scout camp on the Bigwin Inn grounds at Lake of Bays. The boys weren't paid, they depended entirely on tips. But the wealthy people they served tipped them very, very well and Bigwin Inn supplied the food. So that was the first camp that I guess, Toronto had, or had anything to do with, And it was run by this group of young people that Jim's best friend was in charge of.

Jim was working at the Exhibition in the summers, and they suggested using Scouts as ushers on the Grandstand and the Horse Show and the Coliseum, all the events that went on there. This was in the early 1920's. So they set up a Scout camp inside the Dufferin Gates where it used to be a football field and baseball diamond. Boys came from all over Ontario and stayed there for the three weeks. There were only. two weeks for the Exhibition but they set up and got things organized. Jim organized that one.

We had a very, very good Scout band in those days, and they used to march them off through the Exhibition. They had inspection first and everybody had to be shined, and they really were a smart group. They marched them through the Exhibition and all down through, stopped in front of the grandstand; that contingent dropped off, and the rest went on down to the Coliseum. They handed the ribbons out at the Coliseum, followed the judges around and took notes on who won on all the classes. They did that all day. The others had the two grandstand performances to usher. Another group had ushered for the horse show at the night and the afternoon horse show that was on.

So Jim was involved in that, and when he finished school, the Exhibition asked him if he' would come and work there on a permanent basis. So he went in the agriculture with the men he worked with, Sam Foss and the ones he worked with on this judging. So in the next 10 years, he worked there, then in '39, came the War.

So, now back to Scouting, and I can not think of his name, I can see his face, and I know where he lives in Bronte, but he was Commissioner for Rovers at the time. And he was head of the Wool Board. He was a wool importer, I guess. And so the Exhibition had to be closed because the Army moved in and took over the buildings and the staff were given the choice of either staying on and sort of putting in time, everyone said, " Oh six months and the war will be over", or else, going on loan to some government agency and work there. Jim chose to work, and this man contacted him asked him if he would consider working for the Wool Board. So he took over and for the four years of the War he was all over Canada; storing wool, meeting trains, boats and what not, distributing wool to where it was needed. Canada was sort of the centre for everything made of wool.

[During the Second World War the CNE became Toronto's main training grounds. The CNE fair, and virtually all other non-military uses of the lands ceased. The CNE was not held between 1942 and 1946, when the land and its facilities were turned over to the Department of National Defence as a training ground. After World War II, it was used as a demobilization centre. The CNE would resume again in 1947, as the Canadian military returned the grounds back to its civilian administrators.]

So then came the end of the War, but the Army still wanted the Exhibition because they were going to discharge everybody from there so they said they needed it for at least another year. The same chap came back and said well you've got a year before you can go back to work. Would you consider going out and looking for a camp? Jim thought that would be good, he didn't want to go and sit around, he hated that. So he then started looking.

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