Description
Mr. Connett speaks of the reaction he and his comrades experienced when the Armistice was declared on November 11, 1918. He also recalls some of the challenges he faced in returning to civilian life in Canada.
Fred Connett
Fred Connett was born of April 17, 1897 in London, England. As a boy, he was sent to live with an aunt when his father fell ill. He ran away from his new home several times and, as a result, was moved to an orphanage. While there, he received training in several trades and eventually secured a job in a printing shop. In 1913, at the age of 16, he left the orphanage and came to Canada. He worked on a farm near Ottawa for some time at a wage of $4.00 a month. Planning for his future, he used the money he made on the farm to buy a life insurance policy. A few days before Christmas, 1916, he went into Ottawa and enlisted in the mounted section of the Divisional Signal Corps. He switched to the non-mounted section soon after. When this interview was recorded in West Vancouver during the summer of 1998, Mr. Connett was 101 years old.
Transcript
Oh it’s very exhilarating. As a matter of fact this particular little group that I belonged to all immediately went AWL, jumped on a train with these false passes and railroad warrants and went up to London. And celebrated up there to the extent, with the rest of the troops from all over the world - Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Canadians, Americans, celebrated in London and the Nelson’s Monument had, was surrounded by large boards on which they had various pictures encouraging people to either be economizing something or picture of Kitchener with his finger pointed “The country needs you.” you see. So the troops put up, imagine putting up with that during the war. But the moment armistice was signed, we all headed for London, and I guess most of us got a little drunk. As a matter of fact, I think it was the first time in my life I’d ever got drunk. I got, majority got carried away. I won’t, don’t know where I was in the thing, but the fire department came out and turned the hose on us and squashed a lot of that.
Interviewer: After 4 long years the war was over. Did you have any thoughts about where and what you were going to do then?
Well, I wanted to do, wanted to do something. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and money was extremely sparse and I went to night school, for which I payed a noble sum of 3 dollars a month and I took up bookkeeping, basically. And I studied a bit of English myself, you know books and that sort of thing. And I worked at various, I wouldn’t like to call them enterprises, but various things that would give me a little money. I would clerk in a store. I would work in a restaurant washing dishes. You’d get some free food that way you know. Sell calendars, sell magazines, even improved to the stage where I sold insurance. Dug ditches, in parliament building , you already said you’re familiar with Ottawa. Some interesting things.
Following, arriving in Ottawa the next day, you know, what am I going to do? I’m still in the army, but I’ve got to live for 2 weeks and I can’t do it on 5 dollars very well. Even though you could get a very good meal for 25 cents. I got a job in the Hunter building as a labourer. So of course I had no one to prepare a lunch for me or a lunch pail or anything like that. So in those days they used to blow a whistle to stop work, you know, you may be familiar with it. So when the whistle blew I went to a local restaurant for a meal and I came back A man came up to me he says “Give me 2 dollar.” Well, we were pretty crude and hard boiled at that time. I’ll give you a poke in the god damn teeth that’s what I’ll give you. And I think with that, the whistle blew and get on with our work. The next day was a repeat. So I was getting a carpenter some board or something I don’t a window frame or whatever and I said to him “That man over there that’s pushing the wheelbarrow. He keeps bugging me for 2 dollars what the hell is the matter with him? ” Now I might as well told the man I had aids or leprosy or something because he says to me “Are you a god damn scab? ” Now, I didn’t know what a scab was. So again, I’m ready to, ready to fight. So it was explained to me that I better join the union. And so I didn’t know what to do. I think I had maybe 3 dollars or something left of my 5 dollars about that stage. What do I do now? So I gave him the 2 dollars and he came back with a nice blue button said Allied Trades and Labour Council, I think it was. And me being a tough hard nut gent, look I don’t I was god damn stubborn and I tore the card up and threw it and the button out through the window. Oh what it was about 5 minutes later up comes the foreman and says “You’re fired.”
So I went from there right up to the street a block, 2 blocks a matter of fact, to Parliament buildings and here they were putting in the central heating. There’d been a fire in Parliament building in 1916 I think and prior to that they hadn’t had central heating. So they were digging ditches which was right up our alley of course and oh I must say the, at the Hunter building we go 20 cents an hours. So when I went up the hill to get a job we had to sign for a crow bar, a pick axe, an eight pound sledge and a round nose shovel. So you’d remove the sod where they had it marked out and then you pounded the rock and broke it up with the crow bar and hoisted it out, that dig the trench. Well, big increase we got 25 cents an hour. It was a 25% increase you see. Big, big stuff. But then lets say afterwards at night, go and watch dishes in a restaurant for a meal. It was a hard time. It was a very hard, very difficult time.