Description
Mr. Brown shares a humourous adventure of skiing in Russia and how he accidentally skied through a group of British officers watching his performance.
Robert Brown
Mr. Brown was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on March 5, 1924. He was the oldest in his family, having only one younger sister. His father worked as a carpenter with the Canadian National Railway. His mother died when he was in Grade 10. Mr. Brown continued his education before joining the Winnipeg Sea Cadets. In February 1943, he joined the navy and was given the choice to go directly to sea or take a trade. He requested an opportunity to take a diver’s course training. As the Canadian Navy did not offer this course at the time, he received training as a torpedo man instead. During this time, the Canadian government arranged with Britain to take over the British cruiser, HMS Belfast. Mr. Brown was put aboard the cruiser and served as crane operator and torpedo man under British command. After the war, Mr. Brown returned to Canada and held a 35 year career in the field of fire fighting.
Transcript
When we were in Murmansk we got a chance to go ashore and it was interesting. We saw a German aircraft that had been shot down and we saw a number of things. But anyway, I was ashore with some English sailors - that was from the Belfast - and we’d gone up on a height of land away from the water and it was, there was a lot of snow. It was at Christmas time after the Battle of North Cape. There were a couple of Russian soldiers there and they were on skis and an English lad said, “Hey, Brownie, you’re Canadian, you must know how to ski.” I said, “Oh sure.” “Well, how about showing us? ” “I got no skis.” “Oh,” they said, “go talk to the Russians. Give him a package of cigarettes.” So I gave the Russian soldier one or two packages of cigarettes for the use of the skis, and I put them on and I skied around a bit, and then I was going to go downhill. Now at the bottom of the hill, it went to the seashore and, of course, the open water and it’s damp down there, but up on the hill it was quite dry. So I started down the hill and I was going, and I was having a great time and my overcoat was blowing in the wind, but when I got to the bottom there were two things. There was about a dozen British officers standing there, and at the bottom of the hill the snow was wet and sticky, and I hit that patch and I went head over heels and I went through that group of officers like a bowling ball. And they were pretty upset, but then they realized I was, what they called me was a stupid colonial.