Barb and family, I am so sad to hear of Neil’s passing. My deepest condolences. I have so many wonderful memories of Neil and our 50+ year friendship, beginning when we first met in the summer of 1970 at the back of the small apartment building on Augusta St. Nancy & I had just arrived in Ottawa and you and Neil came out on your little 2nd floor landing to introduce yourselves, welcome us to Ottawa and to offer help in moving our total possessions from the back of our 1961 VW beetle. Even though we only stayed in Ottawa a few years, we became close friends and over the years did so many things together; including sharing a community garden plot, shovelling out our joint driveway during the record snowfall of 1971, skating on the Rideau canal rink during it’s first year of operation, spending time at each others’ cottages, cross country skiing in Yellowknife and fishing in Kenora, just to name a few. The photos in the web site are wonderful and I especially remember the one of Neil holding the stringer of fish. It was taken on a small island on Charles Lake, not far from Kenora, and was after an afternoon of great fishing, following a tough slug of portaging the canoe to get into the lake.

The last time I saw Neil in person was five years ago. We were travelling through the Ottawa airport with our son, his wife and our granddaughter who was just one at the time. Neil & Barb met us at the airport to have lunch and meet our son’s family. Our son couldn’t stay long as their flight to BC was leaving shortly, much earlier than our flight home,. Shortly after our son & family left to go thru security, Neil turned to me and suggested it would not be a problem if we wanted to go through security early so we could spend a few more moments with our granddaughter as we wouldn’t be seeing her again for quite a while. I remember thinking, here was a guy who definitely thought more about family than anything else. Even though we didn’t see each other often enough over the past 15 years, I will always remember Neil as a true friend, right from the first time we met and he offered to help us move into our apartment to the last time we met and he suggested we leave early from lunch in order to spend more time with our granddaughter. Neil left us much too soon. He was a great friend and I will miss him