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eleven-month old, who looked at me with complete amazement; the feeling was
mutual, for at that age four months growth is quite a substantial spurt, and he was
obviously going to be a big boy.

Back at UBC I knuckled down to another year. Naturally I chose my courses
with some care, one of the more important being Maritime Law, of which, of
course, I knew a little, at least that of a practical nature. The lecturer was the
distinguished Jack Cunningham, a practicing maritime barrister located in
Vancouver, who was termed ‘Captain Jack’ because, not only did he look the part,
but he had also apparently served in a corvette during the War. As for the rest, I
realised very quickly that I would never make a criminal lawyer. We even had a
bit of distinction, when Lord Denning came to the Vancouver Law Courts and
visited the Law Library to give us an impromptu lecture. This distinguished man
was at the time the Master of the Rolls (as the Chief Justice of the English Court of
Appeal is titled) and who was known to have responded to the question of when
he might ascend to the House of Lords by “…Well, it’s a bit like going to Heaven;
you rather want to get there … but not quite yet!” His fame, however, succeeding
his Profumo/Keeler report, had ossified.

My final year of any seagoing career was served in far less glamorous (though
that is such an inappropriate word for West Star and Patricia!) circumstances
than those to which I had become accustomed. There were no small passenger
ships available on the Alaska run, so I spent the summer of 1974 on the dull run
of Carrier Princess (on whose bridge I heard the news of Nixon’s resignation)
on the Vancouver to Victoria truck-and-trailer route, interspersed with the even
more dull Vancouver to Nanaimo railcar and vehicle ferry route. Of course, I had
nothing about which to complain; I was now able to have dinner with my small
family at home, being at home to actually enjoy the vaunted Vancouver summer,
losing some, but not all, of the day-for-day system, and, as a theoretical bonus,
now having sufficient time under my belt to take my Foreign-Going Masters
ticket if I ever wished to return to a life that had offered and given me so much.
I never did so wish.

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