November 11, 2025 • 29 mins
As we celebrate 10 years of #ElderWisdom, we’re revisiting an inspiring conversation with Ferg Kyle from The Village of Tansley Woods in Burlington.
A lifelong aviator and optimist, Ferg joined hosts Kathy Buckworth and Evelyn Brindle on the Green Bench to share his reflections on luck, determination, and the joy of chasing dreams no matter the obstacles.
Told as a child he might not live past 28 due to a heart condition, Ferg defied every expectation — becoming a fighter pilot, a commercial pilot for Air Canada, and living a rich, fulfilling life into his 90s.
“The doctor told my mom that I could expect to live to age 28 due to a heart condition. I had a normal life. I should say that I am 93 — I call that lucky.” – Ferg Kyle
“The harder you work, the luckier you get.” – Gary Player, quoted by Ferg
This encore episode is a reminder that every challenge can be met with courage, and that wisdom often takes flight through perseverance and gratitude.
🎧 Listen again to Ferg’s uplifting story and let his words remind you what it means to truly live a lucky life.
Learn more at elderwisdom.ca
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Oh, my memories are wonderful. If you are lucky, you found
something in a store. If you are not lucky, well, so
be it. I asked her to marry me and she
said well that's fine. She says you, you've got a
(00:24):
choice. It's either me or the
motorcycle. Welcome to Elder wisdom stories
from the Green bench. This is episode 56 and our fifth
season of this podcast. My name is Kathy Buckworth and
(00:47):
as always I have the pleasure ofsharing the bench with my Co
host Evelyn Brindle who lives with her husband David at the
Village of Aaron Meadows in Mississauga, just one of the
Schlegel villages long term careand retirement homes.
Today Evelyn and I are welcomingour special guest Ferg Kyle who
lives in the Schlagel village ofTanzu Woods in Burlington.
Now Ferg believes he is a very lucky man and he'll tell you
(01:10):
why, but I think he is the epitome of the expression, the
harder you work, the luckier youget.
Ferg is going to tell us about his unlikely entrance into the
world, as well as how he overcame health challenges to
live out his dream, never takinghis eye off of his lofty goals,
including his time as a fighter pilot and then as a commercial
pilot for Air Canada. I should let you know that Ferg
(01:32):
is our final guest for this season, but we'll be back with
Season 6 before you know it. But before Ferg joins Evelyn and
myself for this fun and informative chat, I'd like to
remind you what this podcast is all about.
It's the brainchild of the Schlegel family.
It's long been founder Ron Schlegel's belief that the
greatest untapped resource in Canada, if not the world, is the
(01:53):
collective wisdom of our elders.And today we have the
opportunity to learn all about an extraordinary life lived by
an inspiring man for Kyle as we fly into another great Stories
from the Green Bench podcast episode.
But let's bring in Evelyn first.Good morning, Evelyn Brindle.
Good morning, Kathy. Evelyn, I'm great.
(02:14):
I'm wondering, do you think you're a lucky person?
I would say probably 80% of the time.
That's pretty good. I was gonna say.
I don't win a lot of contests oranything like that, but I think
I'm pretty lucky with my my family and my life.
Oh, definitely. I think my family is the most
(02:34):
wonderful group of people I've had the pleasure of knowing.
Let's say that they're, they're,they're real troopers and I've,
you know, I, I, it's, I've had agood life.
Let let me say that there have been ups and downs, mostly in
the health area for myself and husband, but overall I I don't
(02:59):
think I would change a thing. I like your expression, ups and
downs as we go into a conversation with a pilot.
So this makes a lot of sense. Good morning.
Good morning, Ferg, Kyle. Good morning to you.
We're so happy to have you on the show today, and of course,
the reason I asked Evelyn about how lucky she feels is because I
(03:20):
think you think you're a pretty lucky guy.
I do too. I do too.
And I sort of teased at the beginning of this intro that you
had a little bit of AI don't know an unusual entrance into
the world. Can we start right at the
beginning for I can go back to that I'll.
Go before the beginning, OK? When I was born, my dad was 57,
(03:45):
my mum was was 48. I'll say no more, except now you
have a different picture. My dad was in World War One and
he was in the trenches. He actually, he joined in 14 in
1914 and and they turned him down because he was too old.
(04:09):
They called him back in 1916 andsaid, would you like to change
your mind? And he said why?
And they said the kids are all dead.
So that's that's the circumstance under which I began
life. I was born in Toronto and I grew
there. I was happy.
(04:29):
I didn't know a lot of things. And one of the things I didn't
know was that the doctor told mymom after some delay that I can
expect to live to 28. I didn't know this and and she
didn't tell me it. It didn't really affect my life.
(04:51):
I paid no attention to it. And I was told it was because I
was born with a heart condition.What do you do?
You just carry on with, do the best you can, carry on.
I had a normal life with the kids on our street and and and
schooling and so forth. I should say I'm 93 so I managed
(05:16):
to surpass the 28. By just a little bit.
Yeah. Do you call that Lucky I?
Think that's pretty lucky. And I, and you always, as you
just mentioned, loved aircrafts and flying.
And so there was a military school that you wanted to study
at in order to join the Royal Canadian Air Force.
(05:36):
But how the heck are you going to pass that physical Ferg?
Well, I was, I was in good physical condition.
The only thing I I had to worry about was if I if I strained in
any way. You could hear my heart
changing. You could hear it outside.
You didn't really need a stethoscope.
(06:00):
I should say that if I exerted just before bed for any reason,
you could hear my my heart thumping in my chest.
In fact, it could be heard in the room.
Nobody ever, nobody ever noticedbecause there was never anybody
else in the room. However, that was, that was my
(06:24):
condition. So I LED a normal life and
finally I, I joined the Air Force.
I was educated at McGill University in, in Montreal.
My, my, I should say my dad, daddied when I was 11, so he was
(06:47):
well out of the picture. My mum was a working mum.
She worked all her life and she did a super job, but she was
moved to Montreal in Canadian Pacific Railway.
And so I went to, I went to McGill, took up engineering and
(07:07):
enjoyed it To what, what point should I go?
I guess by this I, oh, I know I had been told about my
condition, so I was suitably sober, shall we say, because I
(07:28):
mentioned my dad in the trench in World War One was taken care
of by a a medical student because they couldn't get fully
trained doctors to the French's at that point.
And he was a very ardent and interested man, took an interest
in my dad and the two of them enjoyed their their careers
(07:53):
together in the trenches. Man from South Africa had
invented an operation which had about 50% success in correcting
the heart condition with which Iwas born.
And the doc said, what do you think?
(08:15):
Would you like to give it a try?And I said who wouldn't, who
wouldn't? It was early on.
So I was one of the 1st and the doc came to Toronto approaching
my my date of operation and worked with the doctors at the
(08:41):
Toronto General. The the an operation that was
actually at Sunnybrook Military Hospital, but the docs were all
from Toronto General and it was successful.
It was it left the scar on my chest about 7 inches long and I
(09:07):
had little trouble with my left arm.
It was on the left side because they take this arm and move it
right behind and open up the nottoo much detail here for.
But anyway, it's messy for them,but not for me.
So I spent five months, 4 1/2, five months at Sunnybrook
(09:32):
recuperating from the operation and had lots of visitors.
Of course, the docks came from all over the place.
I spent two nights at Wellesley Hospital, the Lieutenant
Generals Park in central Toronto.
They took over the building during the war.
(09:52):
My, my, the day of my operation came.
I was given a briefing as what would happen rolled into the
operating room, which is about the size of the room we're in
here now. So I, I got wheeled into
position and they said we're allset to go.
(10:13):
And I said, can I ask you one thing?
And and the doc who was with me said, what is it?
And I said, could you move about1 foot to the left?
And he said sure, why? And I said because there's a
clock on the wall and it says 10to 9.
And he said that's very interesting.
Put a pin in my arm and I went to sleep.
(10:37):
I woke up, it was the sun had moved about 10 or 12 hours from
where it was when I went to sleep.
And I thought to myself, well, that's not too bad one day.
Anyway, I I asked the girl what time it was and she said it's
(11:00):
6:30 in the afternoon Monday. That was two days later.
I've been asleep all that time. And the operation was clearly a
success. I think so.
I'm 93. I don't know.
I don't, I don't know what what it improved in some cases, but
(11:22):
I'm sure lucky. I went back to Ailmer, which was
the engineering engineering officer school and after about
(11:44):
four or five months of that I got an order to go to Claire's
home, Alberta, because they had decided that because of the
heart condition which they mightrun into in future, They decided
to train me as a pilot, which ofcourse with which I was tickled
(12:07):
and and went went West and took the pilot training course, which
was a little over 1213 months. I should also point out that I
was not in the regular force. I was in what was called the
Auxiliary Air Force and I was inan auxiliary squadron.
(12:30):
I didn't know that at the time, but that's what occurred later.
Did all my training as a regularmember of the Air Force.
The training was no different. Went onward to advance flying,
went to bombing and gunnery school and then was posted to my
home squadron, which was in Montreal.
(12:53):
Four O 1. It's a famous squadron.
It's the, it's the deadliest squadron in the Canadian Air
Force as far as fighters go. So I was very proud to be a
member of that organization and I learned a great deal from
them. About half of them were veterans
of the previous war, World War 2that we're talking about, 1948.
(13:22):
They asked me what I wanted to do and I said I'd like to fly.
We, we, we met once a week on Thursday night for instruction
and every other weekend we flew for the two days Saint Hubert
Airport. We had Harvard training aircraft
and at that time we had a fairlynew fighter.
(13:46):
The Vampire was the first jet. So I had it made.
I had had what I wanted, got what I wanted, and nobody asked
me for a penny. Back to Air Canada again.
Now I flew down what they call down East, the Maritimes and New
(14:14):
York. I advanced through various
aircraft as they came and went. I ended up flying about 10
different aircraft in Air Canada.
I suppose it's a combination of what they want and what you
want. If you're ambitious, you like to
(14:34):
get ahead. You don't want to spend your
life as an air, as a first officer.
You don't want to be a captain and call the bell.
And that took me quite a while it.
Usually does. I have a son-in-law who's
captain with Cathay Pacific these days and he shares your
(14:57):
passion for flying. Believe me, there's nothing more
than he wouldn't love to do and and he does it as well as
training now so. It's a wonderful job.
Yeah, that's what he says. It it it compares with the
(15:18):
responsibilities you carry as a pilot in the Air Force.
It's much the same in in the airline.
The the various jobs are different of course, but the
importance is there and there's very few who don't really enjoy
(15:38):
it. Yeah, am I right that two of
your sons also became pilots, Ferg?
They are indeed. One with one has just left Air
Canada, He's completed his career, He'd bought a house in
Nassau and he's rebuilding that for something to do.
(15:59):
And the other one is with WestJet, OK, and?
Did you give them any special advice when they were thinking
of going to be? He's a typical pilot.
You never asked. Whatever Dad knows is out of
date anyway. However.
(16:24):
They're they're good boys, they're good pilots and they're
good fathers and I don't think Icould ask for anything better.
Well, can you tell us a little bit about your wonderful wife
Jenny? How did you meet her?
Jenny By the time I was earning enough money that I thought
(16:49):
perhaps I could afford to get married, I was flying the
Atlantic on larger aircraft. I had maybe one or two days in
London. Mostly it was England, Scotland,
England and Ireland and then we were at the stage of expanding
in Europe. So Paris followed Frankfurt, a
(17:15):
number of others. However, at that point I was
just flying to London and I had taken a guy in into my apartment
because I I had an apartment I didn't need much use of.
And his name was Graham. He was from Vancouver and he was
(17:36):
a pilot with CP. So we managed to compare our our
lives one to the other and his brother was posted to London and
was one of the first people I met when I went to London and
stayed. He said to me one, one evening
(18:00):
how, how are you for parties? And I said not not much, but I
enjoy them. I just don't get them because
it's not the kind of life that that you can make plans on
anyway, He said in that case, we're going to a house in West
London where there are three girls and they're all going
(18:25):
their separate ways. So they're going to have a, what
do they call it, a breaking pile, a lease breaking party.
And before they they split up. So he said the men get the
liquor and the the gals make thesandwiches.
(18:46):
I said that sounds like a a great Friday night to me.
So we went on out there on his motorcycle and I met two of the
girls right away and I said, where's the where's the third
gal? I said, she's upstairs.
She she's sleeping off a a pretty beery lunch with with her
(19:14):
friends because she's splitting her job too.
The end result was eventually, after about half an hour, this
young lady came down the stairs and we met and she was that was
Jenny and she was beautiful and I couldn't believe myself.
(19:37):
Anyway, she she because the others had all chosen mates, I
suppose you'd say. And we sat around and chatted.
Jenny. Jenny said, let's go outside.
(19:57):
It was summertime. It was, it was very warm and
there was a lane running down behind the house.
It was a three Storey house. So we went out the back and
talked two or three of the the the pilots from time to time
came through and the gals. And we had a very pleasant
(20:20):
evening in the in the process ofwhich I actually collected her
address and telephone number. She was, she was going to stay
with some other gals on on the Thames not far from downtown
London. And So what about that?
(20:42):
I could listen to that story all.
Day. Oh, I know what it was.
That's called luck. Got it again, got it again.
Here I was. I had AI, had a heart that
worked. I was over 25 by this time and
(21:03):
not looking forward to an early death.
I had a job I guess guys would fight for and I had flown
fighters. Well, I continued to fly them on
my days off from the airline. How can you ask for more if
that's what you want to do? How many years were you married?
(21:25):
62. Wonderful, wonderful. 62 better
than 28? Definitely.
Way better than 28 I say. You sound like you were very
goal focused in many aspects of your life.
I made, I made a point of, of making sure that we, we met when
I was in London. The trouble was that the airline
(21:48):
was changing its plans. Not only were they flying to
London, but they were starting to fly to the continent, which
meant different times, differentdays, most of them on the
weekends and it meant less opportunity to meet.
However, whenever we went to London, I made sure I had a date
(22:11):
and we got to know one another pretty well.
That was pretty lucky as well, given the opportunity to fly
back that often. Yeah, me to Gal and marry her
and that's that's luck. Yeah.
Are you with me? Oh definitely agree with you
100%. Doing pretty well, aren't they
(22:37):
anyway. I guess you both came back to
Canada then. You're.
Yes, OK, I got to know her family.
Her dad was a Major General who lived out his life with the
Japanese in the Pacific. And that was that was no joke.
(23:01):
He he came close a number of times to losing his his life.
The family escaped. They were in Hong, Hong Kong.
Yeah, Hong Kong. They escaped to the what's the
American, American archipelago, Philippines, Philippine Islands
(23:29):
where the Japanese overtook them.
So they ended up prisoners of the Japanese anyway because
their onward flight had been cancelled just as the Japanese
attacked. So they spent three years in the
Philippines. Slowly times were getting worse,
(23:51):
food was getting worse, trouble was getting worse.
And it was obvious that the the Japanese that that had had plans
they wouldn't, they're going to do them all in because they
didn't want to be witnesses. What happened?
MacArthur attacked the island, drove them to the South Island
(24:16):
to a camp. And Jenny, Jenny was 3 1/2.
She was quite used to a strange life but but she succeeded and
and lived, which I call luck I was.
(24:41):
Just going to say I think she had luck on her side.
That was luck for me too. Part of what we like to do on
the podcast Burg is to share some advice and wisdom with our
listeners. Which What advice would you
share in terms of do you think you can attract luck or is it
something that that just happensto you?
What would you say? I think it's fate.
(25:02):
I don't. I don't.
I think if you behave, there's some question.
I was brought up pretty well, I think.
And I think if you behave properly, I think you have
better luck than those who don't, let me put it that way.
(25:23):
I think, I think you would say also to sort of get on with
things, would that be appropriate not to waste time?
Not to waste time and and pay attention to what your mother
says. That's always good advice.
Yeah, tell my. Kids had a good mom.
We didn't call that luck. Yeah.
(25:44):
Yeah, yeah. Do you also believe that if you
have positive thoughts that positive things will happen?
I think. I think that's possibly true.
I'm not much of A philosopher, but I, I think most things when
you're growing up happen to you.You don't make them happen.
(26:05):
You're a leaf in the wind and that's luck.
So I can't. I can't.
I can't pontificate on that, I'mafraid.
Yeah, I want to actually just take us into the present for a
moment here and talk about how maybe lucky you feel about
living at the village of TansleyWoods and is there anything you
(26:26):
do to share your luck with your neighbors there?
Well, I'm fairly fairly new hereand move move quite a bit.
We got a nice apartment on the 7th floor.
Well, we feel positively lucky to have had the opportunity to
speak with you today, Ferg, on behalf of myself and Evelyn,
(26:46):
it's been a pleasure getting to know about your lucky life and
hoping that we could all Sprint.Some luck for everyone listening
to the podcast today. Well, thank you.
I, I, I don't know what to say. I've enjoyed every bit of it.
I'm sure it was pretty tiring insome places, however it's it's
(27:08):
what I had luck. Yep.
It's we love it. Thank you so much for joining us
today, Ferg. Thank you.
Thank you and bye bye. OK, bye Ferg, may your luck
continue. Bye bye.
Thank you. I think I've run out pretty well
at 93. I can't expect to have an all.
(27:30):
An awful lot of luck left however.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thanks for joining us on the Green Bench today.
On behalf of my Co host Evelyn Brindle, I'd like to thank you
for giving us a chance to bring you these stories of elder
wisdom. And we both so enjoyed our
discussion with Ferg Kyle today,our last guest of Season 5.
(27:50):
If you enjoyed it also, we'd love to have you subscribe to
the podcast if you haven't already done so.
Also keep an eye out as we will be releasing a bonus episode
featuring special guest Heather Luce, the Schlegel Village
Dementia Expert, to learn about the living and by today
philosophy and how Schlegel offers support and education for
those living with dementia. We'd also love to hear your
(28:12):
words of wisdom on social media.Please do using the hashtag
Elder Wisdom, which will also help others to find us on this
green Bench. We do love a review and a rating
on the podcast. You can easily find it by going
to elderwisdom.ca and following the link.
Take a look at the Elder Wisdom Pledge against Ageism while
you're there and please think about signing it.
(28:33):
Thanks again for joining us. I'm Kathy Buckworth, and along
with Evelyn Brindle, we look forward to sharing some more
Elder Wisdom with you on the next season of Stories from the
Green Bench. Elder Wisdom Stories from the
Green Bench is brought to you bySchlegel Villages.
A complete continuum of care offering independent living to
(28:55):
long term care. Celebrating and honoring the
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go to our website schlegelvillages.com.
Oh, my memories are wonderful. If you are lucky, you found
something in a store. If you are not lucky, well, so
be it. I asked her to marry me and she
said well that's fine. She says you, you've got a
(00:24):
choice. It's either me or the
motorcycle. Welcome to Elder wisdom stories
from the Green bench. This is episode 56 and our fifth
season of this podcast. My name is Kathy Buckworth and
(00:47):
as always I have the pleasure ofsharing the bench with my Co
host Evelyn Brindle who lives with her husband David at the
Village of Aaron Meadows in Mississauga, just one of the
Schlegel villages long term careand retirement homes.
Today Evelyn and I are welcomingour special guest Ferg Kyle who
lives in the Schlagel village ofTanzu Woods in Burlington.
Now Ferg believes he is a very lucky man and he'll tell you
(01:10):
why, but I think he is the epitome of the expression, the
harder you work, the luckier youget.
Ferg is going to tell us about his unlikely entrance into the
world, as well as how he overcame health challenges to
live out his dream, never takinghis eye off of his lofty goals,
including his time as a fighter pilot and then as a commercial
pilot for Air Canada. I should let you know that Ferg
(01:32):
is our final guest for this season, but we'll be back with
Season 6 before you know it. But before Ferg joins Evelyn and
myself for this fun and informative chat, I'd like to
remind you what this podcast is all about.
It's the brainchild of the Schlegel family.
It's long been founder Ron Schlegel's belief that the
greatest untapped resource in Canada, if not the world, is the
(01:53):
collective wisdom of our elders.And today we have the
opportunity to learn all about an extraordinary life lived by
an inspiring man for Kyle as we fly into another great Stories
from the Green Bench podcast episode.
But let's bring in Evelyn first.Good morning, Evelyn Brindle.
Good morning, Kathy. Evelyn, I'm great.
(02:14):
I'm wondering, do you think you're a lucky person?
I would say probably 80% of the time.
That's pretty good. I was gonna say.
I don't win a lot of contests oranything like that, but I think
I'm pretty lucky with my my family and my life.
Oh, definitely. I think my family is the most
(02:34):
wonderful group of people I've had the pleasure of knowing.
Let's say that they're, they're,they're real troopers and I've,
you know, I, I, it's, I've had agood life.
Let let me say that there have been ups and downs, mostly in
the health area for myself and husband, but overall I I don't
(02:59):
think I would change a thing. I like your expression, ups and
downs as we go into a conversation with a pilot.
So this makes a lot of sense. Good morning.
Good morning, Ferg, Kyle. Good morning to you.
We're so happy to have you on the show today, and of course,
the reason I asked Evelyn about how lucky she feels is because I
(03:20):
think you think you're a pretty lucky guy.
I do too. I do too.
And I sort of teased at the beginning of this intro that you
had a little bit of AI don't know an unusual entrance into
the world. Can we start right at the
beginning for I can go back to that I'll.
Go before the beginning, OK? When I was born, my dad was 57,
(03:45):
my mum was was 48. I'll say no more, except now you
have a different picture. My dad was in World War One and
he was in the trenches. He actually, he joined in 14 in
1914 and and they turned him down because he was too old.
(04:09):
They called him back in 1916 andsaid, would you like to change
your mind? And he said why?
And they said the kids are all dead.
So that's that's the circumstance under which I began
life. I was born in Toronto and I grew
there. I was happy.
(04:29):
I didn't know a lot of things. And one of the things I didn't
know was that the doctor told mymom after some delay that I can
expect to live to 28. I didn't know this and and she
didn't tell me it. It didn't really affect my life.
(04:51):
I paid no attention to it. And I was told it was because I
was born with a heart condition.What do you do?
You just carry on with, do the best you can, carry on.
I had a normal life with the kids on our street and and and
schooling and so forth. I should say I'm 93 so I managed
(05:16):
to surpass the 28. By just a little bit.
Yeah. Do you call that Lucky I?
Think that's pretty lucky. And I, and you always, as you
just mentioned, loved aircrafts and flying.
And so there was a military school that you wanted to study
at in order to join the Royal Canadian Air Force.
(05:36):
But how the heck are you going to pass that physical Ferg?
Well, I was, I was in good physical condition.
The only thing I I had to worry about was if I if I strained in
any way. You could hear my heart
changing. You could hear it outside.
You didn't really need a stethoscope.
(06:00):
I should say that if I exerted just before bed for any reason,
you could hear my my heart thumping in my chest.
In fact, it could be heard in the room.
Nobody ever, nobody ever noticedbecause there was never anybody
else in the room. However, that was, that was my
(06:24):
condition. So I LED a normal life and
finally I, I joined the Air Force.
I was educated at McGill University in, in Montreal.
My, my, I should say my dad, daddied when I was 11, so he was
(06:47):
well out of the picture. My mum was a working mum.
She worked all her life and she did a super job, but she was
moved to Montreal in Canadian Pacific Railway.
And so I went to, I went to McGill, took up engineering and
(07:07):
enjoyed it To what, what point should I go?
I guess by this I, oh, I know I had been told about my
condition, so I was suitably sober, shall we say, because I
(07:28):
mentioned my dad in the trench in World War One was taken care
of by a a medical student because they couldn't get fully
trained doctors to the French's at that point.
And he was a very ardent and interested man, took an interest
in my dad and the two of them enjoyed their their careers
(07:53):
together in the trenches. Man from South Africa had
invented an operation which had about 50% success in correcting
the heart condition with which Iwas born.
And the doc said, what do you think?
(08:15):
Would you like to give it a try?And I said who wouldn't, who
wouldn't? It was early on.
So I was one of the 1st and the doc came to Toronto approaching
my my date of operation and worked with the doctors at the
(08:41):
Toronto General. The the an operation that was
actually at Sunnybrook Military Hospital, but the docs were all
from Toronto General and it was successful.
It was it left the scar on my chest about 7 inches long and I
(09:07):
had little trouble with my left arm.
It was on the left side because they take this arm and move it
right behind and open up the nottoo much detail here for.
But anyway, it's messy for them,but not for me.
So I spent five months, 4 1/2, five months at Sunnybrook
(09:32):
recuperating from the operation and had lots of visitors.
Of course, the docks came from all over the place.
I spent two nights at Wellesley Hospital, the Lieutenant
Generals Park in central Toronto.
They took over the building during the war.
(09:52):
My, my, the day of my operation came.
I was given a briefing as what would happen rolled into the
operating room, which is about the size of the room we're in
here now. So I, I got wheeled into
position and they said we're allset to go.
(10:13):
And I said, can I ask you one thing?
And and the doc who was with me said, what is it?
And I said, could you move about1 foot to the left?
And he said sure, why? And I said because there's a
clock on the wall and it says 10to 9.
And he said that's very interesting.
Put a pin in my arm and I went to sleep.
(10:37):
I woke up, it was the sun had moved about 10 or 12 hours from
where it was when I went to sleep.
And I thought to myself, well, that's not too bad one day.
Anyway, I I asked the girl what time it was and she said it's
(11:00):
6:30 in the afternoon Monday. That was two days later.
I've been asleep all that time. And the operation was clearly a
success. I think so.
I'm 93. I don't know.
I don't, I don't know what what it improved in some cases, but
(11:22):
I'm sure lucky. I went back to Ailmer, which was
the engineering engineering officer school and after about
(11:44):
four or five months of that I got an order to go to Claire's
home, Alberta, because they had decided that because of the
heart condition which they mightrun into in future, They decided
to train me as a pilot, which ofcourse with which I was tickled
(12:07):
and and went went West and took the pilot training course, which
was a little over 1213 months. I should also point out that I
was not in the regular force. I was in what was called the
Auxiliary Air Force and I was inan auxiliary squadron.
(12:30):
I didn't know that at the time, but that's what occurred later.
Did all my training as a regularmember of the Air Force.
The training was no different. Went onward to advance flying,
went to bombing and gunnery school and then was posted to my
home squadron, which was in Montreal.
(12:53):
Four O 1. It's a famous squadron.
It's the, it's the deadliest squadron in the Canadian Air
Force as far as fighters go. So I was very proud to be a
member of that organization and I learned a great deal from
them. About half of them were veterans
of the previous war, World War 2that we're talking about, 1948.
(13:22):
They asked me what I wanted to do and I said I'd like to fly.
We, we, we met once a week on Thursday night for instruction
and every other weekend we flew for the two days Saint Hubert
Airport. We had Harvard training aircraft
and at that time we had a fairlynew fighter.
(13:46):
The Vampire was the first jet. So I had it made.
I had had what I wanted, got what I wanted, and nobody asked
me for a penny. Back to Air Canada again.
Now I flew down what they call down East, the Maritimes and New
(14:14):
York. I advanced through various
aircraft as they came and went. I ended up flying about 10
different aircraft in Air Canada.
I suppose it's a combination of what they want and what you
want. If you're ambitious, you like to
(14:34):
get ahead. You don't want to spend your
life as an air, as a first officer.
You don't want to be a captain and call the bell.
And that took me quite a while it.
Usually does. I have a son-in-law who's
captain with Cathay Pacific these days and he shares your
(14:57):
passion for flying. Believe me, there's nothing more
than he wouldn't love to do and and he does it as well as
training now so. It's a wonderful job.
Yeah, that's what he says. It it it compares with the
(15:18):
responsibilities you carry as a pilot in the Air Force.
It's much the same in in the airline.
The the various jobs are different of course, but the
importance is there and there's very few who don't really enjoy
(15:38):
it. Yeah, am I right that two of
your sons also became pilots, Ferg?
They are indeed. One with one has just left Air
Canada, He's completed his career, He'd bought a house in
Nassau and he's rebuilding that for something to do.
(15:59):
And the other one is with WestJet, OK, and?
Did you give them any special advice when they were thinking
of going to be? He's a typical pilot.
You never asked. Whatever Dad knows is out of
date anyway. However.
(16:24):
They're they're good boys, they're good pilots and they're
good fathers and I don't think Icould ask for anything better.
Well, can you tell us a little bit about your wonderful wife
Jenny? How did you meet her?
Jenny By the time I was earning enough money that I thought
(16:49):
perhaps I could afford to get married, I was flying the
Atlantic on larger aircraft. I had maybe one or two days in
London. Mostly it was England, Scotland,
England and Ireland and then we were at the stage of expanding
in Europe. So Paris followed Frankfurt, a
(17:15):
number of others. However, at that point I was
just flying to London and I had taken a guy in into my apartment
because I I had an apartment I didn't need much use of.
And his name was Graham. He was from Vancouver and he was
(17:36):
a pilot with CP. So we managed to compare our our
lives one to the other and his brother was posted to London and
was one of the first people I met when I went to London and
stayed. He said to me one, one evening
(18:00):
how, how are you for parties? And I said not not much, but I
enjoy them. I just don't get them because
it's not the kind of life that that you can make plans on
anyway, He said in that case, we're going to a house in West
London where there are three girls and they're all going
(18:25):
their separate ways. So they're going to have a, what
do they call it, a breaking pile, a lease breaking party.
And before they they split up. So he said the men get the
liquor and the the gals make thesandwiches.
(18:46):
I said that sounds like a a great Friday night to me.
So we went on out there on his motorcycle and I met two of the
girls right away and I said, where's the where's the third
gal? I said, she's upstairs.
She she's sleeping off a a pretty beery lunch with with her
(19:14):
friends because she's splitting her job too.
The end result was eventually, after about half an hour, this
young lady came down the stairs and we met and she was that was
Jenny and she was beautiful and I couldn't believe myself.
(19:37):
Anyway, she she because the others had all chosen mates, I
suppose you'd say. And we sat around and chatted.
Jenny. Jenny said, let's go outside.
(19:57):
It was summertime. It was, it was very warm and
there was a lane running down behind the house.
It was a three Storey house. So we went out the back and
talked two or three of the the the pilots from time to time
came through and the gals. And we had a very pleasant
(20:20):
evening in the in the process ofwhich I actually collected her
address and telephone number. She was, she was going to stay
with some other gals on on the Thames not far from downtown
London. And So what about that?
(20:42):
I could listen to that story all.
Day. Oh, I know what it was.
That's called luck. Got it again, got it again.
Here I was. I had AI, had a heart that
worked. I was over 25 by this time and
(21:03):
not looking forward to an early death.
I had a job I guess guys would fight for and I had flown
fighters. Well, I continued to fly them on
my days off from the airline. How can you ask for more if
that's what you want to do? How many years were you married?
(21:25):
62. Wonderful, wonderful. 62 better
than 28? Definitely.
Way better than 28 I say. You sound like you were very
goal focused in many aspects of your life.
I made, I made a point of, of making sure that we, we met when
I was in London. The trouble was that the airline
(21:48):
was changing its plans. Not only were they flying to
London, but they were starting to fly to the continent, which
meant different times, differentdays, most of them on the
weekends and it meant less opportunity to meet.
However, whenever we went to London, I made sure I had a date
(22:11):
and we got to know one another pretty well.
That was pretty lucky as well, given the opportunity to fly
back that often. Yeah, me to Gal and marry her
and that's that's luck. Yeah.
Are you with me? Oh definitely agree with you
100%. Doing pretty well, aren't they
(22:37):
anyway. I guess you both came back to
Canada then. You're.
Yes, OK, I got to know her family.
Her dad was a Major General who lived out his life with the
Japanese in the Pacific. And that was that was no joke.
(23:01):
He he came close a number of times to losing his his life.
The family escaped. They were in Hong, Hong Kong.
Yeah, Hong Kong. They escaped to the what's the
American, American archipelago, Philippines, Philippine Islands
(23:29):
where the Japanese overtook them.
So they ended up prisoners of the Japanese anyway because
their onward flight had been cancelled just as the Japanese
attacked. So they spent three years in the
Philippines. Slowly times were getting worse,
(23:51):
food was getting worse, trouble was getting worse.
And it was obvious that the the Japanese that that had had plans
they wouldn't, they're going to do them all in because they
didn't want to be witnesses. What happened?
MacArthur attacked the island, drove them to the South Island
(24:16):
to a camp. And Jenny, Jenny was 3 1/2.
She was quite used to a strange life but but she succeeded and
and lived, which I call luck I was.
(24:41):
Just going to say I think she had luck on her side.
That was luck for me too. Part of what we like to do on
the podcast Burg is to share some advice and wisdom with our
listeners. Which What advice would you
share in terms of do you think you can attract luck or is it
something that that just happensto you?
What would you say? I think it's fate.
(25:02):
I don't. I don't.
I think if you behave, there's some question.
I was brought up pretty well, I think.
And I think if you behave properly, I think you have
better luck than those who don't, let me put it that way.
(25:23):
I think, I think you would say also to sort of get on with
things, would that be appropriate not to waste time?
Not to waste time and and pay attention to what your mother
says. That's always good advice.
Yeah, tell my. Kids had a good mom.
We didn't call that luck. Yeah.
(25:44):
Yeah, yeah. Do you also believe that if you
have positive thoughts that positive things will happen?
I think. I think that's possibly true.
I'm not much of A philosopher, but I, I think most things when
you're growing up happen to you.You don't make them happen.
(26:05):
You're a leaf in the wind and that's luck.
So I can't. I can't.
I can't pontificate on that, I'mafraid.
Yeah, I want to actually just take us into the present for a
moment here and talk about how maybe lucky you feel about
living at the village of TansleyWoods and is there anything you
(26:26):
do to share your luck with your neighbors there?
Well, I'm fairly fairly new hereand move move quite a bit.
We got a nice apartment on the 7th floor.
Well, we feel positively lucky to have had the opportunity to
speak with you today, Ferg, on behalf of myself and Evelyn,
(26:46):
it's been a pleasure getting to know about your lucky life and
hoping that we could all Sprint.Some luck for everyone listening
to the podcast today. Well, thank you.
I, I, I don't know what to say. I've enjoyed every bit of it.
I'm sure it was pretty tiring insome places, however it's it's
(27:08):
what I had luck. Yep.
It's we love it. Thank you so much for joining us
today, Ferg. Thank you.
Thank you and bye bye. OK, bye Ferg, may your luck
continue. Bye bye.
Thank you. I think I've run out pretty well
at 93. I can't expect to have an all.
(27:30):
An awful lot of luck left however.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thanks for joining us on the Green Bench today.
On behalf of my Co host Evelyn Brindle, I'd like to thank you
for giving us a chance to bring you these stories of elder
wisdom. And we both so enjoyed our
discussion with Ferg Kyle today,our last guest of Season 5.
(27:50):
If you enjoyed it also, we'd love to have you subscribe to
the podcast if you haven't already done so.
Also keep an eye out as we will be releasing a bonus episode
featuring special guest Heather Luce, the Schlegel Village
Dementia Expert, to learn about the living and by today
philosophy and how Schlegel offers support and education for
those living with dementia. We'd also love to hear your
(28:12):
words of wisdom on social media.Please do using the hashtag
Elder Wisdom, which will also help others to find us on this
green Bench. We do love a review and a rating
on the podcast. You can easily find it by going
to elderwisdom.ca and following the link.
Take a look at the Elder Wisdom Pledge against Ageism while
you're there and please think about signing it.
(28:33):
Thanks again for joining us. I'm Kathy Buckworth, and along
with Evelyn Brindle, we look forward to sharing some more
Elder Wisdom with you on the next season of Stories from the
Green Bench. Elder Wisdom Stories from the
Green Bench is brought to you bySchlegel Villages.
A complete continuum of care offering independent living to
(28:55):
long term care. Celebrating and honoring the
wisdom of the elder. To learn more about us, please
go to our website schlegelvillages.com.
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