John Angus

Sometime in the summer of 1991, Irene and I, and our children, Alison and Grant, moved into our current house in North Vancouver. We had arrived here in our late thirties from the UK with no job but plenty uncertainty and, in hindsight, foolhardiness. Irene, at least, was coming home to her place of birth and knew the lay of the land. I was in a new country and excited by the prospect while also looking over my shoulder at the good life we had left behind. It seems that we had not been in the neighbourhood for longer than five minutes when we met John Angus. John Angus passed away in December, 2021. He is much missed by all who knew him.

On that day, still filled with angst about what we had taken on, still feeling the absence of good friends, we stepped into a wealth of welcome. Time and experience tells us that it was not because we were special people, not because we were going to be paragons of virtue and good neighbours, it was just because we were new, uncertain and here. John  would reach out to anybody who had arrived out of the blue. In those first moments we had a potted history of the neighbourhood, a smidge of advice (most of it good) but most of all a warm heart and a welcome which was still there when he eventually left us, far too young, far too early, thirty years later. It was a moment which caused us to puff our cheeks and breathe a sigh of relief because we felt immediately at home.

John Angus was the type of man who restored one’s faith in human nature. He worked up a pole for Telus for all of his professional career, so if he saw a problem he solved it. And John did see problems. He saw problems all over the place, some of them he could not solve. He saw problems in the federal and provincial governments; he saw problems in motor vehicles speeding down our street; he saw problems in the way this should be done and how that could be so easily solved. If only those who had the power also had the common sense. Therefore, Dear Friends, he saw solutions which were eminently sensible and practicable and, therefore sadly, not within the scope of pie-in-the-sky government. So his solutions often fell on deaf ears but the ears of those who knew and loved him were always open. 90% of the time his ideas made perfect sense to me but, as John knew, common sense is not all that common.

From our house exactly opposite to that of John and his wonderful wife, Brenda, we could see him at work in his front garden (Until my wife, Irene’s, 6 inch hedge became too large so that we had to step into the driveway to see what he was up to). We knew that on one occasion the grieving widow of a family friend was around for a cup of tea and, no doubt, for some TLC.  So it was no surprise to see John come out of the house, set up his hoses and spend an hour washing her car. From our side of the road that was the most simple of gestures and yet the most meaningful.  One can listen to grief, one can comfort grief, one can go for a walk with grief but when all those avenues are exhausted, when one is bereft of ideas of what to do, what better thing to do than step aside and show one cares by washing  the car. It is a gesture that is simple in action but infinite in comfort and meaning. John Angus was practically sensitive to the needs of others. He knew when to do the right thing and what the right thing was.

John and Brenda’s children, Jamie and Allison, involved our children in street hockey and games. Irene from afar saw what an excellent painter John was and asked him to paint our house.  He did such a wonderful job. I always felt guilty when I asked him for a favour of a practical nature but it never stopped me from doing so.  Our neighbours, Marg and Mike, gave us their couches. We wanted them upstairs in our TV room but to get them upstairs we could not get them up the stairs. We needed to get them up over the back balcony and in through our second level patio door. Accordingly while Irene was absent one day, I took them into the back garden, roped them up, flung the rope over the roof and attached it to the back of the car. Then I drove forward lifting the couches into the air but I could not get them over the lip of the balcony. So I went and knocked on the Angus door. I did sense some reluctance on John’s part to come and inch them over the deck, I knew he would have done things better and differently and he was a smidge grumpy about coming over. But such was the man that he said nothing and he showed willing and the job was done.

John did his level best to cover up the fact that he had a heart of gold, he failed miserably. For all his rants against the wrongs of society, his disapproval of this, his disdain for that , we all knew that whatever differences he had would be set aside. He would do what needed to be done to help. He did not really care whether they were like-minded or unlike-minded people, he would not pass them by but would cross the street to help them. John Angus was a good man.

This message, this tribute, Dear Friends, is going to be read by many people who did not know John Angus. I’ll not apologise for that. It is simply because all of you, wherever you are in the world, you do know a ‘John Angus’.  You will have one in your community somewhere. You may not know him or her too well but you will know instinctively that people can turn to him in need, you will know that if you pass him as you are walking your dog you will receive a cheery ‘good day’. You will continue about your day and you will realise that your life has been brightened by that short vignette. In this world of psychopathic dictators, narcissistic Presidents, shallow Prime Ministers, lying buffoons of Prime Ministers, lockdown pandemics, inflation and war, the world needs more John Angus. And he is out there still, just sadly not the same one that we in North Vancouver knew and loved so much. That John Angus was the spirit of our neighbourhood,  the salt of our earth. We are better people for having known him.