M  We will talk about our spiritual life as background for our other life. I discovered that the Mennonites call it "The walk with God." Our life of faith, our ministry if you like, has been part of our ordinary life, our "being there" to listen, and if possible, to comfort and encourage anyone in need .

D   Before we got married when each of us lived our separate lives, we each had our own religious experiences. My parents brought us up spiritually into a world of fundamental Wesleyanism. Church was for Sundays and we went morning and evening. As we got older we went to Sunday School in the afternoon. At the same time, I discovered a hidden psychic world, a world anathema to my parents, but into which I could escape at bedtime or when I went for walks by myself. I found that with concentration I could levitate and I experienced psychic windows into the future. In my teenaÕge years, we moved next door to an Anglican Church and I started to attend their services and became an altarboy serving many times a week. I enjoyed the richness of the ritual, the candles, the incense, and particularly the language of the KJB.
At 16, I went to college and to work on a farm. I remember once at lambing time, we had a sheep with twin lambs and another ewe whose lamb was born dead. We quickly skinned the dead lamb and wrapped the skin around one of the twin lambs which we thrust under the ewe who had lost hers. She smelled the skin of her lamb and accepted and raised the new one. It was a benefit for both. Later I reflected on that experience and it meant a lot to me.
I also met the world of science which seemed to have all the answers. But then came WW2 and its horrors. I needed some faith to sustain me. I had read about Muslim faith, Buddhism, and most of the christian sects. I found that catholicism had what I needed and I started taking i'nstructions. At this time, I met Marguerite's family. and I was most impressed by the way they lived their faith, honouring God in their fellow human beings This did much to convince me that I had found my spiritual way.

M  My family was catholic and I went to catholic school though the Council school was closer. My friends did not go to the catholic school. There was no shadow of discrimination. We went to a non-denominational highschool which had scripture readings every morning but catholics were not required to attend. There was no prejudice there among the staff or the students. For example, in history class or exams, I could express a different opinion without penalty. I have always been very blessed to have met people who were very open and accepting. When I went to college I met nuns for the first time. I fell for the idea of the garb, but the nuns did not fall for me and they told me that I should try the world for a bit first. Then the war came. That was £the end of that for convent life. The only time in my life I felt that I was spreading the "Catholic" version of christianity was during the years when I belonged to the Catholic Evidence Guild and we had our "soapbox" in the Birmingham Bull Ring every Sunday night.

D   One of my early teaching experiences was with the Benedictines. We lived in a cottage in the monastery garden and I taught in the highschool. The Benedictine family was very good at looking after their retired priests. Eventually, we had to look for accommodation elsewhere. Then I taught in a Dominican school. There the headmistress ran a very open school and everyone had a loving relationship with the children under their charge.

M  During the war, I spent four years in Coventry. I was sacristan in our church until it was flattened. Our Anglican neighbours opened their church and school to us. Dick and I were married in the ruins of the Catholic ChuD  In 1953 we came to Canada to Vancouver to Immaculate Conception parish where I taught in an independent boys boarding school run by the Jesuits Fathers. The parish and school had various lay societies that helped in the running and building of facilities. There was a great sense of accomplishment in securing good prices for furniture and cleaning and scraping desks in order to keep within a budget.

M  Hilary went to the Sacred Heart convent school and enjoyed it. All of our children went to catholic schools and always did well in them. We came to Vancouver mainly÷ because the school provided us with a house to live in. The students slept in the dorm on the top floor. Between 1953 and 1960 we moved five times into other school houses on the same basis- we seemed to have a way with the students. Out of the blue, Dick was asked to go and teach in Campion, and I said "Why not? We have never been to the prairies."

D  Teaching in a Jesuit school was very different from teaching with the Benedictines and Dominicans: discipline was very strict, and there was a form of elitism in that it was necessary to have a relationship with people in the corporate and political world. I began to question whether the catholic highschool was producing a better student than the secular highschool. I had my doubts. It seemed to me that if a catholic child had a good foundation in the primary grades, then that student would be well equipped to have an influence in the secular highschool.

M  The prairies were not beneficial to Dick's health, and so we had to relocate. We moved to Manitoulin Island to the reservation and worked with aboriginal people. When we stepped out of the car for the first time, I felt that we had come home, and we heard later that the people there felt the same way. It was the beginning of a very fulfilling relationship with aboriginal people wherever we have been. We next went to Alberta and worked on a Blood Reserve.

D  On Manatoulin Island, we had Jesuit priests who were great with the people, but the Sisters were not as a good with the people. On the Blood Reserve, the reverse was true: the Sisters were great to work with but the French priests were difficult to get along with.
Teaching is a lot more than feeding information into heads. In each class, there are 30/40 people each with a background, hopes, prejudices, wants. I tried to educate each one of them in how to live and make the most of life- the facts of teaching were secondary. I tried to love them all, with their faults, rebellions, swear words, and physical conditions. And they had to know that they were loved.

M  In 1965, we moved back to Ontario and Dick was principal of the catholic school and I was a consultant with the public schools.

D  The ten years at Holy Cross were the happiest years of our lives. The school had 850 students in an English and French school. I had help from French speaking students and teachers whenever I had to address the assemblies and the public in French. It was a very loving relationship. I spent each recess in the school yard. Each student knew that they could come to my office anytime. I often had to go to the hospital with a student who had an accident during the school day. I would be there until the parents arrived. I tried to beÚ a "good shepherd" who knows his sheep.
After ten years, I thought it was time to make a change; so because we had bought a house in the Annapolis Valley, we moved there and I worked as vice-principal of a school. 

M  I took a job as a part-time teacher.

D  A new school was built in Annapolis Royal and I was offered the job of principal of the intermediate school.

M We had about three pastors in Nova Scotia; the last one had been a Naval Chaplain and he had a wonderful spirit of ecumenism.

D  We decided to retire and we slowly headed west stopping in Ottawa for a year and in Georgetown where we had lived once previously.

M  We stopped for a while on Salt Spring Island, but we decided it was not big enough to hold us so we moved to Sidney. We have been in St Elizabeth's parish ever since and we find it a warm community. We welcomed again the contact with the aboriginal people who think of us as family. In the Indian schools, we would not allow injustices to happen by prejudiced people wishing to lord it over others. There were many who tried. We fought for our Indian neighbours, and thankfully, they realised it, and we were good friends. This is still so today; we are often treated to a bear hug in the parking lot at the supermarket. Each one of us reaps what we sow. Today we still try to love and care for anyone whom God sends us.

D  Our life has been very mundane; it is not always easy to disassociate the mundane from "the spiritual" and that, we believe, is a good thing.