by PAUL RAYNER

For Connie Brake, 100 years did not just mean a lot of changes to adapt to due to time. There were also changes due to locale.

Brake turned 100 on September 10, 2008. From her home in Westview Lodge in Boissevain, she boasted a strong memory, one that dates back nearly the full century of her lifetime. It included memories not of one country, but two, of the differences between them and the life she was able to build after moving.

Brake was born Constance Mattocks in Glasgow, Scotland in 1908, the last of 10 children. Her parents hailed from Kent in England, and were in Glasgow as her father was an engineer with the Admiralty. They soon moved south, to two different locations in London.

One of Brake’s first memories is of the First World War, which ended when she was 10 years old.

“It didn’t really affect me much,” Brake related. “My eldest brother was in the merchant marine, and another was in the RN (Royal Navy). I had a cousin who was a nurse in a London hospital who used to come to our place to stay.”

She remembers the German air raids during the period, which were limited compared to what would happen the next time around, as the zeppelin and Gotha attacks only really impacted the south coast. She also recalls the war ending, and the fuss in the British capital.

“I remember all of our excitement. I was young, but I walked around Trafalgar Square. People were blowing horns and carrying on. Everyone was quite excited.”

Brake said she used to walk to school, walk home for lunch, and then back again, a long walk she remembered. She went to a Church of England school, where the vicar used to come and visit. It was a little more exclusive than some of the closer schools. At any rate, she did not spend a long time in the classroom.

“It was just until I was 14. That was as much schooling as I got. My mother died when I was 14 and I was supposed to help at home. I wasn’t much help, and they made me go back to school for a while.”

After school, she worked at various jobs, ending up with an insurance company, Car and General Automobile Insurance, located in Pall Mall in the capital, where she stayed for about 15 years. Her job was to make copies of policies.

“We had to make six copies,” she explained. “If a mistake was made, it would be a big problem. You had carbon paper and large rollers. Now everything is done on computer.”

She had three weeks holiday per year, but was not especially well paid.

“I made 1 pound 10 a week, and I was always broke.”

Brake’s experiences in London are like a travelogue of landmarks. At one point the family lived in Tottenham. She would go to work on the Underground to Piccalilli and run to St. James. She could walk around the Houses of Parliament, and her office was five minutes from Buckingham Palace.

She was fortunate to work throughout the Great Depression, but was aware that things were going downhill elsewhere.

“We used to hear about Hitler taking over Germany. I can’t remember who the leader was, but I remember Hitler walking all over him. You would see pictures in the paper of Hitler marching through and everyone doing the Heil Hitler. I remember the lead up to the war.”

The war itself started badly, with the Fall of France, and she remembers the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in 1940.

“I remember that terrible business,” Brake said. “Everybody took ordinary boats into the Channel. They rescued a great number of soldiers. Churchill took over and said we would fight to the last. We all believed him. Everyone was very country minded.”

She remembered the bombing, much more serious than the First World War. She said it was awful to see the spaces where buildings once stood. She would sometimes do fire drill at 3:00 am, in part to look for lights coming out from behind blackout curtains. It was a difficult time.    

“I would go down to see Harold, and when I would come back, they (authorities) would say ‘don’t go there’ because it was bombed out.”

The “Harold” was Harold Brake of Boissevain. He had joined the Canadian Army in the first flush of the war in 1939, eventually being posted to South London. Brake said she met him through a friend who was interested in Garry Davidson, another Boissevain - area soldier. After that meeting, he returned something she had left behind.

“He came up to North London the next weekend to bring me back my mackintosh (a raincoat commonly called a mac).”

They dated for about a year prior to their marriage in February 1943. Their first child, Patricia, was born in October of that year. Harold went to Yorkshire to do officer training, but ended up getting sick enough with pleurisy to be given a medical discharge from the service.

He was taken back to Canada at Christmas that year, with his new family following close behind in February of 1944. Catching a ship out of Liverpool, she was on a ship of mostly war brides, but also older veterans. She remembers the North Atlantic as not being very friendly.

“I was terribly seasick. There were four or five of us in the cabin and we were knocking each other over. It was only bad for a couple of days and it took a week to get over.”

After coming to the east coast, she took a train to Winnipeg. However, when she got there, she found the train to Boissevain had already left. Eventually, she got to town on the Blue Flea, and with everyone looking for her, met the family and the area.

Brake always contends that everyone in the district of Richview, located south of Boissevain, were very kind to her. But there were still many differences to overcome. For one, she was a city girl trying to get used to farming. There was no running water or electricity on the farms then. Although Harold was still in treatment for a time, and later they lived in town for a short while, a farm in Richview would be their home for many years. She remembers mostly the hard work.

“When we had the threshing gangs when I first started, you would have ten men to a meal. You would work all morning to prepare and the minute after dinner, you had to wash up quick and think about the next one. There was always plenty to do – washing the separator when we churned the butter. We didn’t have electricity until 1955 or so, so there was no refrigerator. I learned to bake bread at grandma’s. I have sore shoulders now from carrying buckets of water. Farming was a lot of work in my estimation.”

She said the friendliness of the people took some getting used to as well. In London, you would only really know your next door neighbours. Here everyone knew everyone. Meeting some of the big families was also interesting.

“To meet all of the Pattersons was a big event,” she said with a laugh. “There were Pattersons everywhere.”

Eventually the family expanded to include son Gary and second daughter Helen. They later moved to Boissevain, with Harold taking up beekeeping, moving into a residence on Mill Road, where Connie would call home until up to just one year ago. Harold passed away in 1992.

Brake eventually got used to Canada, with our cold winters and different money, and reminds everyone that she has lived here longer than in England. She visited there a few times, and noticed it had changed in her absence. London was more multicultural than she remembered, including some who do not speak English.

There have been many changes over 100 years. Technology is different, with Brake noticing the bigger machinery for farming, leading to people farming larger tracks of land. Then there are computers, which she said the kids are good at, but she “can’t make heads or tails” of. She said she cannot get over how busy kids are these days, with jobs and activities.

“They seem to grow up so quickly, too quickly, I think.”

She is now settled in Westview. She had a birthday tea on September 13 to celebrate her 100 years. With all of the life she has led so far, the biggest thing she stresses is the other people she has met.

“I have to always say, people in Richview and Boissevain were always very kind to me. I could not have asked for better.”