Price Tags did a series on Gary Pennington’s “West End Memories Project” back in June, 2013. Here’s more.
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WEST END MEMORIES: Growing Up in Vancouver’s West End
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Walking to and from school was always eventful in any kind of weather. As we walked down the dark alley up Thurlow to Robson, it was common to see derelicts asleep in doorways. Most of us became street smart at an early age. I think those traits have stayed with us throughout our lives and protected us. It seems we can face most situations head on. – Panton
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We lost the family home in the nice part of the West End when my father ran off with another woman. We shifted to a rooming house on Howe Street full of bootleggers, bookies, pimps, prostitutes and other derelicts and oddballs. One bathroom was to serve 11 ‘suites’. I only took a bath once there during my high school years. The rest of the time I snuck into the YMCA for showers. – Gary Pennington, 1955
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Some of the last rooming houses left in the West End, Cardero at Nelson.
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Since there were no real ball fields in the West End we used to break many a window with our games and drive the young playground leaders crazy with our antics. Each year we would make a truce with them and agree to play softball when their supervisors were scheduled to come by and then revert to ‘hardball’ when they had gone. The young woman became great friends and advocates of ours and they helped us in many ways in our troubled teenage years. Some have become life-long friends. – Pennington
