Brian Welwood was born in 1948 to Stanley and Pauline Welwood in the city of Edmonton. Their residence, however, was in McBride, British Columbia. Brian’s father worked with CN Rail which provided the family with free transport to and from Edmonton and elsewhere on the CN line. Brian has two older brothers, Lorne (five years his senior) and Hal (one and a half years older), and a younger sister called Mim who was born a year and a half later.
When Brian was 6 years old, his father was “bumped” due to a seniority issue and the family moved to Prince Rupert where his grandparents also lived. They found accommodation in a tin roof shack in the intertidal zone near the government wharf. They shared this area with some Indigenous people and other families of limited means. Their home had only two bedrooms for 6 people.
It was an adventurous but scary time for the family. On one occasion an older boy persuaded Brian, age 6 (a non-swimmer) to go out in a rowboat with him. They ended up beyond the breakwater in a raging storm. His mother spotted them and started screaming! They returned safely but that older boy was never allowed back in their home.
After a year, Brian’s father returned to his old job and they returned to McBride. They were fortunate to have church friends who owned a small grocery store there. That family wanted to sell and the Welwoods were given a chance to gradually buy the business. Here, the whole family worked (including Brian’s mother’s younger sister). Brian remembers stocking shelves at an early age. Because the store had a contract with a Robin Hood franchise, it was necessary for them to pick up supplies from the railcars when goods such as flour and feed grains were shipped in.
Brian, along with the other children, attended the local school where the PE teacher encouraged sports. Brian took up weight lifting and at age 14 was carrying 100 lb. bags of flour and grain from railcar to their pick-up truck and to their store. His Dad decided for that reason Brian should get a man’s wage of $1 . . . up from 50 cents.
Trouble was easy to find and one of Brian’s older brothers got into a bit of bother for a short while. By the time Brian and his other siblings were teenagers, there weren’t enough productive activities in McBride for this age group, so Kelowna became an attractive place to visit . . . beaches and girls!
At age 15, Brian found a summer job in a McBride sawmill and worked in mills in both Revelstoke and Kelowna. He bought a Honda motorbike and became more independent as a result. (Note by Ruth Sherwood: Thanks to Brian, I learned what a “green chain” is as well as some other aspects of the industry which I found fascinating. It’s apparently the most labour-intensive role in a sawmill).
In McBride, the family had been associated with the evangelical Pentecostal church but their take on Christianity wasn’t exactly comfortable for the Welwood family. Church membership included a tithing requirement. At one point, Brian’s father was chastised by the minister (whose education consisted of maybe Grade 12 plus 2 years of Bible College) for not tithing 10% of their gross store sales, as opposed to what should be only 10% of net income. As it was, their family was struggling to get by — partly because Brian’s parents were generous in giving credit to their customers.
In 1963, Stanley and Pauline asked their older children where they would like to move! Before this time, Brian and one of his brothers had gone to Bible camps in the Okanagan for a couple of summers. The family decided to move to Kelowna to work and live. Fortunately Stanley and Pauline obtained several good janitorial contracts there, and the children could finish their high school years (which included grade 13 for Brian). During his time in Kelowna, and until age 18, Brian worked at the sawmills in the summer and in winter months helped with his parents’ janitorial duties. On weekends, Brian worked in a gas station.
It was in Kelowna in 1966 that Kay and Brian met at the beach and started dating. As he still had to grow up and acquire a career, they dated for four years, marrying in 1970. Brian moved to Vancouver and took 2 years at BCIT studying financial management (a heavy load of 8 courses all at the same time). He found accommodation first with his oldest brother’s family until Lorne, who had become a lawyer, moved his family to Prince George. For the remaining time, Brian found room and board with another family.
In 1970 the Bank of Nova Scotia offered a management training program for which Brian was accepted. At the same time, he was taking Certified General Accounting studies at UBC at night! Overall it took him 5 and a half years to complete that program, as he had received credit from his earlier studies. In 1971, the Bank of Nova Scotia sent him to be their accountant in the Kerrisdale Branch. It was a great gig but he found that the income potential as a future in management was not really significant. For that reason, he left the bank and found work in the income tax field with Revenue Canada (now CRA). Here there was far greater opportunity for career advancement.
He went from doing field audits to working with estates and trusts. The sought-after job in the department was SI (Special Investigations) for which Brian was selected. This involved working with police and the drug squad who were dealing with tax evasion on drug profits. These were complex and often long-term investigations.
Brian worked on one project for literally years. It involved a hashish importer . . . a man who knew Brian as just an auditor . . . but ultimately the man gave himself away to Brian during a casual conversation. The man was murdered before the case went to court.
After this project, Brian had the opportunity to go to Iran to work with Dillingham, a Canadian construction company which was brought in to complete a stalled project that included a pulp and paper mill, sawmill and plywood plant. Brian worked in the accounting department and was responsible for getting tens of millions of dollars of purchases approved by the auditors for Chuka, the Iranian government company that owned the project. Brian says that he was a “clapper” when the Shah came to officially open the mill in 1978. He was not high enough up in the chain to shake the Shah’s hand (“the shakers”)
When Kay and Brian were first married, they rented In Burnaby and in 1976 bought their first home in East Vancouver. Because the Iran job came up quite suddenly, they had to rent their new home quite soon after they’d acquired it.
Work in Iran was challenging for Brian with 6-day work weeks and 9-hour days. Nonetheless, he found it exciting. They lived in a housing complex with other expats. As a woman, Kay couldn’t get a work permit, so she and Brian decided it was a good time to start a family. Clayton was born in Tehran in 1978.
There was increasing political chaos around this period and many people in the company were leaving the country. Brian, Kay, and baby Clayton were evacuated on an American military transport plane in February of 1979 , the day before the Ayatollah Khomeini arrived to challenge the Shah’s regime. They returned to their home in Vancouver but soon bought their current home in North Vancouver. Brian continued working with Dillingham for about 15 years. During those years, they were moved to Montreal in 1987 but returned to Vancouver in 1989. They were now a family with four children. Aimee, Jennifer and Denyse had arrived.
When their children were entering teenage years, Brian and Kay did a lot of church shopping. Kay had come from a French Canadian Catholic background and the couple were seeking a youth group similar to what they had experienced in their Montreal parish (where the priest there was a bit of a rebel). That community had suited their family well. Here in Vancouver, they investigated not only Catholic but several other churches including Alliance, Baptist, United and Anglican — but none suited because of the dogma. Finally on the last church service before summer break, they arrived at the North Shore Unitarian Church. Harold Rosen was preaching and they met many people of their age group. They’d found a place with no dogma!
Importantly , there was an active youth group where Clayton, at 13 years, could be involved as well as a thriving children’s program for the younger children. They joined and within the first year Brian became the Treasurer and started going to Board meetings. He is on the Board again currently.
But this is definitely not this family’s only claim to fame in our community. Kay, too, immediately became involved with the Finance Committee as she had taken 2 years of business and finance training at BCIT. She did bookkeeping for our community for 22 years. Between them they coached new Board Treasurers as needed.
Brian has always been on the Finance Committee and is heavily involved with Buildings and Grounds. (He was basically Project Manager for our recent renovations). In addition, Brian was the point person for the Partner Church Team. He and Kay maintain connections with that church community in Hungary called Hodmezovasarhely. They’ve made four trips there, along with some other church folk, on behalf of our community. This included two wonderful choir tours led by Alison Nixon. On top of this, Brian has done for himself something he loves! For 30 years he has sung in our choir.
Brian and Kay operated their own business for 30 years doing accounting and personal taxes. There’s no question that Brian and Kay Welwood have contributed hugely to our beloved community!