Originally published in the Cortes Island Seniors Society Newsletter

By Andy Vine

I was born April 1944 in Swansea, Wales. I grew up in Hoylake, a coastal town in Cheshire after my Dad was pensioned off from the Ministry of Food where he had worked during the war.

I had a happy childhood with one elder sister Sue and a younger brother Pete. We lived in a small hotel (big house) which my parents ran as a business.

Sailing and the sea were a big part of my life from an early age and my brother, and I had many adventures. After leaving grammar school at age seventeen, I found a job in Liverpool as an office boy/trainee in a small ad agency. It was a fun place to work and learn. One of my tasks was to phone Brian Epstein (Beatles manager) each week to get a list of which of his bands were playing and where.

After a couple of years, I moved on to a bigger agency in Manchester. This was where I started my folk singing, in earnest becoming a “resident singer” at a pub/club called The Wagon & Horses. Heady days indeed!

While in Manchester, I contracted mononucleosis and returned to my parents’ place to recover. That meant not doing much of anything for a few months. I loved this time and did some wonderful reading and started watercolour painting.

When I was once again fit, I found a job in a London ad agency working as an assistant account executive on the Martini and Rossi account. Those were the days when monthly marketing meetings consisted of an hour of business followed by three or four hours of lunch! I also continued my folk singing in London and helped to run a club called The Holy Ground.

In 1967, I emigrated to Canada, landing first in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I spent a joyous summer sailing and partying. When Labour Day rolled around, I got a ride to Montreal where a friend from London had offered me a place to stay. I went looking for work but had no luck, so eventually I moved on to Toronto. Here I had 50 interviews in one month! Finally, I found a decent job in Hamilton. 

While in Hamilton, I received a letter from my brother Pete explaining he had been offered a place in the crew of a 40ft sailboat setting off from Trinidad to circumnavigate the world. Because of his studies, he was unable to accept, but would I be interested? Well, I jumped at it and told my boss I was going to take some vacation time. When I got to Trinidad and was accepted into the crew, I send him a telegram saying I was not coming back!

Well, of course, the voyage did not go quite as planned and I only made it to Panama on this boat before being effectively fired. In the same yacht club, I met a German couple who had sailed from Vancouver and were heading back into the Caribbean bound for Florida and beyond. I enjoyed this leg of the trip. In Key West, I met an older guy who needed crew to help him sail his boat around Cape Hatteras to New York. In New York, he took me to his “club” for an excellent meal before we headed up the Hudson River and Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario where we made a left turn to Rochester, his hometown. From there, I caught a bus to Toronto.  

I’d been away three months but was quickly offered a job in a small ad agency run by an old friend. While working there I met and hung out with a good man named Jean. He introduced me to Buddhism and mindfulness training.

In 1970, my old boss in Hamilton hired me to produce the opening AV presentation for the 50th-anniversary conference of the accounting organization he worked for. This was a big deal for me, and it went well. As soon as it was done, I took off for the west coast with a buddy, 25 pounds of brown rice and a 1/2 pound of weed. I lost the buddy in Calgary (he liked the stampede, and I hated it). So I eventually arrived in Vancouver. 

After a few city adventures, I moved on to Vancouver Island where I met up with a guy I had met while sailing in Panama. He took me out to the west coast of the island and introduced me to a friend’s dad who owned the Maple Bay Inn. This guy, Ray, became a mentor for me and gave me a job working at the Inn.

A few months later. I was invited to apply for a job as a cook at Cold Mountain Institute on Cortes Island. At the time, I was reading the Cold Mountain poems translation by Gary Snyder, so it was a no-brainer for me to accept the job. 

Thus began a new chapter in my life which would result many years later in my move to Cortes and my love of this island and its people.

See also: Andy Vines Pilgrimage – Cortes Currents

Top photo credit: Andy Vine – submitted photo