Passion for cycling lasted a lifetime
LIFE STORY
In April, longtime Manotick resident Ken Smith passed away at Longfields Manor in Barrhaven at the age of 93.
Besides his immediate family, Ken was mourned by neighbours, friends and colleagues from the many paths he had trodden since his arrival in Canada in 1957.
Born in 1920, Ken was brought up in South London by his mother, who ran a corner store in Balham. Ken joined the Balham cycling club at age 16 and started his racing career marshalling the club’s early season ‘Hardrider’ time trial.
Ken joined the RAF in 1940. His eyesight wasn’t good enough to qualify as aircrew so he had to settle for a desk job in the orderly room.
Ken served with 257 Squadron during the Battle of Britain, emerging unscathed when the airfield was hit by German bombs. He moved to military intelligence in 1943 and was posted to Algiers where the Americans had recently joined the British in mopping up the remainder of Rommel’s Africa Korps.
There was also some mopping up going on in the mess, due to an excess of beer. Ken helped resolve this situation by making a deal with a local bar that was suffering from a beer shortage. Bartering beer for whisky and gin by the pallet-load went down very favourably with Ken’s messmates.
Ken’s final posting was to Calcutta, India, as a sergeant with the Military Police.
After the war, Ken returned to his job at the brewery, which had been kept open for him, but at prewar salary levels. Now with a family to support, he was not content to stay, so he soon moved on to find new employment with the plumbers union.
Ken resumed cycling with his Balham clubmates, and on empty roads enjoyed club rides on a tandem with wife, Nancy, and daughter, Cheryl. He took on the duties of club secretary, which he retained along with his job at the plumbers union head office until his emigration to Canada in 1957.
Once in Canada, Ken latched on to the Toronto cycling scene, where he met up with a bunch of British émigrés and joined a local cycling club.
It wasn’t long before Ken was running the Ontario Cycling Association from his kitchen table.
He put out a monthly newsletter and did all the necessary communication with the national governing body, the Canadian Wheelmans’ Association, in Ottawa. Long before computers, this was a matter of typing all the correspondence and the newsletter on a trusty Underwood typewriter and then printing the newsletter on a hand-cranked Gestetner duplicator. All this work was completely voluntary and consumed almost every evening after a day’s work as an office manager for an instrument company.
A Toronto-Owen Sound race was the first of similar events that Ken organized, including Toronto-London, the Toronto-Brantford and the end of season “Gentleman’s Race.” He organized criteriums in shopping plazas, evening time trials and socials. There seemed to be no end to his enthusiasm and energy.
All this did not go unnoticed by the national officials in Ottawa and in 1971 Ken was offered the job as executive director of the Canadian Cycling Association. He was now to be paid for what he had been doing free. He and Nancy moved to Ottawa.
Ken’s stint with the cycling association included years when Canada hosted the world championship in 1974 and the Olympics in 1976. It was during this period that Ken initiated the Canadian Cyclist magazine.
Ultimately, Ken decided he needed a change and he became director of “non-resident sports,” looking after the affairs of the sports that didn’t have enough participants to warrant an office and staff. Skydiving, lawn bowling and cricket were among those who benefitted from Ken’s attention.
During his time at the sports centre, Ken commuted the 50-kilometre round trip from his home in Manotick on his bike with a fixed gear. When he retired from the centre at age 65, he rode a 12-hour marathon on rollers to raise money for charity. He was still riding his bike when in 2000, he celebrated his 80th by riding the 200-km ‘Summer’s End Century’ from Ottawa to Cornwall and back.
After retirement, Ken was reluctant to stop working and became secretary of the Canadian Commonwealth Games Committee. Ken’s passion for organization had him chairing the Manotick Kiwanis. He was also actively involved in the Burma Star Association, the Manotick Legion and the Miller’s Oven restaurant.
After Nancy’s death, Ken reluctantly gave up his home in Manotick for an all-too-brief sojourn at the Prince of Wales seniors’ residence.
When an unexpected bout of sickness put Ken in a wheelchair, he moved to Longfields full-care facility in Barrhaven. Confined to watching TV in his room, Ken busied himself with current affairs, much to the chagrin of his neighbours, who had to put up with the noise of his TV turned on full blast. Ken’s deafness failed to prevent him for taking an interest in his fellow residents. Even though conversations became increasingly one-sided, Ken’s attention’s seldom passed unappreciated.