Sask. flag designer getting VIP treatment
His wife Joan recalled that one of the entries was very stereotypically Saskatchewan.
“I can remember that one of them certainly had a grain elevator on it, because that is such an iconic image of the prairies and it was something that was totally new to us of course. We don’t have grain elevators in England. And when we lived in Ponteix we lived opposite three grain elevators,” Joan Drake explained.
Drake did recall he created his designs out of thin coloured cards, and that he cut out different items to put his designs together. Admittedly, the design was a simple one.
Drake was also a guest of Swift Current
City Council at their July 15 meeting.
During his visit with council he shared his memories of designing the flag over five decades ago.
“I thought it would be a good idea to have a go at designing it,” he recalls. “If I did it with paint and pencil and crayons, that would just look messy. So I got some thin card in various colours, and started designing.”
He put considerable thought into what would be a good image, and designing a flag that would tell people about the province.
“I looked at the structure of the whole of Saskatchewan, and of course I saw that at the top part it was a lot of trees and grass, and at the bottom half at that time they were growing lots of wheat and various crops and the overall colour for that was kind of a creamy yellow. So
I thought that might work. Green at the top half and yellow at the bottom half.
That would look like Saskatchewan’s structure.”
He had also found Saskatchewan’s
Shield of Arms in a book and thought it would be a good addition.
“But that would need also something else to make it balance, to have something at the bottom right hand corner.”
He look at a variety of animals, birds and trees while wondering what design would would work best.
Ultimately, stemming from the couple’s interest in wild flowers, he settled on the Western Red Lily.
“I saw this beautiful red flower, and it didn’t take long to say that’s going to be the flower in the bottom right hand corner, the prairie lily.”
Drake also produced slight variations on that theme for his other design entries.
When the final design was unveiled,
Drake’s concept had a minor alteration, with the lily and Shield of Arms changing sides on the official flag.
“I thought that actually is probably a very simple but very full of information about what Saskatchewan is visually,” he said. “I got a lot of pleasure out of how I did it.”
And while not everyone knows Drake as the flag designer, he is pleased to be associated with something that is such a part of Saskatchewan’s identity.
“It feels as though the flag is much more important than me. I still have this modest feeling. It has been a wonderful thing that I achieved from designing the flag and its been something I’ve always remembered.”
“It’s put something into my life that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.
Something very worth having in your life.”
Drake first returned to visit Saskatchewan for a three week visit in 2016, and he is again enjoying VIP treatment during his current visit. Over the early days of his trip he was recognized at a Saskatchewan Roughrider game, and attended the recent Air Show in Moose
Jaw. Over the coming days of his visit he will be attending Boomtown Days in
Shaunavon and meeting with provincial dignitaries before the end of his visit on
July 22.
“It brings back lot of memories of course from what 50 years ago when we were living in Hodgeville and the flag and everything else that’s left for a long long time in my memories,” he said of his touring across the province.
After a year of teaching in Ponteix and spending his final two years in Hodgeville before returning home to England, he admits he does have regrets about not staying longer.
“The thing is I enjoyed it,” he said. “But
I do get, every time I think about it, it embarrasses me to think that I made such an early departure after what I’d done in the way of the flag.”
“So its kind of made up in a way by things that have been said and done here for me, invited me to all sorts of things. I just feel very, very proud and very happy, but I still feel a little modest because that’s what kind of person I am really.”
“I’ve been treated like a lord and I’m only just a little peasant,” he chuckled.
“So I hope you can understand that you have done an awful lot for me in this province. And I’m so pleased that my idea, which I thought was just a simple representation of what the province looks like. And it turns out that everybody appreciates it, and that makes me very, very happy.”