Ralph Owens has been a proud member of the Royal Canadian Legion since 1970.
Born in 1931, just eight years before war broke out, Owens did not serve in the military but joined the legion to honour his father, who fought in “the war to end all wars,”
“But it didn’t,” he said wryly of the First World War.
Owens’ father, Elias, served in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and was a survivor of one of the many First World War battles that took place in Northern France. Elias was in charge of a machine gun battery and although the war ended in 1918, he remained in Trieste as a guard at an Italian prisoner of war camp. Sadly Elias’ war records were destroyed by a bomb in the Second World War.
Owens, whose family move to Speke, England in 1939, said his town was not bombed, but nearby Liverpool was because of its port facilities. He remembers living with black-out curtains, rationing and coupons received to buy food and clothing.
With education interrupted by the war, Owens recalled going from one home to another where the children spent time doing arts and crafts. Later, he travelled by bus to Springwood Heath Primary School in Liverpool and saw firsthand the results of German bombing raids.
While his suburb of Liverpool was never bombed, it was actively involved in the war as it was home to a factory building Wellington Bombers. As well, Speke was the site of a prisoner of war camp. Owens recalled that he and his friends would talk to the German prisoners through the fence without animosity and that one prisoner whittled pieces of wood into briar pipes.
Following the war and of drinking age, Owens and his father, a member of the British Legion, would share a beer there on occasion. Another post-war event was meeting his bride-to-be Norma Robertson, who had been evacuated from her hometown of Bootle because of its proximity to the Liverpool docks.
Owens and Robertson came to Canada in 1966 where he established Owens Travel Service. He is a committed member of the legion because he believes it honours the fallen and provides much-needed services to veterans.
"I joined to be of service to the legion,” he said, noting that as a rep of Salmon Arm Branch 62, he will be going to schools “to help children remember past wars and the battles that have made it safe for them to go to school.”
Owens, who has also served on the board of the Shuswap Hospital Foundation for many years, encouraged everyone to buy and wear a poppy proudly. All the money earned through the poppy campaign stays in Salmon Arm and is used to support veterans who have given their service to Canada.
