Upon retirement to Calgary from farm life in central Alberta, my father Fred Burfield, in the 1960s, wrote a chronicle of his life and that of his family of Alberta homesteaders, of the sod houses and log cabins they lived in, of living off the land and carving a life out of nature. This is my first excerpt from that stack of hand-typed pages (typed by a blind man). I intend, in time, to work my way through the entire memoir, excerpting the most interesting parts and summarizing others. (Stan Burfield, son)
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Fred was born Nov. 20th, 1906. When he was three, in 1910, his family moved to the Canadian prairie from a very comfortable upper-middle class home in Hastings. (His father had inherited a brewery, which apparently his grandfather had mismanaged and driven into serious debt, no doubt worsened by the rapidly growing temperance movement of the time.) Because of the shocking difference between life in wealthy Hastings and the endlessly flat prairie, some of the more dramatic memories of his very early childhood remained fresh in his mind all his life. The one he describes here had to have been from an age of about one year old. The details were no doubt later embellished from other participants’ memories.
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“One time we went to the giant ferris wheel that used to be included in every photograph of London’s skyline. It went up, believe it or not, three hundred feet. The thrill was not in speed but in the height, which in those days was the nearest thing to a birds-eye view the ordinary man could get. Mother, older-brother Robin, and I got into one gondola—I think there were other people in the rest of the space—and sister Sylvia and our aunts Allie and May got into the next behind us. These gondolas were hung at intervals all round the rim of the great spider-web of a wheel. You moved up a few feet at a time with stops to allow people to disembark and enter each gondola as it reached the bottom, thus one complete turn took a considerable time, perhaps an hour. Robin stood up by the end window where there was an uninterrupted view and as we gradually rose higher his excitement rose with us. He kept calling for us to, “Come and look.” I stayed where I was. (Fred said later that at only one year old, he would have been in the arms of either his mother or his nanny.) Finally at the very top the two gondolas were for a few short minutes level with each other and we could see Sylvia and the two aunts in the back gondola. We laughed and made faces then we dropped down out of sight. It seemed a long time before we got to the bottom.”
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(The Great Wheel of London carried two and a half million passengers in its lifetime. It was the world’s tallest Ferris wheel from 1895 to 1900. The Great Wheel opened on 7/17/1895 in Earls Court; London, UK. The observation wheel is 308 feet tall. There are 40 cabins, each capable of holding up to 40 people at one time, resulting in a seating capacity of 1600 passengers. The duration of the ride was 20 minutes, resulting in a total capacity of 4800 people per hour. The Giant Wheel was the predecessor to the current model, the London Eye, which is taller--435 feet vs 308--but which has fewer carriages--32 vs 40--and each carriage has less capacity--25 people vs 40.)
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Fred was born Nov. 20th, 1906. When he was three, in 1910, his family moved to the Canadian prairie from a very comfortable upper-middle class home in Hastings. (His father had inherited a brewery, which apparently his grandfather had mismanaged and driven into serious debt, no doubt worsened by the rapidly growing temperance movement of the time.) Because of the shocking difference between life in wealthy Hastings and the endlessly flat prairie, some of the more dramatic memories of his very early childhood remained fresh in his mind all his life. The one he describes here had to have been from an age of about one year old. The details were no doubt later embellished from other participants’ memories.
.
“One time we went to the giant ferris wheel that used to be included in every photograph of London’s skyline. It went up, believe it or not, three hundred feet. The thrill was not in speed but in the height, which in those days was the nearest thing to a birds-eye view the ordinary man could get. Mother, older-brother Robin, and I got into one gondola—I think there were other people in the rest of the space—and sister Sylvia and our aunts Allie and May got into the next behind us. These gondolas were hung at intervals all round the rim of the great spider-web of a wheel. You moved up a few feet at a time with stops to allow people to disembark and enter each gondola as it reached the bottom, thus one complete turn took a considerable time, perhaps an hour. Robin stood up by the end window where there was an uninterrupted view and as we gradually rose higher his excitement rose with us. He kept calling for us to, “Come and look.” I stayed where I was. (Fred said later that at only one year old, he would have been in the arms of either his mother or his nanny.) Finally at the very top the two gondolas were for a few short minutes level with each other and we could see Sylvia and the two aunts in the back gondola. We laughed and made faces then we dropped down out of sight. It seemed a long time before we got to the bottom.”
.
(The Great Wheel of London carried two and a half million passengers in its lifetime. It was the world’s tallest Ferris wheel from 1895 to 1900. The Great Wheel opened on 7/17/1895 in Earls Court; London, UK. The observation wheel is 308 feet tall. There are 40 cabins, each capable of holding up to 40 people at one time, resulting in a seating capacity of 1600 passengers. The duration of the ride was 20 minutes, resulting in a total capacity of 4800 people per hour. The Giant Wheel was the predecessor to the current model, the London Eye, which is taller--435 feet vs 308--but which has fewer carriages--32 vs 40--and each carriage has less capacity--25 people vs 40.)
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