NEWS photo Pa ul M eGrath

DOROTHY NICOLS (left), Gary Croft and Edie O'Donnell were
among the members of Royal Canadian Legion branch No.
118 and Army and Navy No. 45 who raised a total of $3,500 for
the North Shore Christmas Bureau from pledges at the annual

Polar Bear Swim at Cates Park.

: Knowledge Network airing
i Jim Spilsbury documentary

THREE YEARS ago, Alan Twigg looked askance at

m publicity glorifying American-styled projects in B.C. He

m vowed to make a distinctly British Columbian film,

“something that shows why we’re special in this part of

the world.”
The result is Spilsbury’s Coast,

S which premieres on Knowledge
m Network at 7:30 p.m. on Feb, 24.

Spilsbury’s Coast, directed by
4 Harry Killas, is about the life and

S times of Jim Spilsbury — coastal

mm pioneer, painter, inventor, en-

a trepreneur, historian, raconteur,

os photographer and bestseiling

4

mauthor of Spilsbury’s Coast, The

Accidental Airline and Spilsbury’s

§ Album.

Born in England in 1905 (‘I’ve

B been trying to live it down ever
since’), North Shore resident Jim
4 Spilsbury was raised in a tent on
aa Savary Island by his egocentric,

shotgun-toting mother and his

fe Cambridge-educated father.

‘Fascinated by wireless,

a Spilsbury built radio sets which he

sold to logging camps, home-

fsteaders and Indian villages. When

Bhe could no longer ply the nooks
Band crannies of the B.C. coast by

mm boat due to fuel rationing in the

BSecond World War, Spilsbury
ma ‘the Radio Man’’ bought a. Waco

airplane.
By 1949 Jim Spilsbury was

° operating Canada’s third largest

airline, Queen Charlotte Airlines.

maAfter a hectic and lucrative histo-

ry of mercy flights, fatal crashes,
technical innovations and Ot-
tawa-wrangling, Spilsbury was

Meforced to sell out to Pacific

Western Airlines.

Returning to radio, Spilsbury
leveloped Spilsbury & Tindall of
Vancouver as Canada’s largest

exporter of radio-telephone
equipment. Spilsbury radios have
been to the top of Mt. Everest
and have accompanied the first
solo expedition te the North Pole.
Last year Spilsbury Communica-
tions of Vancouver marked its
50th anniversary.

Now a robust 86-year-old,
Spilsbury is a sought-after public
speaker, historian and artist. His
archive of B.C. photos is housed at
UBC and his next book will
feature his paintings of the coast.

Spilsbury’s Coast, the
documentary, is an unsentimental
memoir which uses the through-
fine of Spilsbury’s remarkably
varied life to present the halcyon
days of the B.C. coast, followed
by its ironic decline in population
due to improvements in transpor-
tation and communication.

With the assistance of CoVal
Air in Campbell River, Spilsbury
and the four-man crew for
Spilsbury’s Coast were able to
visit locations such as Kingcome
Inlet, Minstrel Island, Refuge
Cove and Savary Island. As well,
the film includes authentic B.C,
songs from the P.J, Thomas Col-
lection, plus previously unseen ar-
chival footage from the 1930s,
*40s and ’50s.

The film concludes with
Spilsbury at his easel, asked when
he expects to finish his fourth
book. ‘It’s something I'm saving
for my old age,” he says.

Cordini Gloves

23
YEARS
SERVING

Sen anne

Te este tee ee

Country Ski
Gear” #22

* except Bonna Conquest skis

=

EO: OLDSMOBILE _