Brian Freney and Dennis McIvor

(Brian) I mean, we never, we never discussed it at the funeral. We were on our way back to Thirteen Station, and we must have been riding together?

(Dennis) We were, if my memory serves me right.

(Brian) And we just started talking about what a shambles the Fire Department looked compared to the Police. And then, it just popped up, we should start our own Honour Guard, that’s how simple and easy it was. It was not a lot of thought put into it, it was just ‘we should do it’, and next thing you know, we were doing it.

(Dennis) I remember saying, Brian, do you remember, I said ‘we look like the raggedy ass fusiliers’.

(Brian) Yep, something to that effect.

(Dennis) The Police, at that time, that was part of their training, some semblance of parade training. So, we discussed that too if my memory serves me right. Why isn’t this taught at drill school, we’d avoid all that? And it was shortly thereafter, because I recall writing a letter to then-Chief Derek Jackson, to give that some thought. I think I was reminded about not to do that, by Sanofsky again. We had a pipeline, him and I. A speed phone. Al on the other, me on the other end getting..

(Brian) And the phone was out here on both ends…

So what year would that have been?

(Dennis) 1970.

(So previous to 1970, there was no drill?)

(both) No, nothing

(Dennis) You went to drill school and…

(Brian) You learned how to get on and off the truck with a house and a hydrant key and a reload hose, that was basically the drill.

(Dennis) – and we went there in our casual clothes.

(Brian) Civvies, we had no uniforms.

(Dennis) There was no uniform. Nothing. What you did, you mooched from the other guys.

(Brian) Guys that were already established.

Hand me downs?

(Brian) Yeah, basically hand me downs.

(Dennis) Old shirts, I had a…

(Brian) Old shirts, old pants.

(Dennis) I had a shirt with an old, old, small patch, about that big, Calgary Fire Department, it was yellow and blue, that’s how old that shirt was. I had a pair of pants that I got, my waist at that time was 30 inches, and the guy that gave me the pants I think was 36, so both my back pockets were right beside each other at the back after I had them tailored, but that’s what you did. You’d go to a hall, and if there was some benevolent guy in there, he’d say ‘ahh, you need a shirt, here’, they were, from that aspect they were good.

(Brian) Because a lot of guys were moonlighting , just about everybody that was on the floor was moonlighting. They’d just take the patches off their shirts and wear them for moonlighting because they were such good shirts. I mean, that went on for years and years and years.

So in 1970, when you two were returning from… and it was a funeral?

(Brian) Yes. Lloyd Dutnall’s funeral.

And this conversation started up. So the next step, yesterday you mentioned a letter?

(Brian) We drafted up a letter, and sent it off to, I thought we sent it directly off to the Chief.

(Dennis) We did, and that Sanofsky was on the blower because I’d mentioned his name in the letter, that perhaps he would be gracious enough to teach us, to drill us. And he was on the blower, the Fire Department is recognised as a quasi-military establishment, but not to the degree that Al wanted, it was channels to go through, that’s why he was ticked.. (inaudible)

So that was Al Sanofsky? That was his, why he didn’t want to do it, because he didn’t think you could get it up to military standards?

(Brian) That’s entirely possible, but it’s also possible that he was just fed up with the military drill aspect of life, because he was involved down at Mewata, he had been in the military for many, many years, and it could have been that he just didn’t want to have any more, that sort of attention, or lack of attention. I don’t know how you’d put it. But, like I said yesterday, after a few months, his mind was changed by the Chief.

With the Chief’s convention coming up?

(Dennis) But you know Brian, he was an RSM, he carried the stick around.

(Brian) You could tell he was a well drilled military man when he walked around the fire hall. He walked with a very pronounced stance and stature, and anybody that saw him had that ‘well this guy’s pretty sharp’ or ‘better watch out for him’. His bark was a lot worse than his bite. It really was. Once that Chief’s convention was over in ’81… No, ’71, he invited us all out to his acreage, and we had a heck of a good party out there, and he supplied everything, the booze, the food, the whole works. So he wasn’t as tough as he was thought of on the floor. But a lot of guys did have a conflict with him.

(Dennis) When I look at the picture we’re trying to identify, Brian mentioned it, it was such a shame that Joe Lewko, the old Fire Department, Fire Prevention Bureau photographer , was the photographer in those days. We look at that picture, and we’re jointly, this morning, trying to identify the various people. And of course, the front row, that’s not so bad. We did do some of them. But the back is out of the question. It’s too bad that that wasn’t recorded at that time, because this is history. But we were able to, the people we identified in the front row are all ex Service: Army, Navy and Air Force.

(Brian) Some just reserves, but they’re all ex Military service.

What a great ground to build something like this on fellas, that military background. And then again, bringing everybody into it.

Well that’s what made it so easy to train the guys and get them in step with each other, because it was second nature. It was just, some of the guys had been out for quite a while, and some not so long, and it was just ‘pick up right where they’d left before’, and that’s the reason why they were in the Honour Guard, because they had that desire to be professional and show that distinction on how to do things properly. Even the flag ceremonies that they have today, they took a long time to get that perfected because each service has a little bit different way of doing it.

(Dennis)And you know, you recall Brian, It was a proud moment for me, and I know it was for you too, all of us for that matter. We marched down 9^th Avenue during that Chief’s Convention, and people were clapping for us. That’s, what a memory that is. We had chrome pipe poles and fire axes that were donated by Sproule I think.

(Brian) Sprouse, Sprouse Fire Extinguishers.

(Dennis) It was a proud moment for us. It made everything. We put a lot of work into this, Brian and me, to establish it. So that was the culmination of it, that’s just, as I said, a proud moment.

(Brian) And, like Dennis alluded to earlier, this legacy is something that we never dreamed would ever happen. We never thought, once the Honour Guard got going and everybody was having their fun, we had all these different functions, we never gave it a second thought how long it was going to continue. Or would it continue. Look at where they’re at today. They’ve got an excellent core of people there to run it, and keep it going, and it’s somewhat humbling to look back and say ‘yeah, that’s part of my legacy’. And Dennis’ as well.

(Dennis) I understand, correct me if I’m wrong, now it’s not a grab a guy by the collar and get him marching, it’s a selection process, is that correct? And that’s good, I suggest to you it’s probably unique to this department, just as I said, we were the first in Canada. Now, you don’t just present yourself and say ‘I’m going to march with you guys tonight’, it’s not going to happen. We’re going to approve you first, that’s nice.

It’s interesting when you think about it, your beginnings here have expanded across the country. There isn’t a fire department, even volunteer departments have Honour Guards. It’s cool to think that you guys started that.

(Brian) Yep, that’s part of the legacy, for me it’s humbling. But I’m proud of it as well. Some of the departments, they only form up when there are functions, but our guys are available, they’ll do all kinds of civic functions, which we used to do as well. Hall openings, functions for City Hall, for the Mayor and all that sort of thing, I mean, we had a really good rapport with Ralph Klein when he was Mayor, we were always hanging out with him.

(Dennis) Grant MacEwan.

(Brian) Grant McEwan was another great, you know, couldn’t wait to get involved with these people, because they were special people in their day. When you look back and see the history in the books and everything else, it’s really quite nice.

(Dennis) Well, you go from, you remember the shore patrol, Brian, that’s pretty much what some of the departments are like, there’s going to be a department funeral, ‘you, you, and you, you’re Honour Guard’. We’ve expanded far beyond that, that’s a testament to the people, the members that are doing, that picked up the tradition from us.

(Brian) And to the quality of recruits of the Fire Department as well, they have that desire to be there. I don’t know how many of them that are guard members today are actual military veterans, I would assume some of them are, maybe most of them, I don’t know about all of them. It’s just nice to see somewhere in their psyche they have that desire to stand out and show up for the department.

(Dennis) That’s what it is too, is pride in the job. THE job. That’s a term that’s peculiar to the Fire Department, whether you’re aware of that or not. Departments right across Canada, they refer to it as THE job. That’s unique, and it is THE job. They could expand it and call it ‘The Brotherhood’, because that’s precisely what it is. We, Brian and me, are proud to say we took it a step beyond that with the Honour Guard, that’s my take on it. Do you agree with that?

(Brian) Definitely.