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In this follow up interview,
This oral history is from an interview conducted by the Oral History cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice project.
That was the best time of our lives, you see? Because of course, they had no concern or understanding of why the hell they were sent that way, sent away, like a summer holiday. Anyway, here is a picture of the camp life. We played ball too, you see. There was creeks and ponds around so you could swim and so on. And as I mentioned I think to you -- here's you know near Sicamous, the Western end of our line of camps. And the postcard
For Christ's sake let's get the hell out of here. Come on, come on!
Roy, from here on please write on only one side of the paper.
Yeah, I think I told you about a strike that was going on in a mill in Alberta because of the problems with the sugar beet farms.And that's what they didn't want us to know about. So it was that kind of world. That's that time. I'm curious to know, these photos, where you taking some of them? Were they sent to you? Most of them were taken by us. We had -- the thing was this. First of all, they confiscated all the cameras, little box cameras and so forth as well as -- they confiscated radios, just ordinary radios, everything. Not just short wave radios, even long wave. It was all done after Pearl Harbor, even before they decided to kick us out. Once we got to the camp we discovered suddenly that: a, we could order, by mail order, battery radios which allowed us even in a road camp to listen to the Hit Parade and stuff like this and keep up with things. Plus, we could actually get -- order cameras. Oh by the way, about once a month or once every five or six weeks, different camps would take turns, we wouldn't be allowed to go to Revelstoke if we wanted to for something like a 6 hour visit. We have to go on a train there. And sometimes you would take advantage especially if you could save up enough money. We would go on the train and do two things. One was that we would have a decent lunch instead of the stuff we had to have at the camp, at a restaurant. B, we would go see a matinee movie, and a guy like me go and buy all the magazines and books that I possibly could that I'm interested in. Because I'm running out of things to read all the time, no newspapers coming in or anything. So we do all that, so this is why -- and the other thing is we could take the film in and get the pictures developed that way and come back with a few more rolls, just in case. And that's how all the camps, family camps, men's camps and so forth, there are pictures all over which is something anyway. So it's a real mixture with the government was saying why we were sent away and then in prison so to speak and what the real military concern was, which is bugger all
the fire house gang versus the old men.Firehouse guys were young fellows for God's sake. Yeah here is sports day. Class 8B girls. I got all their names. Sister June. And it's a line up at the Japanese office for show tickets. Oh yeah, there were two men, Mr. Tsuki who was actually an uncle-in-law of my brother Harvey and Mr. Narishi who made a living back on the coast of getting films, usually silent films, black and white silent films, from Japan. And they go from community to community, so the church, temple, school home and so forth and show them. Instead of music accompanying this on, they would actually mouth and do the voices, male and female. And there will always be an argument among the older folk about wether Mr. Tsuki's woman is more convincing than Mr. Narishi's
Oh, that's nothing. Even crummy things had positive sides to it I guess. When you went to the camp, did you take many things with you? We were only allowed in our case 1 kit bag and one suitcase. So whatever you can cram into that. For instance, I took my Judo outfit with me. Only used it once when one another guy that I had fought in a competition before, we did a demonstration for the Finns and so forth. That's all I did. But you know, well -- one guy in our camp, Tom Owitsugi was kind enough to bring a portable gramophone.
Holy cow, what's going on?
My God, imagine. Because our judo teacher, when we had young people socials at our Anglican Church, and it used to be held in the basement of the church you see.
Watch out guys, watch out!
What?he says.
The judo teacher is here! He is going to see some of you guys dancing! So watch out, wait until he goes past!And they started to try to put the blinds together but they couldn't they were just curtains. And there is by the way the Judo teacher who always carried a stick or a cane. And he used to be, before he got into Judo which she apparently did only have to he came to Canada and immigrated here, but in Japan he was a Kendo guy, you know the sword? So that's why he's used to this thing. So we used to say that that's not actually just a stick, there's a blade inside.
He's gone now! It's ok! But one of you guys keep watch. So is that kind of thing which at the time was very serious stuff, and later on it was as giddy as hell. Do you want to maybe stop now? Sure, if you are ok. Yeah, it is entirely up to you. You got enough?