Mr. David John Ballantine

It was a difficult time for Bournemouth, which was hit with more than 2,200 bombs that killed 350 people and damaged or destroyed nearly 14,000 buildings.

It was a difficult time for David too – his father left the home the following year and his mum became a single mother trying to work and care for him as he underwent multiple surgeries for his cleft pallet. She could not rely on David’s grandmother for help as she had moved to Canada with her younger daughters to escape the war. Because of this, his mum made what must have been a heart-rending choice – to place him in foster care and subsequently boarding schools.

In 1958 David’s mother Marion moved to Toronto, and after finally being granted a divorce and sole custody, she was allowed to have David come join her.

David quickly found work in the CBC film library, but according to legend, eventually left Toronto and fled to Winnipeg to avoid having his Ontario Drivers License revoked for having too many speeding tickets. Nobody who knew David has any doubt that is more gospel truth than legend!

In Winnipeg David found work as a drafter, which became his career for the rest of his life, but thanks to enduring the worst boss of his life, he soon packed his bags, bought a $40 train ticket and headed further west to the Promised Land. He arrived in Vancouver in September 1966.

On October 23rd, a month after arriving, he was attending Christchurch Cathedral on Burrard Street when he and Margaret first laid eyes upon each other. Two weeks later he became engaged to the love of his life, but it took until Christmas for them to pluck up the courage to tell her parents.

On August 11th, 1967 they were married at St. Martins and moved into an apartment on 12th and St. Georges where they lived until a job offer in Toronto moved them back out to Toronto.

It was in Port Credit, during a foot race with Margaret in 1969, that his legs suddenly suffered a temporary paralysis. He went to the doctor two days later to have this checked out, but by then everything was back to normal. It was only 21 years later, in 1990, that multiple sclerosis was diagnosed. Fortunately for us all, the disease progressed slowly, and he was able to manage without a scooter until about 2004.

In 1970 when pregnant with Victoria, they moved back to North Vancouver and bought the house they never left. Victoria was born in 1971 and Fiona in 1975.

In the early 1980s, David landed a full-time staff position with the large pulp and paper consultant, H. A. Simons. The company was investing in a technology that was cutting-edge for the time – Computer-Aided Design and Drafting. David was picked as one of an elite cadre of drafters to be trained and employed on the new technology. While CADD can even run on an iPad these days, at that time it only ran on a mainframe computer and each seat cost a quarter million dollars. To justify the cost, the drafters worked around the clock in three shifts, sitting in a darkened room. As CADD technology evolved further, David was able to keep learning and updating his skills. He subsequently worked as a computer-aided drafter for several major companies.

David began attending St. Andrew’s & St. Stephen’s church in 1975 and attended Sunday services faithfully while he was still able. He helped at church work parties and flea markets and attended all the potluck dinners (with emphasis on the dessert table).

David loved cars. He bought his first car in 1963 for $40 - a 1958 Austin Cambrian. Six weeks after he got it, he hit a pothole. Because the shock absorbers didn’t work, the huge bump sent the engine through the radiator, and that was that!

He bought his next car in 1965. As luck would have it, it was a Corvair, which the consumer advocate, Ralf Nader, would later call “Unsafe at any speed”! Still, David taught his mum to drive in it, and he took long journeys, including a road trip to New York for the World Fair. He also used it for his move from Toronto to Winnipeg. The car lasted for several years, until he took a road trip to Chicago, where his mum had moved. A stone was thrown up from the road and punctured the oil pan, allowing all the oil to drain out of the engine.

He once got a great deal on a Cadillac in mint condition and with all the options and drove it for many years, but his most memorable car was the result of a big mistake. This is how it happened:

He went to an auction of classic cars and was very taken with a 1974 Jensen Interceptor, a very desirable British sports car, even today. He didn’t have a bidding paddle, so he thought it would be safe to put his hand up, especially as the bidding was still below the reserve price. Unfortunately, there were no other bids, and David ended up as the surprised owner of the Jensen!

Fiona came home from high school to find her dad pacing about, wondering how he was going to explain this to Margaret! Fiona’s exact words were: “Mum is going to kill you!”

Fortunately, she didn’t, but it took a while for her to warm up to the Jensen. She finally came around a few years later when the two of them took a lovely drive up to Calgary to visit Fiona.

And the Jensen proved to be a real blessing to David, giving him more than 20 years of pleasure as he showed it at the annual VanDusen car show and classic car shows as far away as Hood River, Oregon and Reno, Nevada, garnering many awards.

One day in the late 1990s, David and Margaret were invited to a Scottish ceilidh. They must have enjoyed it a lot because they then joined the Sons of Scotland Association. Both David and Margaret had some Scottish heritage, so David got a Stuart of Bute kilt, which he always wore to church on St. Andrew’s Sundays and proudly sported the kilt and his knobby knees to both of his daughters’ weddings. Together with Margaret, in her Macdonald tartan skirt, they attended association camps and took Scottish Country dance classes given by Marguerite Kelly and Ruth Gully in the church hall. David had various responsibilities at the association’s annual Robbie Burns dinners, including the “Address to the Lassies” one year.

David and Margaret loved cruise ships. Their first cruise was on a ship relocating from San Diego to Vancouver for the summer season. They flew down to California, sailed up the coast to Vancouver, and they were hooked. After that, they took a cruise almost every year and visited a host of lovely places. For example, they went up to Alaska four times; took two round trips to Hawaii; sailed down the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the New England coast from Montréal to Boston; and went through the Panama Canal.

They had reservations for a cruise on the Queen Mary 2 when an autoantibody disease attacked David’s kidneys and put him in St. Paul’s hospital. This was a bitter disappointment and he spent hours investigating on-board dialysis options for the Queen Mary 2 and looking for other cruise ships that offered this service. It was not to be, but David endured 3 days a week of dialysis for the next 5 years.

After suffering through the loneliness of covid restrictions, loss of his ability to drive, heart surgery, a broken hip and ongoing pain, David finally decided to give up on further dialysis treatments and moved into the North Shore Hospice where he spent the last 10 days of his life surrounded by Margaret, Victoria, Fiona and her husband Jay, his grandchildren Paul, Sloan, Quinn and Aleksa, and numerous friends. It was the happiest he had been in years. Not many people can say they lay on their death bed riding rollercoasters with a virtual reality head-set strapped to their face, but David can…

David died peacefully in his sleep very early in the morning of August 25th, 2021. He knew he was going to a better place. Hopefully God has cable so he can continue watching his beloved Toronto Blue Jays.

Service to follow at a later date when safe to do so.